Superman #415 – “Supergirl: Bride of—X?” – Cary Bates/Curt Swan/Al Williamson
This one starts with Superman searching for oil deposits under the ocean when he gets an emergency signal from the Fortress of Solitude. Someone has broken in and set off a particular signal, one that was used by Supergirl. (Supergirl was recently killed in Crisis on Infinite Earths.) Superman zooms to the Fortress and finds an alien taking a strange object from beside Supergirl’s statue. The alien refers to her as Jasma and talks like he loved her, but Superman still tries to stop him from taking the keepsake. The alien has some pretty
good technology and ends up seizing Superman’s mind and reading it. That tells him about Superman’s relationship with Supergirl, so the alien decides to give Superman the whole story. The alien (Salkor) tells how he found Supergirl a couple years ago floating unconscious in space after being hit by a kryptonite meteor. Salkor took her to his planet of Makkar, where he’s the local superhero, to recover. Supergirl had amnesia, so Salkor called her Jasma after a beautiful Makkoran flower. Supergirl stayed on Makkor 
to help Salkor do good deeds and they quickly fell in love and got married. Salkor gave her the keepsake as a wedding present … a Hokku, which records a person’s innermost thoughts as soon as they occur. While fighting a mercenary invader named Naxx, Supergirl was blasted by an energy weapon that restored her memory. She took off, leaving Salkor wondering where she went and why she left so suddenly. He was able to track her through the Hokku, since he could attune himself to her thoughts. But when he got close to Earth, Salkor realized she was dead. Now he wants the Hokku, but recognizes Superman has a claim on it too. They’re interrupted when a giant robot attacks the Fortress and Salkor figures it’s Naxx, the mercenary
he and Supergirl fought on Makkor. The robot tells them it is the real Naxx; the mercenary who fought Salkor and Supergirl was just a dupe. Naxx wants revenge on Supergirl for blowing him up and forcing him to reassemble himself, and he doesn’t believe it when he’s told she’s dead. Naxx’s regeneration makes him invulnerable to anyone he’s previously fought, so he’s a match for Superman and Salkor. But the two heroes combine their powers, blasting Naxx to pieces and scattering him across the universe. Superman and Salkor view Supergirl’s final thoughts recorded in the Hokku and Superman gives it to Salkor to remember her by.
Action # 575 – “The Great Brain Robbery” – Joey Cavalieri/Kurt Schaffenberger/Dave Hunt
This one starts with Intellex (the brain thief we saw in Superman 396) planning more brain thefts with his robotic majordomo Eyegore. Intellex goes after Einstein’s brain on Earth, but Superman is there to stop him. Intellex delays Superman by encasing him in a living prison, wrapping a one-celled organism around him. Superman doesn’t want to kill it, so he stimulates its metabolism, causing it to divide and let him go free. Intellex gets back to his ship with Einstein’s brain and tries to tap into it, but the brain won’t cooperate. Einstein’s brain
thinks Intellex is wasting resources by collecting brains and not doing anything with them. Intellex forces the brain to help him by attaching it to a machine that enthralls it. With Einstein’s help, Intellex sets a trap for Superman, using a meteorite he sends toward Earth. When Superman tries to stop the meteorite, Intellex uses a brainwave device to put Superman to sleep and capture him, leaving the meteorite to speed toward Earth. Intellex hooks Superman into his computers so he can tap his super-intellect. Intellex asks Superman 
about the unified field theory and gets tons of data. Intellex tires of Einstein’s prattle and shuts off the device controlling him, so Einstein’s brain shuts down the brainwave machine keeping Superman asleep. The Man of Steel wakes up and pounds Intellex, sending his ship tumbling across the galaxy. He returns Einstein’s brain to the museum and stops the meteorite, musing that giving humans the secret of the grand unified theory would only stifle their own intellects.
“Rodent on a Rampage” – Craig Boldman/Howard Bender/Dave Hunt
This is a goofy story about Superman finding a rodent-like animal on a
planet and bringing it home to add to his interplanetary zoo. The rodent escapes and Superman tries to catch it in a series of increasingly farcical escapades. (The whole thing has a Roadrunner/Coyote vibe to it.) Finally, Superman realizes the animal is intelligent when he sees a pattern in the hijinks. Superman communicates with the animal and finds out it was stranded on the planet where he found it by a cosmic storm. Superman takes the rodent alien home to its own planet and resolves not to judge beings by their appearances next time.
DC Comics Presents #89 – “Metropolis Wasn’t Built in a Day … or Was It?” – Bob Rozakis, Todd Klein/Alex Saviuk/Ricardo Villagran
This one starts with three Omega Men (Tigorr, Harpis, and Oho-Besh, who looks like Broot but is a minstrel) on the planet Kuraq, scouting possible locations for a Vegan colony. Tigorr and Harpis want some privacy, so Oho finds somewhere else to sleep. His slumber is disturbed by someone constructing a city at super-speed, but Oho assumes it’s a dream and falls back asleep. But in the morning, they find someone has constructed a city out of stone … and not just any city, but Metropolis. (The Omega Men visited Metropolis in Action 536.) They notice a dust cloud and Tigorr goes
to investigate. Beneath the planet’s surface, some weird energy beings have noticed the “defacing” on the surface and discuss how to fix it. On the surface, Tigorr finds a truck full of dynamite and Superman shows up. But the Man of Steel is acting weird (he refers to Tigorr as Private Mullins and says he just saw his double) and when the dynamite truck catches fire, Superman takes it into space to put out the flames. The Omega Men figure something’s wrong with Superman and want to help him, so they broadcast a message for him to come back. The energy beings underground amplify the broadcast, 
hoping the Omega Men can help Superman and prevent more damage to the planet. But Superman is still out of it and doesn’t recognize the Omega Men (or even see that they’re aliens). Instead, he seems to be seeing other events play out in front of him, almost like he’s following some kind of script. Oho finds a truck with a huge diamond in it and Superman accuses him of being a thief (disguised as Clark Kent!) and pounds him. The energy beings decide to wipe out the stone version of Metropolis, forcing Tigorr and Oho to flee. Meanwhile, Harpis tries to get through to Superman, but he thinks she’s a duplicate of himself. Even though she’s sure he’s not the real thing, Harpis appeals to Superman’s heroic nature, begging him to save her
friends from being wiped out. Whoever he is, he decides to act as Superman would, getting Oho and Tigorr out of danger and taking a blast that would’ve killed them. The real Superman shows up and explains how he once fought a shape-changing alien on Earth (waaaay back in Superman #87) and destroyed it by luring it to an H-bomb test site. Apparently, it didn’t die, but ended up on Kuraq, thinking it was Superman and playing out the whole scenario over and over again, this time with the Omega Men as the villains. After Superman and the Omega Men leave, the energy beings reconstitute the alien, who claims to regret its destructive ways and have a new perspective on life.
JLA #246 – “Be It Ever So Humble …” – Gerry Conway/Luke McDonnell/Bill Wray
This one starts with the JLA finding out that Hank Heywood has kicked them out of the Bunker, their headquarters in Detroit. Steel (Heywood’s grandson) is pissed off and goes in to confront his grandfather, but cools down when he sees what rough shape the old man is in. Steel feels guilty (since he pounded Heywood a couple issues ago), but his grandfather tells him he only blames himself. Heywood apologizes for turning Steel into a cyborg and trying to control him; he admits he was trying to relive his own life, and bring back his dead
son, by molding Steel into his vision of a hero. Heywood says he’s kicking the JLA out because they need to find their own path and Steel needs to live his own life. Steel forgives his grandfather before leaving. Later, the JLA say goodbye to the friends and neighbours they made in Detroit (and Steel says a special goodbye to Rosita, Vibe’s sister). Some gangbangers show up the give the League a heavy send-off, but Vibe wails on them and warns them not to start any shit after the JLA is gone. I guess Heywood owned the planes the League was using because they end up flying commercial to New York, 
where they plan to stay at Vixen’s fancy apartment until they can find other premises. Zatanna and J’onn discuss the recent changes and wonder if the decline the League has been going through lately is irreversible. At Vixen’s place, Gypsy asks if she can stay with Vixen (who grudgingly agrees), while Ralph and Sue head for Westchester, where they’ll be house-sitting for friends. Zatanna has a place in the Village that she sub-let and figures she can reclaim it early, though Vixen warns her it’ll be like pulling teeth. J’onn tells the others they’ll have to find jobs and he goes to the local precinct, hoping to revive his career as police detective John Jones. Unfortunately, Jones’s service record
puts him well past retirement age, so the cops don’t want him. He runs into a P.I. named Biloxi who hires him on as a private detective. Steel gets hired at a gym and Vibe strolls into an apartment on Sutton Place, assuming he can rent it easily. (When he finds out it’s $6,000 a month, he almost shits a brick, but pretends to be cool.) Zatanna finds no sign of her friend who sub-let her place, and doesn’t notice some weird glowing dust on the floor.