Green Lantern #199 – “Ignition” – Steve Englehart/Joe Staton/Mark Farmer, Bob Smith
This one starts on Oa, with the Guardians and Green Lantern Corps officially welcoming Hal Jordan back as a Lantern. (Hal got his ring back from John Stewart when John received Tomar-Re’s ring upon Tomar’s death last issue.) We learn that 912 Lanterns died in the Crisis (out of 3600) and fourteen of the thirty-six Guardians also perished. The remaining Guardians are rather subdued, but tell the Lanterns they have specific tasks for them to accomplish. John and Katma Tui are sent to Maltus to bring back Appa Ali Apsa (who longtime readers will remember as the Guardian who travelled with Hal and
Green Arrow on their extended road trip back in the early 70s). Ch’p, Salakk, and Arisia are sent to apprehend Goldface and Lurlan Dupo, who were responsible for Tomar-re’s death. Hal is surprised (and bothered) to be sent to Zamaron to check on Star Sapphire, who just happens to be his ex, Carol Ferris. Sapphire is surprised to see Hal is a Lantern again, but she pretends not to be bothered by it. Hal uses his ring to probe her mind, hoping to separate Carol from Sapphire. But it turns out Star Sapphire isn’t a replacement for Carol, more like an extension of her, so Hal can’t separate them without damaging Carol’s mind. On Maltus, John and Katma find Appa, but he’s not eager to 
return to Oa. He explains how hanging out with Green Lantern and Green Arrow put him in touch with humanity and how he chose to save Hal’s life instead of averting a crisis. That got him stripped of immortality (basically turned into a human, though he still looks sort of like a Guardian) and banished to Maltus. Appa says he’s content working to help the Maltusians and no longer has to obey the Guardians, but when he hears how the Crisis almost killed them all and re-ordered the universe, he changes his mind and decides to come to Oa. Arisia, Salakk, and Ch’p track Goldface and Lurlan to a seedy
planet and end up fighting them. Goldface’s yellow skin makes it impossible for them to contain him, but Hal shows up to help, telling them if they can keep Goldface fighting long enough he’ll exhaust himself. It works and Goldface ends up buried under rubble. Goldface hears them talking about Guy Gardner and reminds them how Guy’s plan almost insured the universe’s destruction. Goldface says all the villains Guy assembled to help him now want him dead. On the last page, we see Guy show up on Zamaron and offer to become partners with Star Sapphire.
Firestorm #46 – “Deadly Prelude” – Gerry Conway/J.J. Brozowski/Mike Machlan
This one starts with Blue Devil and his friend Wayne arriving in Pittsburgh having driven from out west. Something slams into the freeway in front of them, tearing up the pavement. When they check it out, it’s Firestorm and he’s in pretty bad shape. The rest of the story shows events leading up to that moment and starts not long after last issue ended. Firestorm is at the hospital where Hyena was kept and a cop shows him some rope he recognizes as belonging to Slipknot. Firestorm lets the cop know that Summer Day was really Hyena
and suggests she might not have been kidnapped after all … more like “freed”. On the way back to Pittsburgh, Firestorm speculates that one or more of his old enemies might be recruiting for some kind of scheme. Firestorm remembers how he ran out on Doreen (Summer’s sister) and heads back to Vandemeer University to see her. After splitting into Ronnie and Professor Stein, they run into Ronnie’s dad (Ed) and his fiancée Felicity and find out Cliff Carmichael has been talking shit about Ronnie, hinting that his weird behaviour might be drug related. Ronnie is ready to pound Cliff, but he’s actually more 
bothered that his dad seems to think Cliff might be right. Ronnie takes off and Stein assures Ed that he’s not on drugs. Elsewhere, Multiplex tells the villains he’s recruited (Mindboggler, Hyena, and Slipknot) that he wants to combine revenge on Firestorm with a job that’ll make them all rich … stealing a $25,000,000 supercomputer from a trade show in Pittsburgh. Multiplex is interrupted by Bolt, who trailed him from Washington last issue and wants to join the conspiracy. Multiplex isn’t keen on that, but Bolt fights him to a draw and he agrees to cut Bolt in on the action. Ronnie and his father have a talk
and Ed says he didn’t really believe Ronnie was a dope fiend, he was just feeling guilty for not being a better father and thought whatever problems Ronnie as having were his fault. Ronnie assures him he’s doing a good job parenting and they make up. Felicity takes them to the computer fair, but a freaky tentacle-monster shows up to ruin things. Ronnie decks Felicity so he can change to Firestorm, which probably wasn’t the smartest plan. He’s grabbed by the monster, which Stein recognizes as something straight out of 
Lovecraft and figures it’s an illusion. Turns out he’s right … the “monster” was one of Mindboggler’s illusions and the “tentacle” that grabbed Firestorm was one of Slipknot’s ropes. Bolt blasts Firestorm, sending him flying right out of the Convention Center to land on the freeway in front of Blue Devil’s car … which is where we came in. We’ll have to wait until next issue to see what happens next. (Considering how Blue Devil is hyped as a guest star on the cover, I would imagine many readers at the time were pissed off that he only appeared in the prologue and epilogue.)
Vigilante #28 – “Rebirth” – Paul Kupperberg/Tod Smith/Rick Magyar
This one starts with Adrian Chase being called in to talk to Lieutenant Stein at the police station. Apparently, Adrian took the Vigilante costume off Alan Welles and put it on Electrocutioner after killing Welles last issue. He then deposited Welles’s body not far from his own house and claimed Welles crawled to his door mortally wounded, victim of a mugging. But the physical evidence doesn’t line up: Welles’s wound matches the hole in the Vigilante costume, fibres from which were embedded in Welles’s chest. So Stein figures Welles was Vigilante and that Adrian is trying to cover for him (which is basically true,
except Stein doesn’t know Adrian was the original Vigilante, or that he killed Welles to stop him from wasting any more criminals). Adrian feigns ignorance, then gets indignant, and finally tries to pull rank (since he’s a judge), but Stein is sure he’s on to something and tells Adrian he’s going to keep investigating. In court, Marcia King (Adrian’s ex) gets pissed off when her best evidence against a mobster named Skully is thrown out and he’s given a new trial. She tells her assistant to dig up any new evidence he can against Skully, unaware that a possible ally is watching her. Adrian goes to his chambers and runs into his bailiff, Dave Winston. Adrian doesn’t know 
that Dave saw him kill Welles and knows about his past as Vigilante. But Dave admires Adrian (and maybe Welles too) for doing something to help bring criminals to justice. Marcia goes to see her psychiatrist (Dr. Knopf) and shows him the story about Vigilante and Electrocutioner being the same man. She knows that’s not true and wonders if she should do something. Knopf argues that Vigilante (whoever might be under the mask) is doing something the justice system can’t do. When Marcia accuses him of condoning illegal vigilantism, Knopf pretends he was just playing devil’s advocate. Downtown, a mob boss named Martin
meets with an assassin (an Irish stereotype called O’Malley) and tells him he wants Skully silenced in case his retrial goes badly. Someone is on a nearby rooftop with a rifle microphone recording the whole thing—someone who wants to take Skully down himself. He calls Skully to warn him about O’Malley and Skully gets paranoid, wondering who the caller was and why they’d warn him. At the police station, Stein’s partner (Washington) tells him the Vigilante case is closed, but Stein says they can work it under the radar and try to find evidence of a cover-up. Later, Skully calls a friend to bring him a gun and some cash at the docks, but O’Malley is one step ahead of him. We see three different 
people (Dr. Knopf, Lt. Stein, and Dave Winston) heading out like they’ve got somewhere to go. At the docks, O’Malley shows up to kill Skully and ends up chasing him onto a ship. Vigilante takes O’Malley down and starts stalking Skully, finally cornering him. Skully is freaked out, since he thought Vigilante was dead, and tells Vigilante where he stashed the murder weapon he used in his homicides. Vigilante shoots him with a dart and leaves him for the cops, along with a tape of Skully that leads to the hidden murder weapon. When Adrian sees the report about Skully being apprehended by Vigilante, he freaks, wondering who this one is. The creators are being kinda cagey about the new Vigilante’s identity, but if you’ve read DC Presents 92 (or my review of it), you already know who’s wearing the mask.
Warlord #104 – “Dragon Skinner” – Michael Fleisher/Ron Randall
This one starts with Travis Morgan and Shakira (who’s reclaimed the spiked collar Morgan threw away last issue) running into some hunters who have just killed a mother allosaurus and taken one of her teeth as a souvenir. The hunters want the baby allosaurs for their skins, but Shakira and Morgan scare them away, mostly by using Morgan’s .44 Automag. Morgan is worried about the baby dinosaurs, but Shakira assures him the father allosaurus will soon return and care for the babies. In Bakwele, Machiste and Mariah (disguised as
priests) book passage on a ship toward Kiro, but the captain notices something strange about them. In the jungle, the hunters track Morgan and Shakira and when they see that Shakira can transform into a cat, they figure she’ll be worth a fortune. By grabbing Shakira, the hunters force Morgan to surrender his gun, which they use to shoot him. After taking his sword, they leave with Shakira in a cage. In Kiro, someone brings in a moldering corpse they claim is Machiste and the usurpers pay him off. But later when he tries to pay a hooker with the “money”, it turns out to be a poisonous snake. In the 
jungle, Morgan wakes up (the bullet just creased his thick skull) and goes after the hunters. He stops at the dead allosaurus to grab the spear that killed it, since he’s weaponless. The daddy allosaur returns and Morgan takes off to track the hunters. Unfortunately, the allosaurus is tracking him and he’s forced to fight it, finally knocking it over a cliff. Even that doesn’t kill the allosaurus, but it gives Morgan time to get away. In the hunters’ camp, two of them try to steal Morgan’s gun from their confederate, but he blows them away. Morgan sneaks up and disarms the last hunter, decking him to save on ammo. The hunter tries to bargain with Morgan and
offers the allosaurus tooth, but the other allosaurus shows up. Morgan figures he’s dead meat, but the allosaurus ignores him and goes straight for the guy who killed his mate and now has her tooth. The allosaurus chomps the last hunter and Morgan frees Shakira. Morgan assumes the allosaurus will kill them too, but Shakira points out that it’s not attacking them and speculates that it knew all along who really killed its mate.