Legion of Super-Heroes #26 – “Illusion” – Paul Levitz/Greg LaRocque/Mike DeCarlo, Arne Starr
Last issue, a contingent of Legionnaires (Dream Girl, Colossal Boy, Polar Boy, and Tellus) confronted the new Fatal Five on Stratus, suspecting that mysterious Legionnaire Sensor Girl might have joined them. It turned out she hadn’t, but during the fight Sensor Girl was revealed to be Queen Projectra, who’d left the Legion after killing Nemesis Kid to avenge her dead husband, Karate Kid. The Legionnaires are stunned to see who Sensor Girl is, but they overcome their surprise (with some prompting from Dream Girl) and rally against the
Fatal Five (now consisting of Emerald Empress, Persuader, Flare, Caress, and Mentalla, a former Legion cadet rejected for membership), managing to retreat and regroup. On Shanghalla, the cemetery asteroid, Brainiac 5 has used logic to figure out Sensor Girl’s identity, noting that her trail disappears right beside Karate Kid’s tomb. That explains her array of powers (many of which must’ve been illusions) and why Dawnstar couldn’t track her further. On Stratus, the Legionnaires realize the planet is deserted except for them and the Fatal Five and which their Cruiser destroyed, there’s no way off. They revive 
Projectra, who casts the illusion of being Sensor Girl again, saying she has her reasons for maintaining that identity. She tells them the Fatal Five have put up a force shield around the planet using defense satellites, so their emergency signals won’t reach the rest of the Legion. Meanwhile, the Fatal Five are searching for the Legionnaires so they can finish them off. On Earth, Element Lad confirms Sensor Girl’s identity with Saturn Girl (who knew it all along) and the Legionnaires ponder their next move. White Witch informs them she’s been called back to Sorcerer’s World for some emergency and teleports away. On Stratus, Projectra tells the others how she communed with the spirits of her
ancestors after Karate Kid’s death and her powers were amplified, allowing her to bypass the “illusions” of distance and time. She was sent to rejoin the Legion in a new identity as penance for her failures as Queen and let Saturn Girl know who she was, since she would’ve figured it out anyway. Dream Girl (who’s distracted by a vision of someone’s death) points out that Projectra’s new identity also lets her get around the Legion’s “no killing” policy, but Projectra has no regrets over killing Nemesis Kid. The Fatal Five uncover the 
Legionnaires’ hiding place and the two teams fight. The new Fatal Five prove to be pretty tough and soon get the upper hand. Luckily for the Legionnaires, Mentalla isn’t really on their side, she just joined the Fatal Five to prove herself to the Legion. She uses her powers to force Flare to destroy a satellite, allowing an emergency signal off the planet. Emerald Empress doesn’t care (since she wants more Legionnaires to slaughter), but soon figures out Mentalla’s true allegiance and kills her, which causes mental backlash among telepaths like Tellus and even Saturn Girl, who’s back on Titan. Before the Fatal five can
finish off the Legionnaires, Sensor Girl shows the range of her expanded powers, making Persuader see his teammates as Sensor Girl, which causes him to strike down Caress and Flare. Sensor Girl them shuts off all Persuader’s senses, leaving him trapped inside his own mind. Sensor Girl confronts Emerald Empress, but Caress revives and uses her acid touch on Sensor Girl. Before they can finish her off, Dawnstar and Wildfire show up to help, turning the tables. Sensor Girl ends the fight by punching out Emerald Empress.
New Teen Titans Annual #2 – “Revenge of the Rusting Reptiles From Outer Space” – Marv Wolfman/John Byrne/Jose Luis Garcia-Lopez
This is a goofy story that Donna (Wonder Girl) Troy tells her step-daughter Jenny while trying to get her to go to sleep. Jenny doesn’t know Donna is Wonder Girl, but she knows Donna is acquainted with the Titans, so Donna tells her a story about them. She also incorporates the new Dr. Light (who first appeared in Crisis, so I guess Marv figured he might as well use a character he co-created), a Japanese scientist with light-based super-powers. The story itself is kinda goofy, with Dr. Light and the Titans helping a drilling team that accidentally uncovers mechanical dinosaurs (which kinda remind me of the Dinobots from Transformers). They trace the dino-bots’ origins to Easter Island where
they find a bunch of dead aliens who look like the Easter Island statues. They figure the aliens crash landed in Jurassic times and sent a message home with images of Earth’s dominant species at the time. By the time their home planet sent the dino-bots, they’d died (and the Easter Islanders carved the statues of them, thinking they were gods). The ship full of dino-bots also crash-landed, not being found until the drilling team stumbled onto it. Donna seems to be making stuff up as she goes along, but at the end she suggests to Terry that the story is actually true. The whole thing kinda reminds me of Kitty’s Fairy Tale from X-Men (which might explain John Byrne on art duties), but this one is less fantastical and less fun overall.
“The Book of Blood” – Marv Wolfman/Jim Baikie
This is a much more serious story, detailing the origin of Brother Blood and his Church. We already know from previous stories that there have been countless Brother Bloods, each bathing in the blood of believers to extend their lifespan until they reach 100, when they’re killed by their sons, who become the next Brother Blood and so on. 
This story tells how that tradition started in 1202, when the Fourth Crusade swept through Zandia (which is apparently in the Baltic, so I’m not sure why Crusaders would be way up there). A priest fought the raiders (believing he had more of God’s favour than they did) and was about to kill 
the traitorous monk who’d led the raiders to Zandia when the monk gave him a holy relic … the prayer shawl Christ wore sat the Last Supper. The priest took the shawl, but killed the monk, who cursed him with his blood. A snake bit the priest and he died, only to revive minutes later, thinking himself immortal because of the shawl. He drove away the raiders and bathed in the blood of his enemies, extending his life. As he gathered followers, he continued the blood ritual every year, becoming the first Brother Blood. But on his 100th birthday, the monk’s curse came true, as he was killed by his own son, who wished to take his place. After that, the cycle continued for centuries, each
Brother Blood being killed at 100 years of age by his son, and they all came to accept it as fate. During World War II, the then-current Brother Blood took in a woman named Anna Resik and made her his wife, fathering a son with her. The son was raised to worship his father, always knowing he’d kill him one day. But this kid was different, questioning why he had to follow the dictates of fate, and hating his father for being so cruel and heartless. When he witnessed his father undergo the blood-bathing ritual, he overheard that this Brother Blood was going against tradition and planned to kill Anna and her son. So he got his mother and they fled Zandia, although his hatred of his father made him want to 
return and kill him some day. Anna hoped her son might turn out to be different than his ancestors, with some kindness and compassion in him, but his hate for his father made him angry all the time. He and his mother were treated like royalty and she eventually married the Rajah of Qurac, but he never really fit in anywhere, and ended up hating his step-father too because he was a cruel despot and treated Anna like shit. He was sent to England to be educated (at Oxbridge University) and started the Youngblood Society, a quasi-religious movement to give young people a direction in their lives. He’d learned to use his charisma to manipulate people, but the hate and anger never left him. When his mother called to say the Rajah had beaten her, he flew to Qurac and was at her bedside when she died, still
urging him to break the cycle of violence. He killed the Rajah and headed back to Zandia to waste his father, killing him in the blood pit during the renewal ceremony. Afterwards, the new (and latest) Brother Blood took a woman named May Bennett as his consort, renaming her Mother Mayhem. It’s Mayhem who’s been telling this story to an unseen audience insisting that this Brother Blood is different from all the others, that he’s actually good inside and that his Church helps lost souls find their way. Turns out Mayhem is telling all this to the Titans and she asks them to leave Brother Blood alone, since she’s pregnant with the child who will eventually kill him. But the Titans can’t allow Brother Blood decades of unfettered freedom to brainwash, manipulate, and kill his followers, so they know they have to break the cycle and finish this Brother Blood before he reaches 100.
All-Star Squadron #61 – “The Origin of Liberty Belle” – Roy Thomas/Mike Harris/Tony DeZuniga
This is the first of a series of secret origin stories that will appear in All-Star Squadron. The Crisis kinda screwed things up for this comic, removing some major characters from history and retroactively putting everything on one Earth, so these stories were Roy’s way of establishing the definitive post-Crisis origins of various characters (and would lead to a separate Secret Origins series). But it seems like DC was trying to move away from its Golden Age roots around this time; the JSA were banished to limbo in a limited series and most of the other Golden Age characters were
shoved aside to make room for the ongoing series. A lot of these “definitive” origins ended up being contradicted or changed by subsequent stories, so I’m not going to get too deep into these stories … I’ll just give you a general idea of the storyline, which usually follows the classic origin pretty closely. Liberty Belle is really Libby Lawrence, whose father was military attaché in Poland when the Nazis invaded in 1939. Libby met a guy named Rick Cannon, who she was attracted to despite his boorish nature and the fact that he didn’t think Americans had any business opposing Nazis. Libby’s father was killed when the embassy was bombed and she was almost killed by Nazis but ended up 
being rescued a Nazi colonel named Krupp … who turned out to be Rick Cannon. She was really pissed off at him now, but he helped her get to the Netherlands, where she tried to warn them about the Nazis. They didn’t listen and were invaded in turn and Libby almost got caught again. But again Cannon (or Krupp) saved her, getting her into France, which wasn’t much help since the Nazis were overrunning that country too. Libby ended up at Dunkirk, where Cannon got her onto a boat. The boat sank and Libby ended up swimming the English Channel, which made her a hero. She parlayed that into a news column and radio show back in the States, where she urged America to enter the War and help fight the Nazis. She visited the Liberty Bell in Philadelphia, met the caretaker Tom Revere, and learned that a medallion she owned
resonated in harmony with the Bell whenever it was struck. After running across Cannon plotting with a Nazi spy in New York, Libby was torn between her duty to her country and her obligation to the man who’d twice saved her life. She whipped up a costume and followed Cannon to a meeting with other Nazi spies and found out he was Army Intelligence, undercover to get a list of Nazi operatives. When Cannon was knocked out, Liberty Belle jumped in to save him, pounding the Nazis and grabbing the list of spies. Telling Cannon he could summon her aid by ringing the Liberty Bell, she took off. Eventually, she joined the All-Star Squadron and the rest we know.
Infinity Inc. #30 – “What Private Griefs” – Roy and Dann Thomas/Todd McFarlane/Tony DeZuniga
This is a downtime issue dealing with the loss of the JSA, most of whom were relegated to limbo in the Last Days of the JSA mini-series, where they were condemned to fight Nazis in a never-ending loop to prevent the destruction of the world in Ragnarok. This was DC’s say of getting rid of some dusty old Golden Age characters so they could concentrate on their modern counterparts. Naturally, that affects Infinity Inc since they’re all children or proteges of the JSA. This issue starts just after the only surviving JSAers (Star-Spangled Kid, Dr. Fate, and Power Girl) return from Ragnarok
to tell Infinity Inc what happened. The Infinitors deal with their grief in various ways, but everyone feels the loss … even Dr. Fate, who’s supposed to have lost all human emotion after being possessed by Nabu’s spirit. Brainwave Jr. and Obsidian argue over who gets to comfort Jade over the loss of her father (Green Lantern), until she gets pissed off and tells Brainwave she needs some space. She and Obsidian go to see GL’s wife Molly to give her the bad news. Fury is worried about Silver Scarab, who isn’t showing any emotion over the loss of his parents (Hawkman and Hawkgirl). She wonders why he’s so cold and emotionless, but we see that he’s received a “gift” from someone, 
a crystal dagger that glows with some kind of enchantment. Northwind informs Beth Chapel about the fate of her mentor (Dr. Mid-Nite) and asks if she’ll help him tell the new Hourman Rick Tyler about his father (the original Hourman). Nuklon goes to Yolanda (Wildcat) Montez’s neighbourhood to tell her about the original Wildcat (and Yolanda’s mentor) Ted Grant. Nuklon meets Yolanda’s family and they tell him she’s going to be at a club tonight, reporting on the band for the music magazine she works at. Northwind and Beth tell Rick about his father and he freaks out. Meanwhile, Star-Spangled Kid and Power Girl have a heart-to-heart and SSK admits he started Infinity Inc as a bit of an ego boost, but now wants the team to be the true heirs to the JSA,
reflecting their greatness. (Power Girl is impressed with SSK’s candour and I’m thinking he might finally get lucky with her). At the club, the bouncer won’t let Nuklon in, so he phases through the wall. He asks Yolanda to come outside where it’s quieter, but she gets pissed off because he didn’t help her get into Infinity Inc. Nuklon drags her out of the club and she slashes him with her claws, but feels like an asshole after he finally tells her about Wildcat. Brainwave eavesdrops on Jade, Obsidian, and Molly to make sure Jade is okay. In his tower, Dr. Fate conjures up a shrine to his fallen teammates and holds a silent vigil in their honour. Of course, the JSA were eventually brought back, but at this point I think their “banishment” was meant to be permanent.