Justice League of America #259 – “Homecoming” – J.M. DeMatteis/Luke McDonnell/Bill Wray
Last issue, Vibe was killed by one of Professor Ivo’s robots and this issue starts with J’onn J’onzz, Vixen, and Steel finding his dead body. J’onn recognizes the false face the robot attached to Vibe’s corpse, so he knows Ivo is behind the murder. The Leaguers are pretty devastated by Vibe’s death and a run-in with the cops doesn’t help their mood. Ivo is spying on them from his headquarters and wondering who his next victim should be. He decides on Gypsy and has another “therapy” session
with a robot, asking if killing Gypsy is wrong. Just like last issue, the robot’s answer (that it’s obviously wrong to kill an innocent person because you blame them for stuff you’re responsible for) isn’t to Ivo’s liking, so he deactivates it. He programs a different robot to go out and kill Gypsy. Gypsy is with her friend Pam, who she’s convinced to go home to her parents. Pam’s place is empty and she’s nervous, but Gypsy gets her to wait around until her parents come home. Pam’s fears are soon shown to be pointless, as her parents are thrilled to have her back. Gypsy slips away, not wanting to spoil the 
moment, and decides it’s time for her to go home to her own suburban family. She thumbs a ride and is picked up by Ivo’s robot. She finds him a bit creepy, but figures her powers can protect her if he turns out to be trouble. At JLA headquarters, J’onn fills the others in on Ivo’s history, but when they want to go after him, J’onn refuses. Because of the presidential order outlawing superheroes (in the Legends mini-series), the JLA has been officially disbanded and J’onn won’t allow them to go against that … but he does fly off on his own, muttering Ivo’s name. As Gypsy gets closer to home, she tells the robot about how she ran away and how she’s finally looking forward to going home, but before they arrive, he stops and attacks her. Gypsy’s invisibility and illusion powers don’t work against the robot and he grabs her. Ivo is monitoring
things and gets pissed off when the feed cuts out briefly, but it comes back in time for him to see the robot finishing Gypsy off. After leaving a mask of Ivo’s face on Gypsy, the robot cuts its transmission and Ivo is happy to have killed another JLAer … until he realizes what he’s done. But it turns out Gypsy’s not dead after all; apparently Ivo built the robots using his own personality as a template, so his own doubts and guilt over murdering the JLA were implanted in the robot. The difference is that the robot found the strength not to kill Gypsy, which Ivo couldn’t do. Using Gypsy’s illusion power, she and the robot set up the fake murder to make Ivo think he’d succeeded. The robot drives Gypsy home and her family are happy to see her. As the robot prepares to leave, J’onn grabs him.
All-Star Squadron #66 – “The Origin of Tarantula” – Roy Thomas/Alan Kupperberg/Tony DeZuniga
This is another of the secret origin issues of All-Star Squadron, with a bit of a twist; usually, the framing device is that an All-Star is telling their origin to Jonathan Law, who’s writing a book to be published some time in the future. But Jonathan Law is also Tarantula, so it makes sense he’d add his own origin to the book and that’s what we get here. As usual, I’m only going to hit the high points, since this story has been told before and some of it would get retconned later anyway. Jonathan Law was a bit of a nerd, who liked writing, science, and spiders. He ended up writing some mystery thrillers and got rich and famous, but after seeing Sandman kicking ass on
some crooks, he decided to do something a bit more meaningful. He interviews Dian Belmont about her connection to Sandman and she shows him a costume she’d designed that Sandman hadn’t worn. Law starts training, builds some gadgets to let him walk on walls and fire “webbing”, and steals Dian’s costume idea to become the Tarantula. He runs into some Nazis and helps Sandman defeat them, only to find out they’d killed Dian (a story we’ve already seen back in issue 18). Tarantula (who briefly considered calling himself Spider-Man) starts fighting crime, including catching a mobster named Ace Deuce. When Ace Deuce escapes, Tarantula goes after him disguised as a fellow mobster. Tarantula catches Ace Deuce and his gang and later adopts a new costume, eventually joining the All-Star Squadron.
Infinity Inc. #35 – “Beat the Clock” – Roy and Dann Thomas/Todd McFarlane/Tony DeZuniga
This one starts with Skyman and Brainwave Jr. at Infinity Inc’s headquarters in Los Angeles wondering why Hourman hasn’t showed up like he was supposed to. They soon find out, when Nuklon calls to let them know what happened last issue at the trade conference in Calgary: a new/old group of villains (Injustice Unlimited, made up of the Wizard, a new Icicle, the Fiddler, Hazard, and Artemis) showed up to blackmail the trade delegates into paying them a pile of money and they
have Hourman tied to a giant clock that’s set to kill him tomorrow if the Infinitors (or their Global Guardian counterparts) try anything. Not only that, but the Wizard has the heroes doing various jobs for him, threatening to kill Hourman early if they don’t comply. Skyman and Brainwave are ready to head north, in spite of the current ban on superheroes in the USA, but they get attacked by a frenzied mob and Brainwave is wounded, so they’re forced to stay in L.A. In New York, Artemis leads Nuklon and Rising Sun in an assault on a prison. They free two cons, who turn out to be Sportsmaster and Huntress … and Artemis’s 
parents. In Las Vegas, Wildcat and Tasmanian Devil go through a fake wedding ceremony to gain access to a casino owner’s office. They pound his security and when a call comes from the casino about a run on the house (caused by Hazard), the owner is forced to let the people keep playing. As the “lucky” streak continues and the casino’s money goes out the door, Hazard lets the owner know why she’s doing this: her grandfather was Stephen Sharpe (aka the Gambler), who got ripped off by this casino’s rigged games and ended up killing himself. In London, Obsidian and Green Flame are forced to help Fiddler steal a very expensive violin. In Greece, Shade orders Fury to descend into a
hidden cavern and bring back a chunk of stone from a black altar. Fury gets a weird feeling when she’s in the cavern, like she’s been there before even though she’s sure she’s never even been to Greece. (This has to do with Fury’s new origin; she’s no longer considered the daughter of Steve Trevor and the Golden Age Wonder Woman since those characters were retconned out of existence by the Crisis.) When Fury emerges with the piece of stone, they’re attacked by Olympian, a Greek superhero and Global Guardians member. Fury tells him she was given the stone by those who dwell in the cavern (which surprises Shade), but that doesn’t impress Olympian, so they have to fight him off and escape. In Denmark, Jade is forced by Icicle (who has the still-
entranced Ice Maiden as a hostage) to blast apart the glacier where Solomon Grundy is frozen so they can take him back to the Wizard. In Calgary, Wizard is accumulating a pile of loot from the hostage business leaders and gloating over his scheme’s success. He doesn’t notice Hourman slipping three Miraclo pills out of his glove; apparently he put them there to prove he could do without them, like a smoker carrying a pack of cigarettes around when they’re trying to quit. Hourman misses getting two of the pills into his mouth, but manages to swallow the third and gets ready to bust loose. I notice McFarlane’s art is getting more stylized here, starting to resemble his later Amazing Spider-Man stuff.