Wonder Woman #3 – “Deadly Arrival” – Len Wein/George Perez/Bruce Patterson
This one starts with Hermes showing Wonder Woman around Boston, telling her to get ready to face Ares and stop whatever plan the God of War has to wipe out humanity. They’ve already dropped Steve Trevor off at a base hospital in Concord and now Hermes says he’s going to show Diana her proper path. At Hanscom AFB, General Hillary and Etta Candy show up, having been alerted when Steve suddenly showed up in one of the hospital rooms. Steve’s in bad shape, but another general (Tolliver) has armed guards
outside his room because Steve is under arrest for possibly killing General Kohler last issue. Since there’s no record of Kohler sending Steve on a secret mission, he’s also in trouble for stealing a jet. Hermes takes Diana to the library at Harvard University and gives her the talisman they got from Harmonia. Hermes leaves and Diana wanders around before saving a history professor (Julia Kapatelis) when she falls off a ladder. Diana can’t speak English, but Julia does know some Greek, and the talisman infuses some of the Amazons’ history into Julia’s mind (although it comes in so fast, she can’ really make 
much of it). Elsewhere, Ares’ son Phobos watches Diana and Julia connect and decides he’d better do something about it before they disrupt Ares’ plans. Phobos retrieves the Heart of the Gorgon and transmutes it into a rather ugly statuette. Somewhere else, Ares’ other son (Deimos) is also doing his father’s bidding, but with a bit more subtlety. He’s gathered people from different walks of life (politicians, soldiers, medical professionals) and uses his godly powers to stoke paranoia in them, making them think that America is in danger of being attacked and that they need to be strong to stop it. At the hospital, Steve can’t remember much but does have vague recollections of the plane crashing and him being saved by Wonder Woman. General
Tolliver and the nurse try to kill Steve and he fights his way past them and the guard outside. When the guard tries to trigger an alert, Tolliver shoots him to keep things quiet. At the Kapatelis house, Julia’s daughter (Vanessa) receives the statuette that Phobos sent and opens it, even though it’s addressed to her mom. Steve makes his way to Etta’s place and finds out he’s been accused of killing the guard Tolliver shot. In Russia, Deimos gives the same speech he did to the Americans about protecting what’s theirs and being strong to a bunch of Russians. Obviously, he’s trying to provoke war 
between the two countries. In Boston, Julia brings Diana home and introduces her to Vanessa, who gets all surly. Apparently, Vanessa is one of those self-absorbed teenage rebels who’s always clashing with her mother (although Julia admits she has been kinda neglecting her daughter lately). Julia starts teaching Diana English (which she picks up really quickly), while Vanessa watches TV, unaware that the statuette has started to change. When they hear a crash, Julia and Diana run to the living room and find Vanessa being menaced by a freaky-looking woman called Decay.
Firestorm #58 – “Gambit” – John Ostrander/Joe Brozowski/Pablo Marcos
This one starts with Darkseid contemplating his anti-hero strategy enacted in the Legends mini-series, but apparently Darkseid is aware of the changes wrought by the Crisis as well. He manipulates an ex-con (Rudy Jones) working as a janitor at STAR Labs, making him curious about a container supposedly holding nuclear waste. (If this sounds familiar, just wait.) The container does actually hold nuclear waste, siphoned from the remains of Brimstone, the alien creature defeated in Legends and brought to STAR for study. While Jenet Klyburn is showing ex-Senator Reilly (now working for STAR as a lobbyist) Brimstone’s remains,
Jones opens one of the waste containers and is instantly transformed into a new version of the Parasite (except he’s green instead of purple). Like the pre-Crisis version, this Parasite needs life energy to keep functioning and can absorb it (along with intellect and memories) from other people. He rampages through the building and Lorraine Reilly shows up looking for her father, changing into Firehawk to stop Parasite. But he absorbs her powers and from her mind learns about Ronnie Raymond being Firestorm, so he flies off to Pittsburgh. Meanwhile, Ronnie was getting cozy with Doreen when he saw a news report about Parasite and recognized Firehawk’s wings coming out of 
Parasite’s back. Ronnie ditches Doreen (which pisses her off so much that she tries to follow him) and gets in touch with Professor Stein. Ronnie talks Stein into becoming Firestorm and they take off to tackle Parasite. But Parasite’s power makes it impossible for Firestorm to fight him directly, so he leads the villain to an abandoned steel mill. Stein notices Parasite’s stolen powers diminish after physical exertion and figures they might be able to make Parasite overextend himself so he starts feeding on himself. Firestorm tosses machinery at Parasite, but he lures the fiery hero close enough to absorb his powers, splitting him back into Ronnie and Stein, who are now at Parasite’s mercy.
Vigilante #40 – “God Save the Children” – Paul Kupperberg/Tod Smith/Greg Brooks
This story has to do with child molestation and kiddie porn, so read at your own risk. Last issue, Vigilante started tracking missing kids and found out they were being taken in an organized fashion. He’s cornered a guy (Danelli) who sells child porn videos and is pounding him to get info on what’s happening to the kids who have been taken lately. The guy finally admits he heard rumours about a white slavery ring taking kids to sell into sexual slavery overseas. Before Vigilante can get more info, Danelli’s girlfriend (Chloe) shows up and she’s pretty
tough; she and Vigilante start fighting and she gives him a pretty good beating before he finally knocks her out. Danelli tries to run, but Vigilante grabs him. The cops show up, but Harry Stein (the former cop who’s been working with Vigilante and trying to curb his excesses) arrives and gets Vigilante and Danelli out of there. At the hospital, Mitch’s wife is freaking out about him getting his throat slashed last issue while looking for the guy who kidnapped their daughter. (Yeah, somehow Mitch survived getting his throat cut, but he’s not in good shape.) Her mood gets worse when Captain Hall tells her they 
suspect her daughter has been sold into sex slavery overseas. Vigilante interrogates Danelli, intimidating him into giving up a name … Vaughn, a rich guy who knows a lot about child porn. Stein stops Vigilante from killing Danelli in cold blood, even though he agrees Danelli is scum. At Vaughn’s penthouse, he’s hosting a party that involves rich guys banging underage girls. Vaughn is recording it all in case he needs some blackmail material later, but he freaks when he sees Vigilante is in the building. Vaughn’s bodyguard (Lenny) is Chloe’s brother and wants to kill Vigilante for hurting her. He’s a huge guy and is almost unstoppable, taking quite a beating and numerous bullets before Vigilante finally knocks him out a window. After taking out the other security, Vigilante corners Vaughn in a bedroom where one of his guests is banging a
young girl. Vaughn uses the girl as a shield, but Vigilante shoots him in the shoulder and tortures him until he admits he sells the missing kids overseas, but says the buyers are so anonymous and insulated that nobody can track them down. Vigilante kills Vaughn and is about to waste the guy who was banging the girl when Stein shows up to tell him the cops are on the way. Vigilante decides not to kill the perv and they leave, congratulating themselves for stopping Vaughn and Danelli, even if they couldn’t find any of the missing kids. They believe they’ve made a dent in the human trafficking, but on the last page we see another kid getting kidnapped, so I guess the problem is just too big for the two of them to really stop it.
Warlord #116 – “Revenge of the Warlock” – Michael Fleisher/Ron Randall
This one starts with Mariah apologizing to Tara or using the magic amulet to make Morgan fall in love with her. Tara’s surprisingly forgiving (considering the jealousy she’s shown in the past), but I guess Mariah almost sacrificing her own life last issue to allow Morgan to save Tara was what swayed her. They’re both worried about Morgan, since his quest to lift the aging curse on his daughter Jennifer was unsuccessful. Meanwhile in the nearby city of P’thun, the wizard Muldahara kills the king with an aging spell and takes over the city. In Shamballah, Mariah decides she should be honest with Machiste about not being in love with him anymore, so she sends a
messenger to Kiro. One of Tara’s spies from P’thun arrives to tell her about Muldahara killing the king and Morgan freaks, since Muldahara was the first person he asked for advice about Jennifer’s aging curse back in issue 101. Morgan retrieved the Eyes of Ankanar, which Muldahara used to kill the king, so Morgan knows Muldahara used him and sent him on a wild goose chase halfway across Skartaris. Morgan heads to P’thun and makes his way through a hedge maze to get to Muldahara. The wizard conjures a plant-monster (that looks a bit like Swamp Thing) to attack Morgan. In the outside world, Redmond (the CIA agent from last year’s Annual) tries to find a way to Skartaris and crashes on Dinosaur Island. Morgan uses fire to 
defeat the plant monster and gets inside the palace to confront Muldahara. The wizard uses the magic gems to age Morgan’s sword into dust and toys with the warrior, adding a few years at a time to his age. Jennifer can sense the trouble her father’s in and gathers all her remaining strength, teleporting to P’thun despite her advanced age. She smashes the gems, allowing Morgan to deck Muldahara, and removing the aging effects from Jennifer and her father. In the city of Bandakhar, a statuesque blonde arrives in town and gets hit on by a huge brute,. But she kicks his ass, showing obvious signs of super-strength. This is actually Power Girl and they’re setting up a new origin for her, but we’ll get more on that next issue.