Justice League #5 – “Gray Life, Gray Dreams” – Keith Giffen, J.M. DeMatteis/Kevin Maguire/Al Gordon
This one starts in a small town called Stone Ridge (in Vermont), where some people witness a car accident and try to help the victim. But they’re acting a little weird and we see that the Gray Man (who we saw a couple issues ago) is in Stone Ridge, spreading his melancholy over the town. Dr. Fate senses the Gray Man and comes to investigate, but Gray Man doesn’t seem too worried. Meanwhile, TV pundit Jack Ryder has just finished another diatribe against the new Justice League when he gets a report about Dr. Fate being spotted in Stone Ridge and decides to check it out. Fate isn’t doing too well, having
been captured by the Gray Man, who’s going on about how he’s been exiled from this world for centuries to a gray and empty place. We get his origin story … he was some kind of mage who pierced the mystic barriers to look upon the lords of order. He was punished by being exiled to a colourless island where he was condemned to collect the leftover dream essence from the dead. But he wasn’t allowed to leave the island, so he had to send out mindless doppelgangers to collect the dream essence. Eventually, he realized the dream essence was Mana, the energy that allows people to use magic, and he managed to escape his island prison and capture Dr. Fate. Now he wants to set his doppelgangers loose so 
they can suck the Mana out of the living, turning everyone into a Gray Man. He’s already started on the people of Stone Ridge. At JLA headquarters, Batman and Guy Gardner are arguing (again), but this time Batman settles it by punching Guy out. This is a famous scene that evokes a couple of running gags (Blue Beetle repeating “One punch!” over and over, and Black Canary pissed off that she missed it.) Dr. Fate manages to get through to them and tell them about Gray Man and the computer predicts they have 52 hours to stop him before everyone in the world is affected. Batman sends Captain Marvel (who’s feeling a bit over his head with the league) ahead to Stone Ridge. Marvel
finds Jack Ryder’s cameraman half-conscious and babbling about danger and takes him into town to get help. When the rest of the league (minus Guy, of course) show up, they run into the Creeper, who’s daubing paint all over and giggling like a maniac (which I guess he is). He tells them about Captain Marvel heading into town and shows them Stone Ridge, which has been transformed into a twisted landscape that looks like something out of a Max Ernst painting.
Infinity Inc. #42 – “Farewell to Fury” – Roy and Dann Thomas/Vince Argondezzi/Tony DeZuniga, Al Vey
This one starts with Fury rushing out of Skyman’s office and running right into Mr. Bones. She tells Bones she’s pregnant and that Skyman is kicking her off the team because of her “delicate condition”. Bones goes in to see Skyman (almost scaring his new secretary to death) and mentions that he’s worried that the rest of Helix hasn’t been in touch lately. Skyman figures it might be part of their therapy (Bones being a bad influence), or maybe he just doesn’t care all that much. He does let Bones
attend the team meeting, which is pretty informal. Skyman tells them they got a job helping with an archaeological dig in Egypt and assigns Brainwave Jr., Jade, Dr. Midnight, and himself. Jade’s not happy since it means she has to miss out on a movie role, but Brainwave’s thrilled to be able to spend some time with her (although she doesn’t seem all that happy about that either). Obsidian asks about making KGLX (where he’s now working) the team’s official radio station and Skyman agrees. Wildcat suggests they throw Fury a kick-ass going away party (she’s decided to head back east to spend some time with family) and 
Skyman agrees to that too. It turns out to be a pool party, with most of the Infinitors there, plus Bones, Molly Scott, Jonni Thunder, and Marcie Cooper (who’s getting pretty friendly with Obsidian). Solomon Grundy is buried out by the beach and Yolanda even managed to get a punk band to play live at the party. Dr. Midnight gives Rick a Miraclo patch that’s supposed to be tuned to his system so it won’t become addictive or make him go nuts. The patch works and he takes Midnight for an impromptu swim to celebrate. The next day, Lyta (Fury) Trevor heads east, but gets a sudden desire to stop in New York and see her estranged husband Hector (Silver Scarab) Hall. She finds his parents’ house all boarded up and overgrown and when she tries to get in, every door and
window is blocked with thick stone. Her powers let her bust through (although her clothes get torn up in the process) and she finds the interior of the house looking like an Egyptian tomb. She finds Hector on an altar with a crystal dagger in his chest, but when she pulls it out, Hector seems to be nothing but an empty shell. A woman named Hastor shows up to fight Lyta, but before she can pound Hastor, Silver Scarab stops her. He sounds like Hector, but claims he’s the real Silver Scarab, born from within Hector after shedding his “shreds of flesh and hair”. Hastor grabs Lyta, but Silver Scarab calls her off, kicking Lyta in the gut (Hector never heard about the pregnancy) and telling her she’s now the bait for the rest of Infinity Inc. The colours in this issue are weird, with Hastor coloured jet black and Yolanda some kind of pink or magenta; I guess that’s as close as they could get to light brown with the technology they had at the time.
Young All-Stars #4 – “California Here We Come” – Roy and Dann Thomas/Brian Murray, Howard Simpson/Malcoln Jones III, Danny Bulanadi
This one starts with the Young All-Stars (Sandy, Dyna-Mite, Fury, Iron Munro, Tsunami, Flying Fox, and Neptune Perkins) heading to Los Angeles for a War Bond rally. Sandy’s racism flares up again and he starts talking shit about Tsunami. The others defend her (and remind Sandy that the President has pardoned her for all her past misdeeds), which calms him down a bit. Firebrand and Tarantula (who are flying the youngsters to L.A.) try to drum up some camaraderie by asking everyone to recount their origin. Sandy goes
first and then Flying Fox tells how he left his tribe (the Quontaka) to help fight Nazis after they killed the chief. Neptune recounts his story (born some kind of mutant who needs salt water to live) and Tsunami tells how she left America (where she was born) and was given super-powers in Japan, then was sent back to recruit other Japanese-Americans (as we last saw in issue 35). Iron Munro refuses to tell them how he got his powers, which kinda pisses Fury off. She tells how she got the powers of the Furies and fought the Nazis in Greece, somehow getting involved with Tisiphone, the deadliest of the Furies. Dyna-Mite mentions his partnership with the now-dead TNT and 
wonders why he’s even there, since their powers were linked by the matching rings they wore. Thanks to some fake turbulence, the Young All-Stars literally get thrown together; Munro and Fury seem to enjoy their proximity, and (despite his diatribes against her) Sandy doesn’t mind landing in Tsunami’s lap. Firebrand and Tarantula drop the youngsters off at the rally and they start entertaining the crowd. But when some assholes in the crowd notice that Tsunami is Japanese, they start mouthing off. Others defend her and it almost turns into a riot until Firebrand shows up to warn everyone off with some pyrotechnics. Tsunami feels like it’s her fault, but the others (except Sandy, who’s back to being an asshole) assure her it wasn’t her fault. Axis Amerika has been watching the Young All-Stars, planning an attack, but they decide
to postpone it for when they have a bigger crowd. Tsunami takes her teammates to meet her family in San Pedro, but the house has been sold. Turns out her family was “relocated” to Santa Anita Racetrack with a bunch of other Japanese-Americans, where they’re kept behind wire fences and watched over by armed guards, as if they were animals instead of American citizens. Tsunami freaks out and when Perkins suggests some of the prisoners might actually be spies, she gets really pissed off at him. She says she doesn’t want to be an All-Star anymore and strips off her costume, joining the other Japanese-Americans behind the fence. But she vows if any harm comes to her family, she will become Tsunami again and take revenge.