Comics Reviews: Legion of Super-Heroes 42, New Teen Titans 39, Suicide Squad 9

Legion of Super-Heroes #42 – “To Sleep a Thousand Years” – Paul Levitz/Greg LaRocque/Mike DeCarlo, Arne Starr

This one starts with Polar Boy congratulating himself on his leadership during the big fight against Starfinger and his gangs. Tellus gets tired of Polar Boy’s ego, so he goes to find someone else to hang with. He runs into Sun Boy and Laurel Kent, but they’re getting romantic, so he leaves. But Laurel ends up shutting Sun Boy down and he goes to bed alone, leaving her to make her way out of Legion headquarters … except she isn’t ready to leave quite yet. She’s obviously up to something, but her “big secret” is kinda given away on the cover. Tellus hangs out by the pool with Invisible Kid, Shadow Lass, Shrinking Violet and Chameleon Boy drops in to get some workout equipment for Colossal Boy (who’s still in hospital after having his leg blasted by Starfinger last issue). Laurel (who has security clearance because of her Academy status and being Sun Boy’s girlfriend) makes her way to Brainiac 5’s lab to get at his massive databanks. Brainy catches her trying to download info and she attacks him, using her robotic strength to overload his force-field. That brings the other Legionnaires from the pool area and she starts pounding them too. Shadow Lass causes a blackout, but Laurel (or the Manhunter robot calling itself Laurel) grabs some data from the computers and flies away. More Legionnaires come to help with clean-up and Brainy hooks himself up to the computers to figure out what Laurel was after. At the hospital, Chameleon Boy gives Colossal Boy the stuff he wanted and they talk about Starfinger. Meanwhile, Brainy has determined that Laurel was searching for genealogical info and says there’s only one other computer on Earth that might have the same data, in a Buddhist temple in the Himalayas. Tellus quickly figures out that the Buddhist monks are robots and the Legionnaires pound them. Inside, they find “Laurel” (looking much more robotic than human now) and she tells them she’s a Manhunter and mentions the whole Millennium thing, which took place a thousand years ago. She says she was kept in suspended animation for centuries so she could find and kill any descendants of the chosen humans from Millennium; I guess that’s the info she got from the Legion computers. Before the Legionnaires can digest all that, she blows up the temple with them in it.

New Teen Titans #39 – “Loving You” – Marv Wolfman/Eduardo Barreto/Romeo Tanghal

This one starts with Dick (Nightwing) Grayson having a dream about banging Raven. He wakes up in bed with Starfire, but apparently he’s been having these sexy dreams for a while now. Starfire suggests the obvious, that Raven finally getting in touch with her emotions after repressing them for years, coupled with her new ability to manipulate the emotions of others, has made her fall for Dick and inadvertently caused him to have feelings for her in return. Starfire says that Tamaranians express their emotions freely (especially love) and once more gives Dick shit for refusing to move in with her. She offers to have a woman-to-woman talk with Raven to sort things out. Meanwhile, Raven is indulging her new powers, helping random people deal with their emotions and their pain. When she gets home, Starfire is waiting for her and suggests they go hang out in Tahiti and talk. Starfire tells Raven what’s been going on and when Raven realizes she’s been unconsciously manipulating Dick’s emotions, she feels like an asshole. Starfire’s cool about it and they hang out, talking about feelings and swimming naked under waterfalls; Starfire better be careful, or Raven might fall for her. Anyway, everything gets worked out, although Raven still feels pretty stupid afterwards. But she does go along with a joke Starfire cooks up, pretending to throw herself at Dick just to freak him out. She apologizes and he’s cool about it, but he gives Starfire a thrill when he tells her he’s moved all his stuff to her place. Raven leaves them alone, but feels worse now because she doesn’t have the love she thought she did. She stops by Cyborg’s place and finds a bunch of people there (Sarah Charles, Donna and Terry, Changeling and Jillian, and even Jericho and his new squeeze). She gets all paranoid, thinking she isn’t wanted there (since she wasn’t invited) and that she doesn’t belong anyway, since it’s a couples party. She goes home to mope and finds a message on her answering machine inviting her to the party, so she heads back. Later, Donna takes Starfire out for a photo-shoot and they discuss why she turned down doing a nude layout (bad for the Titans’ image); I get the feeling there’s some meta-commentary here, as Donna mentions the Silent Majority (maybe she meant the Moral Majority?) freaking out over a naked Titan, but I can’t help noticing that Starfire is depicted (in several scenes) about as close to naked as the Comics Code would allow back then. That night, Starfire and Dick discuss her marriage to Karras and she finally convinces Dick it doesn’t matter when she explains that there are different types of marriage ceremonies on Tamaran and the one she was in is purely political. Joe (Jericho) Wilson goes to an art show with his mother, Adeline Kane and some scumbags come in to rob the place. Joe and Adeline pound the thieves and leave. Adeline asks Joe if he’d like to do some work for her agency, mercenary stuff, when he’s in-between Titans assignments and he says he’ll consider it.

Suicide Squad #9 – “The Final Price” – John Ostrander/Luke McDonnell/Bob Lewis

This issue crosses over heavily with the Millennium storyline and we’ve already seen part of it (including the fate of Karin Grace) in Detective 582. But this issue starts a little before that, with some Squad members (Rick Flag, Karin, Privateer, Bronze Tiger, Deadshot, Captain Boomerang, and Slipknot) assembling outside the Manhunter temple in the Louisiana bayous. Flag doesn’t trust Privateer because of his connection to the Manhunters (and because Karin has the hots for him), but he has no choice but to work with him. Boomerang tells Slipknot that the explosives they wear on their arms to keep them in line are probably fake, since Flag and Bronze Tiger are too moral to blow someone’s arm off. Captain Atom shows up and says he was ordered to destroy the Manhunter base before the Suicide Squad, but he prefers to cooperate with them. He learns their vehicle is packed with explosives and realizes there’s enough to take out half the swamp. Flag confirms that most of the team might get wiped out, but he’s under orders not to tell them how powerful the explosives actually are. Firestorm shows up (having been co-opted by the Manhunters as we’ll see in his own title) and Captain Atom draws him off so the Squad can assault the temple. At Belle Rêve, Amanda Waller doesn’t seem to feel guilty about sacrificing most of the team, but she is worried that Batman has been snooping around for info on Privateer. The Squad assaults the temple, but the Manhunter robots turn out to be tough opponents. Deadshot has to use armour-piercing explosive round to blow them up and Bronze Tiger gets his leg broken by a crazed robot. Rick drives over the robots to get Bronze Tiger into the vehicle, but Karin is grabbed by a Manhunter. Rick’s ready to go after her, but Privateer reminds him the mission comes first. Meanwhile, Slipknot takes off and gets his arm blown off, which lets Boomerang know that the bracelets aren’t just a bluff. (Slipknot is found by a commando woman who I assume is Lashina from the Female Furies.) Flag knows it’s a suicide mission, but has no choice but to go ahead. Bronze Tiger stays behind and Deadshot and Boomerang get surrounded, but Flag and Privateer drive the explosives-laden vehicle inside the temple. They find Karin clinging to a ledge and Rick ignores Privateer’s warnings so he can save her. Turns out she was bullshitting and she gets the drop on Flag. Karin says she was recruited into the Manhunter cult after the original Squad was wiped out and she felt betrayed by Flag. She met Mark (Privateer) Shaw, who brought her into the Manhunters and she’s been working for them ever since. Except Privateer says he was in prison at that point, so the “Mark Shaw” she was banging was actually a Manhunter robot. The robot shows up and claims it’s the real Mark Shaw and that Privateer is the android. The Manhunter stuns Flag and Privateer and tells Karin to kill them. She hesitates and the robot spontaneously destructs, as do the ones outside. (We saw the same thing in Detective … apparently it has something to do with the Spectre.) Karin feels like an idiot for believing an android loved her, so she offers to take the vehicle full of explosives deeper into the temple, telling Shaw to let Flag know she forgives him. After her meeting with Batman, Karin plows through numerous androids, but ends up flipping the vehicle and getting pinned under it. Privateer gets Flag out just before the explosives go off, destroying the temple and everyone inside.