Wonder Woman #19 – “The Witch on the Island” – George Perez/Frank McLaughlin
This one starts with Vanessa Kapatelis waking up still in the protective circle of Wonder Woman’s lasso. She tells her mom and the local cops how Diana fought off Circe’s monsters last issue before being felled by a bolt of energy from the sky. Vanessa still has the scroll from Stavros and gives it to her mom, Julia. Katina, one of the local rebels who have been fighting covertly against Circe’s grip of fear on the local community, tells Julia and Vanessa that Circe must’ve taken Diana to her island. She’s right and Diana wakes up on Circe’s island, chained in manacles too strong to break. Circe tells Diana that she’s the daughter of Hyperion and
Perseis and wants Diana dead. Although she’s chained, Diana fights off Circe’s monsters, but has no defense against her sorcery. Circe blasts Diana and tells her minions to prepare her for a blood sacrifice. On the mainland, Julia studies the scroll (which also had Stavros’s own research notes rolled up in it) and realizes the twine used to bind it is from the moly plant. No, not Ecstasy, this moly was used by Odysseus to resist Circe’s magic, at least according to Homer. Diana wakes up chained in Circe’s dungeon and undergoes the worst torture imaginable … having to listen to Circe recount her origin. Basically, she 
made a deal with Hecate (the Moon goddess, who hated Olympians for humiliating her and humanity for some reason or other) and gained vast sorcerous power. She used it to stoke resentment between men and women, widening the natural divide between the sexes. Circe figured the Amazons were great since they didn’t trust men, but when Theseus and Antiope fell in love, Circe thought she’d better do something before harmony reigned amongst the sexes. So she sent Ariadne to kill Antiope in her marriage bed. Hearing that, Diana gets pissed off enough to break her chains and Circe blasts her again, almost
killing her. Meanwhile, the rebels have reached the island, getting past Circe’s morphed animals by wrapping Diana’s lasso around their boat, trusting that it would keep the monsters back since that was her command when she used it to encircle Vanessa. As Julia and the rebels fight their way into the tower, Circe prepares to regress Diana back into the clay from which she was made. Circe believes that Hecate will possess Diana’s soul if Diana kills her and doesn’t believe Diana when she says she has no wish to do so. Julia busts in and 
tosses Diana her lasso, then eats some moly to protect her from Circe’s magic. Diana is blasted again and Circe is ready to waste Julia when a bright light appears and Circe vanishes. Diana and Julia have no idea what happened, but it turns out Hermes is the one who got rid of Circe. So, a literal deus ex machina, I guess. Later, Diana tells Julia she doesn’t think they’ve seen the last of Circe and Vanessa shows them an American newspaper with a headline about Myndi Mayer (Diana’s publicist) being murdered.
Firestorm #74 – “Personal Demon” – John Ostrander/Joe Brozowski/Sam De La Rosa
This one starts with a raggedy-looking guy rising out of the Nevada desert and forming a huge sandstorm before heading towards Las Vegas. In Moscow, Zastrow tells his superiors that Ronnie Raymond has nothing to do with Firestorm, but he does have a strange feeling when he sees Mikhail Arkadin. (That feeling is a residue of the memory-change Mikhail’s niece Serafina pulled on Zastrow and Soliony last issue.) Soliony reluctantly releases Mikhail and his family, but vows to keep
an eye on him after Mikhail’s brother threatens to expose Soliony’s black marketeering (which Serafina gleaned from Soliony’s mind). Mikhail suggests Serafina reveal her powers to her parents and she says Mikhail should tell his wife about being part of Firestorm. In Las Vegas, a mobster named Harsh hears that Ed Raymond is in town and asking questions. Harsh gets worried, since Ed wrote an exposé that got a lot of mobsters in trouble, so he sends some guys to take care of Ed. But Ed’s actually there with Ronnie and 
Felicity, trying to help Ronnie get some closure over Martin Stein’s death. Ed suggests Stein might’ve survived the nuclear blast that fused Ronnie and Mikhail into Firestorm (in last year’s annual), but Ronnie doesn’t want to believe that because it would kill him to get his hopes up and be disappointed again. In Russia, Mikhail tells his wife about being part of Firestorm and she’s a little pissed off he didn’t tell her sooner, but is basically cool with it. In Las Vegas, Ronnie sees a news report about the sandstorm (and the guy inside it) heading for the city and gets in touch with Mikhail (through the mental link Serafina gave them last issue) to form Firestorm. Firestorm
himself wonders if his only existence will be when he’s needed to fight and wants some individuality of his own. Firestorm fights the guy in the sandstorm and slows him down, but when Ronnie recognizes the ravaged figure as Professor Stein (or what’s left of him) he doesn’t want to fight. Mikhail urges him to fight, saying this isn’t the same Stein Ronnie knew. The inner conflict makes Firestorm unable to act and Stein starts burying him in the sand.