Wonder Woman #26 – “The Immortal Storm” – George Perez/Chris Marrinan/Will Blyberg
This one starts with Wonder Woman heading home from the Pacific after saying farewell to the justice League. Most of them are quite impressed by her (although Ice is a bit worried that Guy might have a thing for her) and Wonder Woman herself thinks it might be nice to belong to the League (which is foreshadowing her brief membership in the Justice League Europe). When she gets back to Boston, Wonder Woman surveys the damage caused by Ixion before she got rid of him. The people are blaming Hermes for
bringing the monster to their midst and some of that blame is spilling over onto Wonder Woman … something she admits to herself may be true. In a netherworld called Perdition’s Pit, Hermes feels guilty about the destruction caused by Ixion and Phobos, and Harmonia tells him he has to make amends to the people of Boston because the Olympians can’t afford to lose any more believers. Wonder Woman goes to Hanscom Air Force Base to welcome Etta Candy home, but they get bad news from the visiting Captain Atom, who tells them Steve Trevor has been taken by Durlans. The army tracks the plane Steve was on 
to Cuba, so Wonder Woman and Captain Atom head there right away. Hermes returns to Boston and says he can restore the damaged parts of the city if the people will forgive him. The crowd’s reaction is mixed and some (like Julia Kapatelis, who’s watching on TV) think Hermes is still the same arrogant god who let himself get tricked by Ixion and Phobos. Near Cuba, Wonder Woman and Captain Atom catch the Durlan plane and bring it down. Diana uses her Lasso of Truth to reveal the shape-shifted Durlans and they interrogate him to find out where Steve has been taken. In Boston, Hermes reconstructs the destroyed
buildings using part of his godly power to keep them stable, but he’s jumped by the Creeper, who can’t really hurt Hermes physically but mocks him in front of the crowd to distract him. Using his power to rebuild the city has drained Hermes, which I guess is why he can’t just obliterate the Creeper. In Cuba, Wonder Woman and Captain Atom find the cave where Steve’s being held and split up to look for him. They’re each confronted by Durlans pretending to be the other superhero, but both of them see through the ruses and find Steve. In Boston, 
Hermes blasts Creeper with his Caduceus, which gets the crowd on Creeper’s side. The fight is broken up by Wonder Woman, who’s brought Steve back with her. Hermes tells Wonder Woman what happened and wonders if the people just need more time to get over their anger towards him (time being a foreign concept to a god like Hermes). Creeper starts losing his crazy persona under the influence of Diana’s Lasso, but before anything can come of that, the Gene Bomb goes off, turning the sky black.
Firestorm #81 – “Warbonds” – John Ostrander/Tom Grindberg/Arne Starr, Sam De La Rosa
This one starts with Firestorm having an existential crisis after the big battle with the alien invaders. He’s wondering if fighting is his only reason for existing, since that’s all he seems to do. He splits so Mikhail can check on his family in Moscow (another alien battlefront), but when Mikhail gets home his place is trashed and his wife and kids are missing. When Ronnie gets home to New York, his parents are out doing their own stuff. He gets a visit from Lorraine (Firehawk) Reilly, who tells
him she thinks she might have gotten radiation poisoning when she helped him fight Brimstone. Mikhail finds his family in a makeshift hospital, but Nina is pissed off that he was off playing hero instead of being with them when the aliens attacked. She tells him to get lost and as he’s leaving, he runs into Vikhor (of the teen super-team Soyuz) who tells him his niece Serafina is missing after Soyuz tried to help in the fight against the aliens. Vikhor tells Mikhail how Soyuz were sickened by the brutality of the fighting, so 
they decided to help the innocent people caught in the destruction. Serafina was helping find someone in some rubble when she disappeared. Mikhail tells Vikhor to gather his team while Mikhail summons Firestorm to look for Serafina. Turns out Serafina was grabbed by Stalnoivolk, who was brought out of his coma to fight the aliens. But Stalnoivolk was so out of it he thought he was fighting Nazis in the War and grabbed Serafina without really knowing who she is. When Firestorm shows up, Stalnoivolk does recognize him and attacks. They fight and Firestorm considers killing Stalnoivolk, but Serafina stops him. She uses her mind powers to calm him and put him back to sleep.
Firestorm mentions his problem with having no identity of his own outside of being a superhero summoned at need. Serafina makes him feel better when she tells him she can detect some other essence inside him, something separate from Ronnie, Mikhail, and Professor Stein. Serafina is reunited with Soyuz just as the skies turn black from the Gene Bomb going off.