Wonder Woman #29 – “Bloodvine” – George Perez/Chris Marrinan/Will Blyberg
Last issue, Wonder Woman went to England to retrieve her stolen lasso from Barbara (Cheetah) Minerva, but Cheetah’s servant (Chuma) poisoned Wonder Woman’s tea. As she lays dying, Chuma tells Wonder Woman how Minerva gained the Cheetah powers. She’d led an archaeological expedition into the jungle and run into Chuma’s tribe, who worship a plant god called Uzkartaga. One of the tribe was chosen as Uzkataga’s “bride” and given the powers of the cheetah by drinking the blood of someone she’d killed. Minerva’s
expedition led a rival tribe to Uzkataga’s temple and most of the tribe were slaughtered. Minerva and Chuma ended up trapped inside the collapsed temple with the dead woman who represented the cheetah. Minerva is fascinated by the fact that being the cheetah avatar gave the woman apparent immortality and youth. The only reason she was killed by the rival tribe is because Uzkartaga needs to feed on fresh victims regularly, but people started avoiding the area around the temple. Chuma’s tribe got worried and began feeding their own priests to Uzkartaga, which was sacrilege. That weakened the cheetah avatar enough 
that she could be killed. Minerva wants to undergo the ritual to gain the cheetah powers, but Chuma tells her she needs the blood of someone she’s just killed with her own hands, and her entire expedition (plus the rest of Chuma’s tribe) are already dead. Minerva gets lucky when her colleague Leavens shows up. He uses explosives to free her and Chuma from the ruined temple and she thanks him by killing him and drinking his blood. She undergoes the ritual and is accepted as Uzkartaga’s new “bride”. The rival tribe hears the explosion and returns, only to be slaughtered by Cheetah. In the present, Chuma tells Wonder Woman how he and Minerva brought the plant god back to
England, and how Minerva’s body soon began to deteriorate. Apparently, Uzkartaga only accepts virgin brides and Minerva didn’t qualify, so the sustaining magic isn’t working for her. But breaking the ritual would kill Minerva and Uzkartaga, so she has to periodically change to Cheetah and seek out fresh victims to appease the plant god. Chuma mentions how Minerva became obsessed after attaining the lasso, doing research and almost losing herself in the process. Wonder Woman jumps up and grabs Chuma, letting him know she’s been faking her paralysis all along. (Amazons are apparently masters 
of herbology, so she sniffed out the poison in the tea and avoided drinking it.) Wonder Woman finds a ticket to Egypt in Chuma’s bag and heads straight there to look for Minerva and find her lasso. After fighting through a sandstorm, she follows her instincts into a mosque where she finds the bodies of two dead women. She assumes Cheetah killed them, but is distracted by familiar bracelets on the wrists of the dead women. Her suspicions are confirmed when she’s confronted by some armed (and rather pissed off) Amazons.
Firestorm #84 – “Souls of Fire” – John Ostrander/Tom Grindberg/Sam De La Rosa
Last issue, a strange being called Svarozhich appeared in Russia, apparently created from part of Firestorm’s power, but without any trace of his humanity or morality. When Firestorm came to confront Svarozhich, he absorbed something more from Firestorm, turning him back into Ronnie Raymond and Mikhail Arkadin. Despite not speaking each other’s language, they try to form Firestorm, but Svarozhich takes that as an attack, saying they’re trying to take back his “soul fire”. He decides to kill them and they’re forced to flee into the
subway. Mikhail’s niece Serafina and her teammates in Soyuz show up to distract Svarozhich and almost get themselves killed. Svarozhich doesn’t seem too worried about civilian casualties, as he sends a fireball through the subway tunnel. Ronnie, Mikhail, and Soyuz all get away, but they wonder what to do with Ronnie since he’s now stuck in Russia with no clothes, no identification, and no way to prove how he even got there. Serafina suggests they go to Dmitri (Mikhail’s shady brother) for help. They tell Dmitri everything and Serafina assumes she’ll be able to wipe the knowledge from Dmitri’s 
mind, but it turns out Dmitri has mental powers too (and casually mentions that Mikhail and their other brother share those powers to some degree). Ronnie intimidates Dmitri into backing off when he starts demonstrating his powers on Mikhail and Serafina, and Dmitri says he knows someone who can supply a fake ID to Ronnie. In General Trofimov’s dacha, his daughter Nina (who is Mikhail’s wife) talks to her mother about why neither of them has been in touch. Nina’s father hates Mikhail for his democratic leanings (mainly his support of Andrei Sakharov) and Nina says she also supports Sakharov, so if her mother considers Mikhail a traitor, she’s one too. In Moscow, Dmitri takes Ronnie, Mikhail, and Serafina to see his
mentor, Gregori Rasputin (who hints he might be the original Rasputin, although he doesn’t look nearly as wild). They tell Rasputin about Svaozhich and he asks to hear Firestorm’s origin. Ronnie tells him and Rasputin points out that a nuclear explosion like that should’ve killed Ronnie and Stein instantly … unless there was something else going on that they were unaware of. Rasputin says he can tell Ronnie what really happened when Firestorm was created, but he has to accept that everything he thought he knew about Firestorm is wrong.