Justice League America #27 – “Mindsnap” – Keith Giffen, J.M. DeMatteis/Ty Templeton/Dick Giordano, Joe Rubinstein
This one starts with Oberon going to Belle Rêve to tell Amanda Waller about Blue Beetle going nuts last issue and trying to kill Max Lord. Waller and Oberon end up getting along (since their abrasive personalities match) and he asks her help in figuring out what’s wrong with Blue Beetle and fixing it. Back at JLA headquarters, Beetle has been confined to Max’s room to keep him from harming anyone (or himself). Beetle tells Batman he can’t remember what happened after receiving the phone call last issue and that there’s a big dark spot in his memory that he’s
afraid to dig into. Batman mentions that someone obviously programmed him to be an assassin, but that they have an expert coming to check him out. Max asks J’onn J’onzz if he could use his mental powers to break through the barriers in Beetle’s mind, but J’onn says he can’t do it without causing major brain damage. Booster Gold and Ice are hanging out, expressing their respective frustrations at not being able to see Beetle and Fire. (We’re still not told exactly what happened to Fire last issue, but it sounds like her powers suddenly went wild and she couldn’t control them.) Waller shows up and tells 
everyone she’ll try to help, but warns they’ll need to give her space and let her do what’s necessary. Batman still doesn’t trust her, but agrees to go along with it. Beetle is scared to find out what his mind’s been blocking, but wants to know what happened before it drives him crazy. Elsewhere, Guy Gardner is frustrated at all the drama and takes out his temper on a litterbug. Waller tells Beetle the phone call he got was from Bialya, which means Queen Bee must be the one who programmed him to be an assassin when he was there a while back. Waller mentions the trigger phrase that set Beetle off over the phone (“Bialya, My Bialya”) which instantly turns him
homicidal again. Waller manages to knock him out, but feels stupid for repeating the words that turned him into an assassin. Waller decides to try hypnosis to get past the mental blocks in Beetle’s brain. Oberon talks to Fire and she apologizes for almost frying him. They bond over their mutual love of Garcia-Marquez. Waller regresses Beetle with hypnosis and he recalls being in Bialya and getting knocked out by gas (along with Booster). He remembers Queen Bee messing with him, but when Waller tries to go deeper, 
Beetle’s brain shuts down. Queen Bee programmed an “Azrael block” into Beetle’s mind so that it would shut down if anyone tried to get through the programming. Beetle ends up comatose and Waller feels guilty, but Batman tells her there was only so much she could do. He goes to get more serious help … from Dr. Fate. We’ll have to wait a couple issues to see that because next issue is all about Guy and Ice going on a date.
Noticeable Things:
- Because of the way surrounding events unfold, this issue has to take place before Suicide Squad 26 and Justice League Europe 1.
- The cover is an homage to The Exorcist.
Justice League Europe #3 – “Another Fine Mess” – Keith Giffen, J.M. DeMatteis/Bart Sears/Pablo Marcos
The last couple of issues have really put the new team to the test: a dying Nazi turned up on their doorstep, muttering something about “braces”; a crowd of Parisians went nuts and stormed the Embassy, forgetting everything afterwards; and when they split up to investigate various neo-Nazi groups, they ran into ex-Global Guardians who accused them of being Nazis and immediately went into comas after being defeated. Captain Atom is determined to find out who’s been discrediting them, but he has to
meet with a local government representative. The rep is actually very pro-Justice League … until he finds out Captain Atom (and most of the others) can’t speak French. Sue has been digging up info on the Global Guardians and suggests that Fire and Ice might be able to shed some light on their ex-teammates’ weird behaviour. They talk to Ice, but she can’t figure out why the ex-Guardians would act so strangely. She does mention that Jack O’Lantern and Owlwoman have allied themselves with Queen Bee in Bialya, which makes Ralph suspicious. Sue finds out that the Guardians’ old headquarters 
(The Dome) is still in Paris and has been turned into a landmark and museum. Instead of telling Captain Atom about their plans, Power Girl suggests they check it out in civilian guise. So she, Ralph, and Wally (Flash) West go to take the museum tour. Back at the Embassy, Catherine Cobert points out to Captain Atom that a team called Justice League Europe has no European members (except Rocket Red), unlike the Global Guardians who truly were a multi-national team. At the Dome, Power Girl, Flash, and Ralph are bored by the guide’s constant praise for the Global Guardians and are just about to leave when
the crowd suddenly turns on them. It’s obvious the crowd is hypnotized (like the ones who attacked the Embassy), but they decide retreat is better than fighting considering all the negative press they’ve gotten lately. They run into Jack O’Lantern on the way out, who admits he set them up, but points out that nobody else will believe it. They fight Jack and thanks to some Bialyan upgrades, he ends up blasting them long enough to get back to the control room where Owlwoman is waiting. They set off a self-destruct and take off. Outside, the rest of the League have arrived, but the locals (including 
Inspector Camus) are against them thanks to the hypnotized civilians claiming that the three Leaguers attacked the Dome and were fought off by the heroic Jack O’Lantern. Power Girl brings the other two out and starts arguing with Captain Atom about being there without authorization. Their spat is interrupted when the Dome explodes, which the League are blamed for, naturally. Later, Captain Atom tells Catherine that he’s tired of being manipulated and that it’s time to strike back.
Legion of Super-Heroes #61 – “Will Magic or Science Prevail?” – Paul Levitz/Keith Giffen/Al Gordon
Last issue, Sensor Girl received a message from Sorcerer’s World that technology was soon going to fail and give way to magic. It’s already happening and we see the results as this story begins. All over Earth technology is failing, causing disasters and inciting riots. Tellus points out that Earth may be too dependent on technology and Ultra Boy agrees, saying that Earth has been taken off its life-support system and is now dying. When he sees Science Police using force to stop rioters Ultra Boy gets pissed off, but
Bouncing Boy reminds him that the Police have to stop the riots somehow. At Legion HQ, COMPUTO goes offline but some of the tech is still working. Sensor Girl puts out a call to all Legionnaires for help. Some of them are already busy, like Shrinking Violet who’s opening a stuck pipe in the aquifer that supplies fresh water to Metropolis. In California at the Museum of Mystic Arts, a crowd has gathered to force Antonio Stefanacci to use magic to fix things. But Stefanacci has no idea how to use magic properly, or why magic seems to have supplanted technology. Saturn Girl uses telepathy to calm the crowd and 
Sensor Girl shows up to tell Stefanacci and the others about the message she got from Sorcerer’s World. Sensor Girl tells Sarvisa (who brought the message) that she was once Projectra of Orando and is familiar with magic. She suggests Stefanacci use his new ability to manipulate magic to restore things to the way they were before, with help from Sarvisa. The other Legionnaires are skeptical, but don’t have much choice. At first, Stefanacci’s spell seems to work, but things regress quickly because Stefanacci is still getting used to his powers and Sarvisa doesn’t know enough about science to restore things properly. Sensor Girl has Saturn Girl link Sarvisa and Stefanacci to Sun
Boy’s mind, since he’s the most scientifically-minded Legionnaire now that Brainiac 5 is gone. With Sun Boy’s grasp of science, Sarvisa and Stefanacci are able to restore technology to Earth, but Sensor Girl says the problem extends far beyond one planet. We get vignettes of other Legionnaires and Science Police helping with damage control and recovery efforts. Across the galaxy, Shadow Lass is disappointed that the doctors on Verzwei couldn’t cure Mon-El, but as they’re leaving the anti-tech thing hits their ship, crippling it and turning off Mon-El’s life support. At the museum, Sensor Girl holds a séance to contact the spirits of the dead for more info. She reaches Karate Kid, Invisible Kid, 
Ferro Lad, and Chemical King, but the séance is interrupted by the Emerald Eye of Ekron, which is still pissed off about Sensor Girl killing Emerald Empress. The Eye blocks any further attempt to contact the spirit world, so Sarvisa suggests they go to Sorcerer’s World (and contact White Witch for help). Sensor Girl says they have to do something soon, or it’ll be too late. Throughout this issue, we get interludes of the menacing figure from last issue digging his way up from far underground. At the end of this issue, he emerges from the ground looking very evil. We can’t really see who it is, but I’m guessing it’s Mordru since he had been buried previously (and it seems to be Sorcerer’s World where he emerges).
New Titans #55 – “Transition” – Marv Wolfman/George Perez/Romeo Tanghal
This issue deals with the Titans’ return to Earth after their sojourn into space to restore the Greek Titans to immortality. Donna (Wonder Girl) Long tells her husband Terry about the trip and how the Titans took Sparta with them to heal her spirit. The Titans gave Donna a parting gift, but she hasn’t opened it yet. Donna is surprised to find Terry’s ex-wife (Marcia) at their place. Apparently, Marcia and their daughter Jennifer have been staying over at Donna and Terry’s place—in the spare room, of course—while Donna was gone. Marcia passive-aggressively tells Donna that she needs to give Terry a kick in the ass to
motivate him or he’ll never accomplish anything. At STAR Labs, scientists are reconstructing Victor (Cyborg) Stone’s body, although they seem to be treating him more like a machine than a person. His internal computers recorded the Titans’ farewell with Athyns, who took Xanthi’s body back to his home planet for burial. Dick (Nightwing) Grayson and Starfire visit Jason Todd’s grave and Dick wonders why Batman didn’t let him know about Jason’s death. He decides to go see Bruce and Starfire worries about how hard he’s taking the whole thing. We get a flashback to the Titans returning to their 
headquarters and Danny Chase telling them about Jason’s death. Danny is pretty cavalier about it, having been conditioned by his spy training not to get too emotional about losing colleagues. Dick gets pissed off and attacks him, giving him shit for his casual attitude. In the present, Raven tries to talk to Danny, but he repeats what he said about not getting emotionally involved and wonders if the Titans are “professional” enough for him to associate with. Dick goes to see Bruce, but he freaks out when Dick brings up Jason. Bruce decks Dick, saying he should never have operated with a partner and never will again. Starfire goes to see Donna at a hairdresser’s, where Donna is getting her
hair cut short to reflect the recent change in her attitude towards herself after finding out she was raised in space by the Greek Titans. Having been fully rebuilt, Victor heads out to San Francisco to spend some time with Sarah Charles. Gar (Changeling) Logan is told by his adopted father Steve Dayton that he’s going to be sent to public school ad that until his grades improve, he won’t be allowed to do anything with the Titans. Jericho gets home to find numerous messages from models he’s painted, all of whom seem to have the hots for him (though he doesn’t show much interest in any of them). Back at 
headquarters, Donna unveils her new haircut, her new costume, and her new superhero name … Troia. The costume incorporates various gifts from the Greek Titans that they gave Donna before she left. After everyone finishes admiring Donna’s new look, Dick tells everyone the real reason he called this meeting. He announces that Victor will be gone for a few weeks, and Logan will be gone until his grades improve (which could take a while), then drops the big bombshell … he’s kicking Danny out of the group. Not just because of his shitty attitude, but because having someone so young involved in their adventures could lead to tragedy, like it did with Jason Todd. Danny
pretends he doesn’t care and takes off, even though some of the others tried to change Dick’s mind. From what I know about the way fans feel about Danny Chase, I’m thinking most of them were happy to see him go.
Noticeable Things:
- Dick says that he worked with Batman for “almost twelve years”, which would make him about 21 or 22 if he was 10 when he started (which seems to be the consensus). Logan is said to be 17 here (which fits with his history), but later writers try to de-age him by a few years.