Justice League America #30 – “Teenage Biker Mega-Death” – Keith Giffen, J. M. De Matteis/Bill Willingham/Joe Rubinstein
Last issue, Big Barda’s car was stolen with her Mega-Rod in the trunk. Barda, Mr. Miracle, and Fire tracked the car to New Jersey where they found the thieves dead and the Mega-Rod missing. They soon found out what happened to it when a street punk blasted Barda and Fire with the Rod. Mr. Miracle tries to reason with the kid, telling him the Rod is basically sentient and will corrupt his soul, but the Rod has already started exerting
its influence, and the punk is pretty receptive to its message of destruction. He blasts Mr. Miracle before booming away with the Rod. He lands in the Bronx, where he blasts a bunch of his old gang members. Huntress is nearby and comes to check it out, but gets blasted herself. The cops show up and the kid goes after them, despite Huntress’s attempts to stop him. Mr. Miracle, Barda, and Fire are tracking the Rod again and Barda is worried it’ll take the kid over completely, leaving nothing but a soul-less husk blindly carrying out Darkseid’s will. They coordinate an attack, trying to disarm the kid, but the Rod gives him 
more power than they can handle. Even though some part of his original personality is still intact (he briefly feels bad about wasting his friends), the Rod makes him take Miracle and Barda down. (The Rod really hates Barda.) Huntress shows up and tells Fire she has a plan, but it depends on Mr. Miracle being able to help. Fire distracts the punk (and finds out that she’s completely non-corporeal in her new flame form), but he manages to take her out. Huntress hits him in the leg with an arrow from her crossbow, which gets his attention. Miracle says the Rod can only counter threats it’s familiar with, and there aren’t a lot of arrows on Apokolips. Before the kid can kill Barda, Huntress puts another arrow in his wrist and he drops the Rod. When the Rod hits the
ground it accidentally (?) goes off, wasting the kid. Miracle is pissed off about that, but Huntress doesn’t seem too broken up about it. Later, Mr. Miracle tells Maxwell Lord how good Huntress is, but lets him know she has no interest in joining the League. Max refuses to accept that and tracks Huntress down in her civilian identity—he seems to know all about her background—and reiterates the offer to join up. At first, she refuses, but she suddenly changes her mind (and even she’s surprised by that), and we see Max’s nose bleeding … which I assume means he used his mental powers to change Huntress’s mind against her will.
Justice League Europe #6 – “No More Teachers’ Dirty Looks” – Keith Giffen, J. M. DeMatteis/Bart Sears/Pablo Marcos
This is a downtime issue (mostly) which features most of the Paris-based Justice League taking a beginners’ French class. The fact that most of them are American and can’t speak French is a source of friction with the people of Paris, so Power Girl, Flash, Captain Atom, Animal Man, and Metamorpho have decided to learn the language as a conciliatory gesture, attending class in their civilian identities. (Ralph and Rocket Red already speak French.) Across town, the members of the latest Injustice
League (who we last saw in Justice League International 23) have decided they need to learn French since their ignorance of the language screwed up a bank robbery for them. Major Disaster, Big Sir, Clock King, Multi-Man, Cluemaster, and a non-powered goof calling himself the Mighty Bruce all agree to take a French class in their civilian guises. Yeah, you can see where this is going. The Leaguers arrive in class first (with four other students) and meet their teacher, Ms. Kessler, who’s very strict. The Injustice League shows up late (which pisses Ms. Kessler off), but one of the heroes or villains recognize each other in their 
civilian clothes. At the Embassy, Sue shows Ralph and Catherine Cobert footage of a local hero called Le Renard Rouge (who we’ll come to know as Crimson Fox). Ralph thinks she’d be a good recruit for the team and Catherine agrees. At school, both teams struggle with French and get suspicious of each other (and the other students in the class). Finally, Major Disaster recognizes Metamorpho (who’s bundled up to avoid freaking anyone out) and tries to alert his teammates to leave quietly by passing a note. At police headquarters, Inspector Camus learns that the Injustice League (who the cops have been watching) are in the same language class as the JLE and he assumes there’s going to be trouble. And he’s right. Ms. Kessler intercepts the note and reads it out loud, blowing the Injustice League’s cover. When the cops show up, the villains try to flee and are attacked by the Leaguers, starting a brawl. Ms.
Kessler puts a stop to it by yelling (she even yells at Inspector Camus when he comes in with a gun) and everyone is arrested. The Injustice League is set to be deported, but the Leaguers are released because of their diplomatic immunity (which gets Captain Atom in trouble with his teammates, since the immunity would’ve kept them from going to jail in the first place … if Captain Atom had known about it. In an epilogue, we see the other “students” in the French class were spies from various countries, sent to check out the European branch of the Justice League. None of them were impressed.
New Titans #58 – “Controls” – Marv Wolfman/George Perez/Tom Grummett
Last issue, Wildebeest attacked the Titans and seemed to know exactly where to find them. After they defeated him, they found out why: it was actually their teammate Cyborg, who’d been dressed up like Wildebeest and brainwashed to attack them. This issue opens with Raven trying to delve into Cyborg’s mind to get him back to normal. He wakes up with a splitting headache, but can’t remember anything of what happened. Starfire worries that Cyborg might’ve hurt Nightwing (who’s been out of contact), but Raven says her mind-probe has
convinced her that Cyborg didn’t go after Nightwing, or any of the inactive team members. They get in touch with Nightwing (who’s at Wayne Manor, as we’ve seen in recent Batman issues) and he lets them know he can’t come back just yet. At Titans’ headquarters, Cyborg finds a micro-transmitter inside the Wildebeest helmet that could’ve been used to control his mind. But his amnesia goes back before the Wildebeest costume was put on him, so how did the real Wildebeest control him before that, and how did he wipe his memory so effectively? When Starfire mentions getting help 
from STAR Labs, Cyborg goes wild and starts smashing stuff. Raven knocks him out and realizes that whatever’s affecting him was inside his head before Wildebeest got hold of him (which Jericho confirms, since he felt another “presence” when he tried to take Cyborg over). Donna points out that STAR might have something to do with Cyborg’s condition, so they decide to take him to the STAR facility in San Francisco, since they trust Sarah Charles and Karen Beecher. They teleport there and let Sarah and Karen know what’s going on. Meanwhile, Danny Chase breaks into CBI headquarters to look for info in their classified files. In San Francisco, Sarah and Karen find that
Cyborg’s motor functions have been tampered with, which means some outside source can control him. Suppressing the control causes him terrible pain, which Raven can only partially relieve. The file on Cyborg’s last repair is classified, but they figure out a scientist named Brewster is involved and Starfire is ready to waste him if he doesn’t help Cyborg. In In CBI headquarters, Danny gets to the file he wants, unaware that he’s being watched the whole time by King Faraday. At STAR Labs, Jericho takes over Brewster, who claims his “modifications” have nothing to do with Cyborg’s mind-control. Brewster claims he can help Cyborg, but needs help from his team. The Titans don’t 
like that, since one of the team could be Wildebeest (or working for him), but Karen changes into Bumblebee and says she’ll help Brewster. At CBI headquarters, Danny gets away with the info he wanted (which has something to do with the Titans), but Faraday thinks he might make a good protege. In San Francisco, Donna, Starfire, and Bumblebee backtrack the signal controlling Cyborg to find Wildebeest, but it turns out to be a trap and they’re caught in an explosion. At the lab, Cyborg’s pain gets worse and Brewster says he has to operate to save his life. Unaware of what’s happened to their teammates, Raven and Jericho agree.