Justice League America #32 – “Breaking Point” – Keith Giffen, J.M. DeMatteis/Adam Hughes/Art Nichols
This continues the JLA/JLE crossover from last month, when the two teams were called to a village in Eastern Europe because most of the population had turned into vampires … or something resembling vampires, at least. After some indecisive skirmishes, daylight drove the “vampires” into hiding and the teams took up a defensive posture around the village. But we saw that the Gray Man (who’s supposed to harvest dream essence from dying souls for the Lords of Order) was behind this scheme,
manipulating a nebbish named Irwin Teasdale into changing the people into monsters (which has something to do with a canister of chemicals stolen from Stagg Industries, against whom Teasdale apparently holds quite the grudge). This issue opens with Teasdale taking the canister to a rooftop and catapulting it into the League camp. The Leaguers are either immune or wearing protective suits, but the NATO troops stationed with them aren’t so lucky; they immediately start turning into vampires (or zombies, depending on your definition). Batman has deduced that the transformations are from a toxin, 
but that knowledge doesn’t help against the ravening horde, so the League has to retreat. They’re at a loss as to what to do, when Simon Stagg shows up to let them know the zombie-toxin was stolen from his factory a few miles away and he figures the horde will head there next. Metamorpho is ready to kill Stagg for screwing things up between him and Sapphire (as we saw in issue 5), but Batman and J’onn know they’ll probably need Stagg’s help to stop the zombie horde. Teasdale is leading the horde toward the chemical plant and we get a recap of Teasdale’s origin. He was a chemist working for Stagg, studying porphyria (a real-life disease that may have given rise to the legends of vampires and werewolves) when he mutated it so it could not only turn
people into zombies, but make them extremely suggestible. Stagg thought it would be worth a fortune and ordered Teasdale to test it in a remote location in Europe. The test was successful (although the people affected would eventually die from the mutated disease), but naturally Stagg betrayed Teasdale and tried to have him killed. TheGray Man saved Teasdale in exchange for his help harvesting souls so he could break free of the Lords of Order. Speaking of which, Spectre and Dr. Fate are in another dimension to ask the Lords of Order for help, but the Lords don’t really care what the Gray Man does, saying it’s 
a problem for humanity to sort out. Fate and Spectre are both adamant that Gray Man needs to be stopped, with or without the Lords’ help. The League goes to Stagg’s factory to defend it against the oncoming horde, but J’onn and Captain Atom know Stagg’s story about Teasdale having a personal vendetta against him is bullshit. Stagg is obviously hiding something and we see what it is: he has huge tanks of the zombie toxin inside the factory, which is probably what Teasdale is after. Teasdale shows up and orders his slavering horde to attack the plant.
Justice League Europe #8 – “Showdown” – Keith Giffen, J. M. DeMatteis/Bart Sears/Bob Smith
This continues from the above story, with Teadale’s horde surrounding the factory and the Leaguers waiting to see what they do. Teasdale and the Gray Man make their way through the crowd (and phase right through the electric fence), and Batman orders everyone to let them enter the plant, not wanting anyone to come into contact with a Gray Man. Stagg finally admits there’s more toxin inside the plant. Teasdale and Gray Man find the huge vats of toxin and Gray Man tells Teasdale he should think about conquering the world, not just getting revenge on Stagg. Dr. Fate
shows up, but Gray Man ignores her and tells Teasdale to call the horde in. He does and they all get electrocuted on the fence, which allows Gray Man to absorb not only their dream essences, but their entire souls. (Apparently that’s a side-effect of the toxin or something.) Gray Man grows to gigantic size, busting through the roof and yammering about ruling the cosmos and becoming more powerful than the Lords of Order and Chaos put together. The two Justice League teams attack him and Power Girl is slapped away and goes flying out of sight. J’onn and Rocket Red take the toxin vats out of Gray Man’s reach and Dr. Fate manages to channel enough magical energy to hurt him, but 
that just pisses him off even more. Gray Man stomps Teasdale into paste and Stagg and Java take off in the chopper. Gray Man is getting ready to kill Dr. Fate when Spectre shows up with a Lord of Order and a Lord of Chaos. Gray Man’s boasts (and his unprecedented power-up) have united the two opposing forces of the cosmos. They drain all his power and basically lobotomize him, sending him out to collect dream essence like before, but this time without any trace of humanity left in him. They’re pissed off about Stagg getting away and when they find Power Girl, she’s pretty banged up (probably because Gray Man was infused with magical energy) and has to be taken to hospital.
Captain Atom blames himself, but Catherine Cobert tells him Power Girl knew the risks and took them willingly (and Catherine seems to be flirting with Captain Atom again). We get an epilogue with Wally (Flash) West sitting with Power Girl in the hospital, talking to he like an actual person for once; too bad she’s unconscious and can’t hear him.
New Titans #60 – “Roots” – Marv Wolfmam/George Perez/Bob McLeod
This is the second part of the “Lonely Place of Dying” storyline, which takes place after Batman 440 and before Batman 441 (even though it came out the same month). This one starts with the Titans looking everywhere for Dick (Nightwing) Grayson, who seems to have dropped off the face of the Earth. A few of them go to Dick’s old apartment and find out that someone has been rifling through his safe … someone who apparently knows his secret identity. (Of course, since I’ve already reviewed Batman 441, we know it was Tim Drake.) We see where
Dick went: to visit the Haly Circus, where he once worked as an acrobat with his parents, before they were killed by Anthony Zucco to blackmail Haly into giving him a piece of the action. Dick heard the Circus was shutting down and came to check things out. He’s recognized by one of the elephants and some of the workers. Dick sees a lot of familiar faces, including a clown named Harry, who’s hammered out of his mind. Dick talks to Haly, who tells him profits have been way down so he wants to sell to a big company, but a series of “accidents” lately have made the circus less attractive to the buyer, driving 
the price way down. Dick wanders around and interrupts a fight between an animal trainer (Wilhelm) and Harry, the drunken clown. Wilhelm’s contract says he can leave if the circus is sold, so he’s pissed off that Harry seems to be sabotaging the sale (which Harry denies). Later, we see Tim Drake in the audience, looking for Dick. Tim’s quite the detective, figuring out that Dick would be in disguise and narrowing it down to him being one of the clowns. When a tiger attacks Wilhelm, Dick (who is dressed as a clown) uses a trapeze net to subdue the cat. But Wilhelm is dead, which pretty much ends the chance of the circus being sold, since the insurance company cancels their policy. Dick knows something funny is going on and snoops around. He runs into Tim, who shows him one of Harry’s booze bottles from
the garbage, telling Dick Harry must’ve doped the tiger to make it more vicious. (Tim also displays a casual knowledge of Dick’s secret identity.) Dick doesn’t believe Harry would kill anyone, so he disguises himself as Harry and finds out the midget and the strongman are the ones behind all the accidents. They were working for the company buying the circus and were trying to drive the price down. Dick captures them (with a little help from Tim) and becomes co-owner of the circus so it can keep going. Tim shows Dick the photos he took of Batman fighting Ravager last issue, saying that Batman’s losing it and needs Dick’s help … not as Nightwing, as Robin.
Legion of Super-Heroes #1 – (No Title) – Tom and Mary Bierbaum/Keith Giffen/Al Gordon
This new iteration of the Legion takes place five years after the end of the last series (October of 2994 according to the news feed), so there have been many changes in the status quo which will become clear as the series goes on. (To keep things easier for searches, I’ll be referring to this series as simply “Legion” in the titles, and as “Legion (1989)” in the tags.) It starts with a series of news reports about current events, including arrests of anti-government terrorists, believed to be in league with Khundish spies and led by Universo. We also see a news interview with Dirk Morgna (Sun Boy), who’s now a government liaison
(and doesn’t have much good to say about the now-dissolved Legion). We see Chameleon Boy has been watching the news on an illegal hookup, but he decides it’s time to stop watching from the sidelines and act. He contacts a guy named Marla to turn over the reins of the company his father (R.J. Brande) owned, moving asteroids and planets around. Marla knows exactly what Chameleon Boy is planning … and I think we can make a pretty good guess. On Braal, Rokk Krinn and Lydda Jath (Cosmic Boy and Night Girl) are living together and Lydda is pregnant. Rokk’s having nightmares about fighting in 
a war, specifically at a place called Venado Bay. Braal is kind of a shithole, but Lydda refuses to leave and when Rokk starts blaming himself for the Legion’s demise, she reminds him the Legion was forced to disband. Rokk goes out to see an old friend named Loomis and has more traumatic memories of Venado Bay. Out in space, Salu Digby (Shrinking Violet) is released from the stockade and promised an honourable discharge as long as she keeps quiet about what really happened at Venado Bay. She refuses, saying that what the Imskians did was wrong. Sounds like Imsk and Braal fought some kind of war and both Shrinking Violet and Cosmic Boy were in it. Since she refuses to keep quiet, Salu is
dishonourably discharged and sent home. On the way, she writes to Ayla Ranzz and it’s pretty obvious the two of them are a couple (or were before the war). On Braal, Rokk talks to Loomis and gets a surprise when Chameleon Boy shows up to tell him what he’s planning. Yes, he wants to get the Legion back together, but Rokk thinks he won’t be of any help since he’s lost his magnetic powers. Cham convinces him that his leadership is needed, not his powers. Braal has been occupied by Imskians (I guess Braal lost the war), so Rokk wants to get Lydda off-planet before the baby comes. Cham’s connections can get her to Kathoon 
(along with Loomis) and Rokk agrees to help Cham re-form the Legion. We get an epilogue of two voices in a dark room discussing some terrible crime (one of the voices has just been sprung from prison on Labyrinth) and how they want to take up where they left off. (This turns out to be the terrorist Roxxas and a Dominator agent.) There are also some vintage news reports from previous years filling in some of the blanks on how things ended up like this. Apparently, there was a Collapse in the overall economy of United Planets in 2989, caused by numerous factors. The Khunds took advantage and started encroaching on U.P. territory. The Legion ended up being blamed and hounded with bureaucracy until Polar Boy (the leader at the time) finally dissolved it in 2992.