Comics Reviews: New Titans 62, Legion 3, Suicide Squad 37

New Titans 62 coverNew Titans #62 – “Titan Plague” – Marv Wolfman/Tom Grummett/Al Vey

This one starts with the Titans (Troia, Raven, Jericho, Speedy, Starfire, and Cyborg) wading through the sewers looking for some mysterious beasts that have been killing people in a particularly grisly way. They get ambushed by the beasts (which kinda look like werewolves) and they soon find themselves in trouble. Troia and Jericho are taken out quickly and Speedy’s arrow doesn’t slow theDeathstroke fights mercs beast at all. Speedy gets tossed into Raven, almost losing his soul inside her. Cyborg and Starfire are left to face the two werewolves, but they’re surprised by a burst of light. We get a flashback to a couple of months ago, with Deathstroke (aka the Terminator) being chased by mercenaries in Africa. He takes most of them down, but returns to his house to find it burnt and his majordomo (Wintergreen) almost dead. Naturally, he vows revenge. In the present, the Titans gather at the hospital (including Changeling, who got permission from his father Steve Dayton to come visit), where Troia is in intensive care. The werewolf Raven helps Troiabite didn’t give her lycanthropy, but it did put some kind of poison into her blood. Raven uses her powers to draw the poison into herself so the doctors can derive an antidote without putting Troia in worse danger. The plan works and both Raven and Troia are cured of the poison. Later, Deathstroke shows up at a mansion in Greenwich looking for one of the guys who tried to have him killed (Lanier). But Changeling and Dayton are at the party and Changeling tries to stop Deathstroke from wasting Lanier. The distraction allows Lanier to transform into a wererat and slice Deathstroke’s face. In the confusion, Deathstroke and thewererat attacks Deathstroke wererat both get away, so Changeling goes to let the Titans know what happened. Since it seems to tie in with their own case, Dayton gives Changeling permission to work with his old teammates until the problem is resolved. (Dayton had forced Changeling to quit the Titans to concentrate on his studies.) The Titans have realized that their adversaries aren’t just mindless animals, but now that they know that, the were-creatures want to destroy them all.

Legion of Super-Heroes 3 coverLegion of Super-Heroes #3 – (No Title) – Tom and Mary Bierbaum/Keith Giffen/Al Gordon

This one starts with Mordu torturing Rond Vidar (whose Green Lantern ring he’s taken) and getting reports from a squad of blind telepaths. The telepaths have been keeping track of various ex-members of the Legion (we get glimpses of Dream Girl, Sun Boy, Element Lad, Dawnstar, Polar Boy, Star Boy, Brainiac 5, and Chameleon Boy) and they tell Mordru that the Legion seems to be contemplating getting back together. Mordru discontinues his torture of Vidar to turn his attention to this new threat. On Winath, Garth and Imra Ranzz (formerly Lightning Lad and Saturn Girl) areAyla and Vi on Winath running a produce business, but they have a bit of a setback when an asteroid holding a large shipment of their crop suddenly disappears. It looks like Garth’s brother Mekt (who used to be his worst enemy, Lightning Lord) is working for him now, but it doesn’t seem like Mekt had anything to do with the missing asteroid. Elsewhere on Winath, Ayla Ranzz and Salu Digby (Lightning Lass and Shrinking Violet) go to a secret spot in the forest where they find the memorials to dead Legionnaires that used to be in the Hall of Heroes at Legion Headquarters. Judging from their dialogue, Ayla and Vi are definitely a couple at this point, meeting with Joalthough the fact that they’re walking around naked together doesn’t mean anything … apparently everyone goes nude on Winath. On Rimbor, Chameleon Boy and Rokk (Cosmic Boy) Krinn meet with Jo Nah (aka Ultra Boy), who’s been eking out an existence as a smuggler. They’re unaware that one of Mordu’s blind minions is eavesdropping on them telepathically. On Earth, some Dominators are worried about the Legion re-forming, so they’ve hired someone to screw things up. That someone is Roxxas, the terrorist who wiped out the entire population of Trom, Element Lad’s home planet. We find Roxxas torturing and killing Blok, whose spirit journeys back to his home planetRoxxas kills Blok where he meets his “sister”, Strata. Blok’s spirit journeys into the planet’s core and he crumbles to dust. Shvaughn Erin hears the news about Blok and puts it on the Net, even though she’s pretty broken up about it. Mordu’s telepath has overheard Rokk, Cham, and Jo talking about finding Mysa Nal (White Witch), so Mordu figures he’d better prepare for a magic battle. On Winath, Cham and Jo discuss bringing Jo’s associate Kono onto the team. Roxas sends Blok’s remains to Lightning Lad, who decides to take them to Shanghalla, the cemetery asteroid. Meanwhile, the Dominators worry that Roxxas’s Mon-El back demented taunting of the Legionnaires will end up backfiring on them, so they start planning how to cover their asses. There are a couple of news reports at the end explaining about the Ranzz business interests on Winath, how Mekt was (supposedly) rehabilitated, and how Garth and Imra’s son Garridan had some disfiguring disease—the Validus Plague—that swept the planet. And there’s an epilogue on Shanghalla that makes it look like Lar Gand (aka Mon-El) has come back from the dead.

Suicide Squad 37 coverSuicide Squad #37 – “Threads” – John Ostrander, Kim Yale/John K. Snyder III/Geoff Isherwood

This one starts with Amanda Waller and the Squad returning from Apokolips with the bodies of Flo, Dr. Light, and Count Vertigo. One of the staff notices that Vertigo isn’t quite dead, so he’s rushed to the infirmary. John has a hard time processing Flo’s death, so Nightshade helps him. Poison Ivy and Deadshot both decide to stick around instead of going back to Arkham Asylum. We see Dr. Light’s spirit still being tormented by the spirit of his predecessor (who basically talked him into sacrificing himself last issue).pie attack The Forever People give Barda a lift home and we see that Shade has returned to Meta, although he feels guilty about Flo’s death and swears to make up for it some day. Amanda makes arrangements for Flo’s funeral. Flo was her niece and Amanda’s sister blames her for Flo’s death, barring her from attending the service. Amanda, who’s lost children of her own, understands. We see Wild Huntsman (still in a coma) has been transferred to Belle Rêve and the mad pie thrower strikes again, prompting Murphy to step up his investigation and put an end to that. Bronze Tiger and Vixen head to Washington to see Moscow meetingSarge Steel, who may throw Bronze Tiger out of the Squad for disobeying orders and going to Apokolips. In Moscow, the Russians have decided to form their own equivalent of Checkmate (called Red Shadows), headed by Zastrow. He chooses Stalnoivolk as his first recruit, despite—or maybe because of—Stalnoivolk’s old-school hardline attitude. In New Orleans, we see members of the Loa (a sort of voodoo mafia) taking down some rivals and discussing what to do about Suicide Squad. The leader (Damballah) says they don’t want to be too overt, so he suggests using a subtler method to destroy Waller and the Squad. At Belle Rêve, the Squad finds a bunch of pies inBoomerang confesses Punch’s locker and assumes he’s the pie thrower, but Murphy uses logic to determine who the real culprit is … Captain Boomerang, who used a boomerang to pie himself to throw off suspicion. Boomerang admits it, thinking there’s not much Waller can do other than kick him off the team (which he wants). But Waller takes him out to a deserted island twenty miles off the Australian coast and dumps him there. When she gets back to Belle Rêve, she’s immediately pied by Murphy.