JLA #242 – “Battle Cry” – Gerry Conway/George Tuska/Mike Machlan
This one starts with Aquaman scouring the Atlantic Ocean for his estranged wife Mera, hoping to reconcile with her. Which is nice, but the JLA could really use his help too. They’re in the Yukon, looking for Amazo who seems to have absorbed the personality (and anger) of a local asshole named Jake MacGregor. J’onn J’onzz has split the team (never a wise move) to cover more ground. Ralph (Elongated Man) Dibny and Gypsy are looking near a river. While Ralph does his human periscope impersonation, Gypsy wishes she was back
in the city and has to fight off a grizzly bear. Their day gets even worse when a pissed-off Amazo finds them. Not far away, Zatanna and Steel hear the sounds of battle and look in on the fight courtesy of Zatanna’s magic. Steel takes off to help Ralph and Gypsy, leaving Zatanna to signal the others. Vixen and Vibe aren’t too far away and Vixen is loving being in the wilderness. Vibe on the other hand is even more ill-at-ease in the outdoors than Gypsy, especially since he has hay fever. They get Zatanna’s signal and head off to find her. Back at their landing site, J’onn and Dale Gunn are just waking up (after being pounded by Amazo last issue) and Dale drags J’onn into the river to hasten 
his recovery. That gives J’onn an idea of what’s going on with Amazo. We check in with Aquaman, who finally finds Mera (and it turns out she’s been waiting for him to show up). In the Yukon, Steel runs into Amazo but isn’t prepared to fight a one-man Justice League and gets his ass kicked. Zatanna finds Vixen and Vibe, but Amazo finds all of them and captures them using invisibility and super-speed. Zatanna realizes that Jake MacGregor’s personality has completely taken over Amazo’s android body and is controlling him. On an island in the Atlantic, Aquaman and Mera are making up with a long-overdue talk (and some sex). In the Yukon, J’onn and Dale fly north in the JLA plane, heading for Superman’s Fortress of Solitude where Amazo was confined before his recent escape. J’onn has a theory about how Amazo
escaped and thinks it might help recapture him. Dale’s worried about the rest of the team (who they can’t talk to because J’onn’s signal ring was broken in Amazo’s attack), but J’onn is sure they’ll follow his orders not to engage Amazo in combat, only to observe. Too bad Amazo didn’t get those orders, because he’s definitely engaged the others in combat … in fact, he’s captured them, bound and gagged them, and thrown them in a hole in the ground. While blathering on about “claim jumpers” (MacGregor’s personality obviously), Amazo places a huge rock over the hole, trapping the five JLAers underground. We’ll see how they get out next issue.
Legion of Super-Heroes #14 – “Unto the New Generation” – Paul Levitz/Steve Lightle/Larry Mahlstedt
This issue is all about picking new members for the Legion after Lightning Lad, Cosmic Boy, and Saturn Girl recently decided to retire. There are five spots open and we see a number of students from the Legion academy undergoing tests to gauge their worth. Power Boy (Jed Rikane) lives up to his name by lifting Colossal Boy and even manages to recover when Timber Wolf tries to complicate things. The other candidates include Magnetic Kid (Cosmic Boy’s brother), Comet Queen (still talking like a 30th Century Valley Girl), Tellus (a Xerian alien), Energy Boy (who seems to be hitting on Jed), Mentalla (who’s from Saturn and has mental powers), plus a couple of
others whose names we don’t get. Jed is rejected, but Tellus, Magnetic Kid, and Comet Queen make it through the qualifiers to the next round of testing. Mentalla demonstrates her powers, which are a bit different from Saturn Girl’s: Mentalla is more about mind-control than mind-reading, which could come in handy as a Legionnaire. As part of their testing, Tellus, Magnetic Kid, and Comet Queen are sent with Brainiac 5 and Mon-El to help in California, where part of the coast (now an artificial conglomeration of peninsulas, bridges, and drainage systems) has collapsed. While Comet Queen rescues civilians, Magnetic Kid helps Mon-El raise the collapsed structure. Tellus 
(who’s both telepathic and telekinetic) tries to help; his telekinesis doesn’t work, but he does pick up a stray thought about the collapse being sabotage instead of an accident. Back at Headquarters, the Legionnaires discuss the candidates and Mentalla doesn’t seem to have many fans. Energy Boy shows off his powers, but gets upstaged by Polar Boy, who wants to join the Legion now that the Substitutes have been disbanded. Not far away, R.J. Brande is meeting with Lightning Lad, Saturn Girl, and Cosmic Boy and giving them shit for leaving the Legion (which they founded). They assure him they’ll be keeping an eye on things and point out that Lightning Lass and Magnetic Kid will be obvious replacements for their power sets. Saturn Girl has an idea on who she wants
to take her place, but we don’t hear who it is; the obvious choices would be the telepaths Mentalla and Tellus. In California, Tellus uses his telepathy to track the saboteur and they arrive just as another portion of the coast is collapsing. This time, Dev-Em is on the scene and he’s back to being an asshole. He’s not impressed by the Legion recruits, but claims to know where the saboteur is. It turns out to be another Dark Circle clone (of Ontiir) using a gimmicked-up “weapon chair” to cause the disasters, which really pisses Dev-Em off. He has to stow his anger for the moment, when the ersatz Ontiir uses his sabotage machine to generate a tidal wave. Dev-Em heads out to stop the tsunami, while Ontiir blasts the others. Brainy’s force field protects him, 
but before he and Ontiir can engage, a tiny spaceship zooms in and attacks Ontiir. It’s another Legion applicant, an explorer from a microverse named Quislet, who wants to join the Legion because he thinks it’ll be fun. Quislet shoots himself (apparently he can inhabit and alter inanimate objects) into Ontiir’s weapon chair, taking it over and making it go crazy. Ontiir gets blasted by his own chair and Quislet goes back to his miniature spaceship, leaving all the Legionnaires quite impressed. (Apparently, anything Quislet inhabits will disintegrate, so he can only spend a short time inside any
object other than his ship.) Back at Headquarters, the assembled team discuss the candidates and narrow them down to six: Comet Queen, Magnetic Kid, Polar Boy, Quislet, Mentalla, and Tellus. Saturn Girl interrupts the debate to propose another candidate, Sensor Girl. Sensor Girl wears a mask and nobody knows who she is, but Saturn Girl vouches for her, saying she has a very good reason for joining. (It’ll be a while before we find out who Sensor Girl is, so I won’t spoil the surprise here.) In the end, they pick Sensor Girl, polar Boy, Magnetic kid, Tellus, and Quislet; too bad for Mentalla and Comet Queen, but we’ll see them again in future issues.
Tales of the Teen Titans #57 – “A: The End of Cyborg, B: New York Nightmare, C: None of the Above” – Marv Wolfman/Chuck Patton/Romeo Tanghal
This one starts at STAR Labs with Dr. Jenet Klyburn removing the bandages after Victor (Cyborg) Stone’s operation last issue to change his metal form to a more human-looking plastic body. Vic is thrilled to see the operation worked and he now looks fully human on the outside. In their New Jersey hideout, the Fearsome Five are examining the prisoner they liberated last issue (Jinx) and figuring out how to release her from her restraints. At Titans’ headquarters, Nightwing, Starfire, and Wonder Girl are still hurting from
their fight with the Fearsome Five last issue and they don’t feel any better when Gar (Changeling) Logan tells them about the Five springing Jinx from prison, but holds back about his confrontation with Terminator (and ends up getting an eyeful when Starfire gets out of the hot tub). At STAR Labs, Victor has to go through some intensive physical therapy to adjust to his new body, so Klyburn introduces him to a therapist named Sarah Charles. She’s like a drill sergeant, pushing Victor to his limit (and beyond) and forcing him to adapt to his new body. In Jersey, Jinx is freed and immediately 
attacks the Fearsome Five with her sorcerous powers. Psimon breaks her contact with the ground (negating her sorcery) and telepathically tells her why they freed her from prison … they want to recruit her to the team. The Five also freed someone else (from STAR Labs) last issue, someone in a lead-shielded container. Now they need to figure out how to release him and Gizmo suggests they kidnap Dr. Klyburn and force her to do it. At Titans’ headquarters, the team spars to test their abilities and Starfire goes overboard, getting a little too into the fight and almost blasting her boyfriend Nightwing. At STAR Labs, the Fearsome Five show up to grab Dr. Klyburn and Victor (who’s still not used to his new body) gets slapped down easily. The Five
don’t recognize him as Cyborg and he convinces them he’s Dr. Klyburn’s assistant and they need to take him too. Sarah calls the Titans to let them know what happened and they go out to look for the Fearsome Five, but spend two days without results. They get a call from a cop (Captain Hall) who tells them the Fearsome Five are preparing to make some kind of big announcement. At their Jersey hideout, the Five are waiting for Victor and Klyburn to free the guy they took from STAR Labs (who turns out to be Neutron, last seen in Action 543). Vic and Klyburn have been stalling while they rigged 
Neutron’s container to explode when opened. The explosion catches the Fearsome Five off-guard, giving Victor and Klyburn time to take off. As they’re running away, Victor’s new plastic parts start melting from the intense heat generated by his servo-motors. Psimon tells the others to forget Klyburn and Victor since the explosion freed Neutron from his casing. Psimon sends a mental projection to the mayor’s press conference telling him (and everyone else) that unless New York City is turned over to the Fearsome Five within the hour, the whole city will be destroyed.
New Teen Titans #12 – “Sins of the Past” – Marv Wolfman/Stan Woch/Romeo Tanghal
This one reads as a bit of a filler, sort of a combination murder mystery/ghost story. It starts with Dick (Nightwing) Grayson in his new apartment wondering about Starfire’s increasing aggressive tendencies. He’s startled by a girl appearing from nowhere, skipping rope and chanting a rhyme that makes it clear she knows his secret identity. He vanishes without a trace and Dick realizes she was dressed like a kid from the 30s. Not far away, Victor (Cyborg) Stone runs across a murder in progress. He pounds the killers, but it’s too late for the victim, a guy named Rosetti who was supposed to spill his guts about the
Mob. Cyborg sees the same girl Dick did and she vanishes into thin air again. Captain Hall tells Cyborg that Rosetti confessed to a couple of murders way back in the 30s and now was ready to implicate a bunch of other mobsters, which is probably why he was silenced. Cyborg recognizes the address of Rosetti’s decades-old murders as Dick’s place and tries to call him. He can’t reach Dick, but gets ahold of Jericho and tells him there might be something up. The next day, the Titans talk to various people in Dick’s apartment building who were around in the 30s. They learn Dick’s apartment was once occupied by the Cannon family (including a girl named Cynthia), who were 
apparently murdered … except the bodies were never found, just a lot of blood. Now the apartment is supposedly haunted, which is why it was available when Dick came around. Rosetti was involved in show business back then, so they talk to Cyborg’s grandparents and find out Rosetti was mobbed up and disappeared in 1933. They head to Rosetti’s current address to poke around and find a New Jersey phone number that leads them to a farm owned by a Congressman named Withers. He tells them about his first wife, who was a mobster and only married him to use his political connections. Cannon was her (legitimate) accountant who accidentally found out about her illegal activities and threatened to go to the cops. She killed Cannon and his family
(when Rosetti refused) and made the bodies disappear. Withers has been keeping this secret for fifty years, but Nightwing tells him it’s time the Cannons got justice, so Withers gives him the name of his ex-wife. It turns out to be Donna Omicidio, who we’ve seen in past issues and the Titans bring her in. The Titans find the Cannons’ skeletons behind the walls of Dick’s apartment and Cynthia’s ghost appears one last time to thank them for putting her family to rest.