Bates, Swan and Roussos conclude the Killer Costume story in Action 384 (Jan. 70).
Superman follows the costumes to the Fortress of Solitude. He puts them on two of his robots, and watches them fight until they destroy each other. Superman refuses to put either costume on. The evil costume then follows him back to the Daily Planet, and wants to advertise itself. It uses Perry White, and goads Clark into putting it on.He does, not realizing that he will not be able to remove it.
The costume forces him to go on a destructive rampage. He manages to put his own suit on over it, but that has no effect.
Perry White proves the big hero. He puts on the other costume, and comes to rescue Superman. Suprrman dons both costumes, and while they struggle to control him, he flies to a planet with an orange sun. Weakened, the costumes can be removed, and dropped into the sun to burn up.
Gotta admit it, the story is definitely better than the covers would imply.
Shooter, Mortimer and Abel tell a very unusual story in this issue.
Dream Girl sees a vision of Mon-El dying, out on a deserted asteroid.
Taking her prophecy seriously, Mon-El takes extra doses of his anti-lead formula, so that he cannot run out.
Mon-El demands to be sent on a mission to Daxam instead of Ultra Boy. Karate Kid agrees, though Shadow Lass is furious that he sent her boyfriend away, with the prophecy hanging over him.
The day the vision forecast arrives, and Mon-El shows up to help the rest of the team battle some alien raiders. But it’s not Mon-El, it’s Eltro Gand, a relative. The news of Mon-El’s forecast death had spread to Daxam, and he took the place of his relative, to keep him safe.
In fact, his actions doomed Mon-El to the very death that Dream Girl saw. Horrified at what he had done, Eltro grabs the body and brings it to the kind of death-transfer machine that was used on Lightning Lad. He sacrifices his life, and brings Mon-El back. Poor Mon-El has no idea what was going on. When he sees Eltro Gand, he doesn’t even know who the guy was.
Eltro Gand is not mentioned again for a very long time. But come the 70s and 80s, Mon-El would go from a stable and reliable character, to one noted for his outbursts and mood swings. In the series from the 90s, it would be revealed that this was the Eltro Gand personality, lying dormant but troubled in Mon-El’s psyche.
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