Action 615 – Green Lantern at the trade show, Blackhawk and Wild Dog return, Nightwing suspects Speedy, and Black Canary finds a body

Is it the cover of Action 615?  Or an ad for a new Friday the 13th movie?

Peter David is joined by Richard Howell and Arne Starr as Hal begins a storyline centred on the Hawkes sisters.

Arisia is working a trade show, and Hal is wandering around, amusing himself.  Veronica Hawkes debuts, but we only see her briefly, and from behind.

Two new villains attack the trade show, part of a group called the Freak Show.  Castle has powers I really like, teleporting and exchanging places with someone else.

Castle is fairly skilled at using this to manipulate an opponent, and traps Green Lantern in a yellow vault.

Marty Paske and Rick Burchett bring Blackhawk back, as Janos runs into Natalie Reed, the former actress with communist affiliations, the Lady Blackhawk of this era.

Janos accepts a dangerous mission, simply because the person asking is named Leslie, and is really crushed when Leslie turns out to be a man.

Collins, Beatty and Nyberg bring back Wild Dog in this issue as well.  He shoots a lot of criminals in this story.

But the storyline itself will focus on a young boy who sees Wild Dog in action, and becomes his biggest fan.

Wolfman, Patton and Poston do give Nightwing some solo time in this story, as Roy Harper is off tracking Cheshire.  Dick finds out the CBI have not informed the proper channels about their operation in England.

We see the softer side of Cheshire, as she tends to Lian.

After Dick catches Speedy in a lie, he calls the New Teen Titans to speak to Danny Chase, who tells him Roy is no longer CBI.  Changeling gets a line, but Cyborg, Starfire and Raven are just seen.

Wright, DuBurke, and Marcos approach the end of the Black Canary storyline.  Isn’t that an exciting page to open the story on, so near to its climax?

Dinah finds a dead body at one point.  That’s mildly exciting.

Action 584 – Superman vs the New Teen Titans

After a three month break, during which the reboot of Superman was introduced in the Man of Steel miniseries, Action Comics returns as a Superman team-up book, launching with John Byrne and Dick Giordano pitting Superman against some of the New Teen Titans.

Superman appears to be on a crazy rampage when Cyborg gets involved.  He calls in the other Titans, but only Wonder Girl, Changeling and Jericho are part of this story.

Jericho inhabits Superman’s body and takes control, but we discover he is not the only one who has taken it over that day.  A brilliant, but crippled, scientist lured Superman into a trap, pretending it was an experiment.  They get him to switch things back.

A pretty simple story, almost disappointingly so.  Lex Luthor appears on the last page, setting up the story in the next issue of Superman.  For the first few years, the Superman books would often run with tight continuity between them.

Action 546 – Superman, the Justice League and the New Teen Titans vs Brainiac

Marv Wolfman and Gil Kane pull out the stops for Action 546 (Aug. 83), the conclusion of the new Brainiac saga.

Superman gathers the Justice League and , unusually, the New Teen Titans.  They were the hottest selling property DC had at the time, and Wolfman wrote their comic.  But it’s still not like Superman called on the Teen Titans from time to time.

Anyway, both teams see a lot of action in this story.  The Atom Firestorm, Flash, Green Arrow, Hawkman, Red Tornado, Wonder Woman and Zatanna work with Robin, Kid Flash, Wonder Girl, Changeling, Cyborg, Raven, Starfire and Terra against the invading alien armies under Brainiac’s domination.

Lois Lane gets one scene in the story, back on the farm of her rarely appearing parents, Sam and Ella Lane.  Superman talked her out of staying on assignment in the Middle East, and she is furious to see that Lana Lang is doing the interview she worked so long at.

While the others deal with the armies, Superman confronts Brainiac himself.  He manages to draw out solar flares, which disrupt Brainiac’s headship, and render him vulnerable.  He retreats, to fight another day.  And once Brainiac leaves, his armies, no longer mind controlled, back down.

Yup, Brainiac is definitely more of a threat than he was before.

 

Action 536 – the Omega Men rescue Superman, and Aquaman dreams of Mera

Marv Wolfman is joined by Paul Kupperberg on scripting the concluding half to the Superman/Omega Men team-up in Action 536 (Oct. 82), while Sal Trapani joins doing the inks on Joe Staton pencils.

The Omega Men make a valiant effort to pummel down into the ground and follow the Mole after he steals the injured and weakened Superman, but have little success.

The Mole intends to auction off Superman for the privilege of killing him.  Disappointingly, none of the villains seen at the auction are anyone we recognize.

Lois Lane hunts down Cave Carson, an underground explorer not seen since his last Showcase try-out appearance in the mid-60s.  He is old and cranky now,  but gets persuaded to use his “mighty mole” to follow the Mole’s trail, bringing the Omega Men to the underground auction site.

The Omega Men rescue Superman, and in exchange he brings them up to the JLA satellite, to help them find a way home.  This gets interrupted by the emergency signal, and Superman retrieves Raven’s soul-self, hovering outside the satellite.  Inside, Raven releases the other New Teen Titans, Robin,Kid Flash, Cyborg, Changeling and Wonder Girl.

The story continues in the next issue of New Teen Titans.

Aquaman dreams of Mera in this story by Rozakis, Saviuk and McLaughlin.  Mera had vanished back to Xebel, her home dimension, during the battle with Atlanna, and not returned.

Aquaman wonders if the dreams are actual messages, and has some tests done to try to figure that out.

The tests don’t really answer his questions, but he does find a Mera lookalike as the issue ends.

The story continues in the next issue.

Action 532 – Lois Lane infiltrates the H.I.V.E., and the Atom in the parade

Marv Wolfman, Curt Swan and Dave Hunt bring back the H.I.V.E. in Action 532 (June 1982).

The H.I.V.E. are out to get Superman, but are not terribly good at it.  The H.I.V.E. that appears in the Superman books never seems quite as impressive as the group appearing at the same time in New Teen Titans.

Superman heads over to Titans Tower anyway, meeting with Robin, Starfire, Kid Flash, Changeling, Cyborg and Wonder Girl, but gets no real information. Just a cheap cameo to boost sales.  Lois takes more aggressive action, impersonating a captured H.I.V.E. member.

Lois succeeds at infiltrating the organization, and gets information about their planned attack on S.T.A.R. Labs.  Her cover gets blown, but Superman bursts in and saves her.

Neither realize that the plans they found were a decoy, which H.I.V.E. intended Lois to find.

The story continues in the next issue.

There is a lot more action in this second half of the Atom in Curacao story, by Rozakis, Saviuk and Chiaramonte, but its’ not a great story.

The Atom manages to defuse the nuke, and hunts for the terrorists, who hide in the midst of a parade.

This is the last issue with a solo Atom story, although he teams up with Air Wave in the next issue.  In a year, he begins his Sword of the Atom mini-series.