I’m glad I did my research last week.

On a whim, I bid on Hero for Hire #10. I like what little I’ve read of Hero for Hire but I’ve only got three or four issues from the early years of the title, And I figured I would be able to get this one pretty cheap. I think it was five dollars.

I looked it up and found out it was continued in the next issue. The same dealer had #11, and I ended up getting that for $4.25.

So they came in the mail today. And I’m reading #10 and enjoying it. And it gets to the end and Mr. Death has poor Luke trapped in the sewers as the water is pouring in!

If I hadn’t done my research, I would have to wait a week or even more for the conclusion!

I love buying random Bronze Age issues, but when you buy an old Marvel, you definitely run the risk of the story being continued.  I even somewhat recently used my phone while at the LCS to see if an inexpensive comic I wanted to buy had a to be continued story.  Much less risk of this with Bronze Age DC unless it's one of those anthologies where the stories run about 8-10 pages. 

Amazing Spider-Man #72

Picking back up on Spidey after going over some other comic book related stuff. So Spidey got a bit tired of Jameson constantly being an ass towards him and threatened him, sending him into a shock. Well Robbie Robertson, the city editor, took over and started giving Spidey proper praise and with J.J. still in the hospital, this happens

He's been focused on coloring it. I'm happy with it in black and white. 

Returning to the Five Years Later period, I read Legion of Super-Heroes (1989) #18-24. The series dumps you in the middle of things after a five year gap, but I thought after I got further into the run the whole history would become clearer. Unfortunately, that's not really the case. There's a degree of opaqueness the writing. The series tends to avoid explanatory exposition that some readers, but I find helpful. The script avoids captions for narration of thought bubbles and mostly stick to word balloons with actual dialogue.

It can be confusing at times. Characters come up that I'm not familiar with. I don't know if they're established characters from some past era of the Legion mythos or whether their familiarity with the main cast is due to contact I should happened during the five year gap. LOSH #18 concerns a showdown with the Dark Circle. I know that's an existing group from the past, but I don't think I've read any of their stories. Here, they're portrayed as a sort of cult. It's creepy and there's intimidation involved. As of now, it seems to be a one-off story.

LOSH #19-20 features the destruction of the moon and its aftermath. These issues have what I like and dislike about the writing of the series wrapped up together. Because LOSH takes place in the far future, the Bierbaums and Keith Giffen. Why can't they just blow up the moon? There's bleakness, but there's an absurdity to it. The Dominators (an alien race) have been secretly controlling Earth Gov (the planetary government of Earth). They have a secret plan to blow up the moon if necessary if circumstances arise that require an extreme tactic to quell a rebellion. Except that's not what happens. Somehow someone accidentally triggers the device that blows up the moon. Evil masterminds harming people through a tragic screw-up feels like absurdly realistic. On the other hand, there's a lack of realism to the "why doesn't Superman singlehandedly end WWII" problem. We don't get any scenes of the team trying to stop the impending doom. We haven't even really gotten any significant reaction from the members of the reassembled team, just a bit of reaction to former members (Invisible Kid, Bouncing Boy) that seem unrealistically muted. On the first point, I'd think there'd be plenty of time for the folks to realize that rocky debris was coming from the Moon to Earth. Then again, maybe comic book physics cause the rock to travel at light speed or something. But why are most members of the team going about their business like they didn't even read #19.

Many of these issues are like split books, with a different subplot separated out in the latter pages, rather than integrating in into one story. In #19, after the impact, the story switches over to a time displaced Jo Nah (Ultraboy). He runs into Dr. Fate in the distant past (probably because Giffen was also working in the distant past. It's interesting because it's sort of weird, but then Jo is sent back to the future and it seems like there was no point. I assume that when Jo was time displaced it would build to something pivotal to the larger plot. But it just meanders until Jo learns a lesson about finally mourning the seemingly dead Tinya Wazzo (Phantom Girl), and that lesson feels tacked-on.

LOSH #21-24 includes the Quiet Darkness story arc, described as a spiritual sequel to the Great Darkness Saga. In a George-singing-lead-vocals twist, inker Al Gordon writes the story. While I like George Harrison, Gordon's writing is more confusing than a typical issue. Darkseid is involved in some scientific plot to combine two twins into one person to fulfill a prophecy. I'm not sure what the point is. It takes a while to halfway explain who the characters are. The scripting is opaque. Halfway through the story, someone seems to have pointed out to Gordon that the male name is usually spelled Francis instead of Frances, so this scientist's name changes mid-arc. At the end, Jo asks Brainiac 5 to explain what just happens. I feel you, Jo. We also get Lobo, or maybe not Lobo, in a guest appearance. The best parts of the story are scenes with Furball, the non-verbal monster Timber Wolf has turned into sometime during the gap. I've never been a big Timber Wolf fan, but Giffen & Gordon evoke a lot of pathos just with their art.

The back pages of #21-24 have a sub-plot regarding the mysterious Batch SW6. They are subjects in an experiment run by the Dominators that were freed by the damage done by moon fragment impacts. We get hints here and there about tissue samples from Legionnaires until the final pages of #24 that reveal the SW6 to be some folks (clones?) who look like the Silver Age in old costumes and including decent members like Karate Kid, Ferro Lad, and the first Invisible Kid.

I did notice Superman's emblem in that one panel and the Superman tie-ins are mentioned a bit in the letter pages. I didn't realize members of the Legion were involved in trying to stop the explosion, because those efforts go basically unmentioned as far as I noticed. It's very odd to have such a muted reaction to such a major event. I'll have to read those Superman comics sometime together with a re-read of LOSH #19-20.

I was aware of Tinya being displaced to the 20th century to become Phase in L.E.G.I.O.N., hence my phrasing of "seemingly dead." I've only read about 2 or 3 issues of L.E.G.I.O.N. in my life, but I think one was the first or second issue after Tinya shows up.

read Micronauts #1 today (turns out it was the recent Fascimile edition, which makes alot more sense).. I didn't realize how Star Wars it is... feels very much like someone wanting to write a space opera in that style. That would make sense to me if Marvel wasn't ALSO producing a Star Wars comic.