Cary Bates, Don Heck and Joe Giella tell an entertaining little tale in Adventure 465 (Oct 79), and at least make a slight reference to the events happening in the Flash’s own comic, although Iris’ murder is never specifically mentioned.
After stopping a missile, Flash discovers his hearing has become messed up, and begins overhearing an unusual warning about invaders from above.
After much puzzlement and research, Barry determines that he has temporarily developed the ability to understand dolphins, who were chatting about thieves diving in and hiding their loot in the dolphin tank at the aquarium. And while in his own book Barry Allen is close to a complete breakdown, here he is content to play ball with the creatures.
Some beautiful Jose Luis Garcia-Lopez art on this Len Wein story, with Dick Giordano providing the inks. Deadman does not return to Hill’s Circus after his visit to the lab in the last issue. Instead he finds himself “strolling” through the slums.
He comes across a young chopkeeper and his wife, being harassed by a protection scam, and follows (and occasionally possesses) the man as he tries to rally the neighbourhood to stand up to the gang. When this fails, he tries to find evidence on his own that will bring them down.
Boston Brand helps all he can, and for a change this story does come to a happy ending, a rarity in a Deadman tale.
The Justice Society get their only typical super-team adventure in their run in this book. Paul Levitz and Joe Staton provide a tale in which the team split up in a desperate search for a stolen poison capsule that threatens to wipe out an entire city.
Levitz does a good job giving the various heroes their moments of glory. Huntress and Power Girl find vital clues as to who stole the poison – the cleaning lady, trying to help her addict son, unaware of what it truly was.
Hawkman barges in on Dr Fate, insisting that he help the team, and Inza Nelson gets her only appearance during the JSA’s run in this book.
Green Lantern and the Flash get to be the ones to actually find the capsule, stuck to a dog’s fur, and destroy it.
The Dr Fate scene pays off in the epilogue, although only by implication at this point, as Mr Terrific shows up, in a rare appearance, to join the team for the annual JLA/JSA team-up, at which he gets murdered.
Aquaman encounters some robot-building underwater Nazis in this story, by Bob Rozakis, with art by Don Newton.
After encountering a hologram of a sea monster, Aquaman finds a hidden city in Antarctica of Nazis, descendants of ones who fled there at the end of World War 2. Helga serves as his guide, and appears to be fairly open and pleasant, but that is simply a ruse to get him off his guard, at which point they attack and imprison him, replacing him with a hologram.
The Nazi Aquaman hologram brings Helga to Atlantis, introducing her to Vulko, who just merrily accepts everything in the incompetent fashion he has been consistently showing, but Mera is suspicious.
The climax has Aquaman defeat his double, while Mera gets captured by Helga, but manages to free herself. Helga appears to die, but this story is far from over.
Funny, in memory these people were connected to the Universal Food Products crew from a few issues ago – the odd uniform on the sailor being a hint at their Nazi background. But there is no actual connection in this story. My teenage brain simply found a link where none was intended.
Babblings about DC Comics 
Leave a comment