Apr 1985
Jericho’s Story
by Marv Wolfman, Rich Buckler, Mike DeCarlo, John Constanza, Adrienne Roy, George Perez
President Marlo of Qurac and his henchmen torture Adeline Kane Wilson but she refuses to speak. Joseph Wilson explains to Amber, an employee of his mother, what’s happened to her boss.
The rest of the Titans (Nightwing, Starfire, Cyborg, Changeling, Lilith) discuss Joseph and Adeline. Changeling is still convinced that Jericho is up to no good. Nightwing disagrees with that assessment but concedes that Joseph and Adeline haven’t told the Titans everything.
The meeting gets interrupted by a call from S.T.A.R. Labs asking for some help. Lilith gets a premonition that whatever is going on at S.T.A.R. Labs is going to affect her. The Titans leave the Tower and head to S.T.A.R. Labs New York facility.
Joseph and Amber arrive in Qurac and go looking for his mother. They are spotted and wind up in a fight with Cheshire and some of President Marlo’s men. The bad guys win the fight and take Joseph and Amber prisoner.
The Titans deliver Vic’s mother’s notes to S.T.A.R. Labs. They get a glimpse of what the scientists are working on. The alien that was thawed out of the cave in Alaska is in a chamber. Lilith senses that something is wrong and that the machinery in the room is about to explode.
Everyone clears out except Cyborg who stays behind to try and keep it from exploding. Lilith comes back to warn him that he might be killed, another premonition. They are both caught in the blast and knocked unconscious. The creature in the chamber emerges. It is a winged man and he is very taken by Lilith.
Adeline finally tells President Marlo what he wants to know after she sees that he has captured Joseph. He leaves Adeline, Joseph, and Amber guarded after she confesses but they escape and go looking for President Marlo. They find him and Cheshire. Another fight breaks out but Cheshire leaves once she determines that it is not in her interests to stick around.
Notes
George Perez drew the cover and is credited as co-editor.
Searchers, Inc., Adeline Kane Wilson’s company, makes its first appearance in this two-part story. It resurfaces sporadically over the next 10 years.
The ad for Crisis on Infinite Earths in this issue looks very different from the one in the previous issue. It looks much more like what I recall.
Thoughts
Where is Changeling’s right hand in the third panel of page 12? It looks like it is behind Starfire’s back or possibly a little lower.
Where did the ropes come from on page 16?
Joseph has a chance to shoot President Marlo but doesn’t in order to save some artwork from getting destroyed. His mother doesn’t understand but Amber does. Joseph seems to value the art over his own life. And his mother’s life?
I noticed that Cheshire’s uniform changed since the last issue. Her upper thighs, above her leggings, are bare in this issue. Her entire legs were covered in the prior issue.
Despite some silly short cuts I thought this was a decent issue. My biggest quibbles are the ropes I mentioned above and the way Cheshire suddenly decides that it is time to leave. I miss George Perez pencils’ on the interior pages but Rich Buckler does a decent job with the visual storytelling and panel layouts.
The Tower
There are four letters spread across two pages in this edition of the Tower. Not all the comments are positive but none of them are hate filled. Marv clarifies, in response to one letter, that Jericho can take over unconscious bodies without establishing eye contact. I forgot about that.
Marv explains, in response to another letter, that the alien mentioned by the H.I.V.E. Mistress in Tales of the Teen Titans (1984) 47 was the father of Thunder and Lightning from New Teen Titans (1980) 36. I’ve gone back and looked at those issues. I’m not sure how anyone could have figured that out on their own. I sure didn’t.
There is an ad for Infinity Inc (drawn by Mike Machlan and Jerry Ordway) which takes up a good chunk of the second page. Listen to DTC 18, 23, 25 for my take on the Generations Saga (Infinity Inc 1-10).
Meanwhile…
This month’s column is printed on the inside back cover of this issue. Dick Giordano shares the space with Bob Rozakis who has just returned from a trip to Spartan Printing Company. He was there to see for himself the Flexographic press in action. He also writes up a few comics that were printed using the Flexographic press: Swamp Thing Annual, Spanner’s Galaxy, Defenders of the Barren Earth, Jonni Thunder, Superman: The Secret Years.
Dick uses the rest of the column to shed some light on why DC is experimenting with printing comics on the Flexographic press. He admits that there are some bugs in the system.
There is a checklist at the bottom of the page listing comic books that went on sale on Jan 5, 1985. I only own two of them: Crisis on Infinite Earths 1 (which I have read multiple times) and Tales of the Teen Titans 53 (which I will been reading for the first time in the not too distant future).
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