DETECTIVE COMICS #522

"SNOW BLIND"
Writer Gerry Conway | Artists: Irv Novick & Pablo Marcos
Letterer: Ben Oda | Colorist: Adrienne Roy | Editor: Len Wein

The Plot: In the Himalayas, Batman and his guide, Chi, are nearly buried by an avalanche. Batman spots a large figure escaping into the night, then he and Chi find a shelter and settle in for the night. As they rest, Batman recalls the circumstances that brought him to the icy mountains: in the Gotham Picture News, he spied a photo of Klaus Kristin, the Abomninable Snowman, traveling with a group of Tibetan pilgrims. Batman took the Batplane to Tibet, where he linked up with Chi and began his search for Kristin.

Morning comes and Batman and Chi continue their trek. Eventually they find Kristin at the Lake of Buddha. Batman attempts to apprehend Kristin, but he and his quarry fall into the lake and Batman is knocked out. Kristin saves him but is shot by a Tibetan guard in the process. He falls into the water and swims away. Batman and Chi follow him again, to Mount Kalais, where the Abominable Snowman attacks on a mountain path. The Snowman defeats Batman, then lumbers away. But Batman survives and again takes up his pursuit.

The Caped Crusader finds Kristin in a small Buddhist shrine, where the Abomnibale Snowman also shows himself and attacks again. Batman blinds this Snowman as he realizes that he must actually be Kristin's father, the true Yeti. Kristin, dying from his gunshot wound, begs Batman to let him stay. The Yeti picks up his dying son and walks away, leaving Batman to watch their departure.

SKULL THE SLAYER #3

"TUMULT IN THE TOWER OF TIME!"
Writer/Editor: Marv Wolfman | Pencils: Steve Gan
Inkers: Pablo Marcos & Steve Gan
Letters: Irv Watanabe | Colors: Michele Wolfman

The Plot: Skull wrestles with a prehistoric beast until it bucks him off, after which he, Ann, Jeff, and Doctor Corey continue their exploration of the prehistoric world. After being nearly trampled by a herd of stampeding dinosaurs, Skull leads the group to see what spooked the animals. They come across a field of skeletal remains tied to posts. From there, they move on to a huge tower, which offers glimpses of various time periods -- a different one on each level.

As they gaze into the tower, the group is attacked by a T-Rex. Skull and Jeff fight the creature, while Corey slips away. Skull figure out that the Tyrannosaur is a robot, and destroys it. Then the group hears Corey scream. They follow him and find that he has stumbled into ancient Egypt, where he's been captured by a Pharaoh's soldiers.

Continuity Notes: Not many in this issue, though it should be noted that Skull's corpse-robbing ways have evidently rubbed off on Ann and Jeff. At Ann's suggestion, all three of them pilfer clothing from the skeletons near the tower. Doctor Corey, however, remains in his normal clothes.

As for the skeletons themselves -- they're from a number of different time periods, and there are extraterrestrials among them (and it is from the alien-but-humanoid bodies that our heroes procure their new cothes). Later, when the group finds the tower, Jeff notes that it is covered in alien writing identical to that which was in the cave where the primitive humans worshipped an alien corpse.

THE NEW TEEN TITANS ANNUAL #2

"THE MURDER MACHINE"
Writer: Marv Wolfman | Artists: George Pérez & Pablo Marcos
Letterer: John Costanza | Colorist: Adrienne Roy | Editor: Len Wein

Note: This issue does not have credits in THE NEW TEEN TITANS OMNIBUS volume 2. The above credits are pulled from the DC wiki.

The Plot: D.A. Chase and his family are rushed to the hospital, but Chase's wife and children perish. Robin vows to get Anthony Scarapelli for the murders. Meanwhile, Scarapelli finds himself on the outs with the mob's Donna Omicidio due to the public nature of his assassination attempt. Scarapelli requests aid from a criminal "referral agent" called the Monitor.

Robin finds himself handcuffed by a restraining order from Scarapelli after his invasion of the mobster's home, so the rest of the Titans rough up Scarapelli's various illegitimate enterprises. The Monitor sends a group of assassins to lure the Titans into a trap, but the heroes escape. During the skirmish, two of the assassins are killed by a mysterious figure. Kid Flash is injured, but Raven -- who had been away from the Titans for much of the recent action -- returns to heal him.

Soon after, Scarapelli heads to a meeting with Donna Omicidio, but sends a group of battle suited warriors to kill her. While the Titans fight these troops, Scarapelli escapes to his home. But he's cornered by a costumed man calling himself the Vigilante. Vigilante has Scarapelli at his mercy and unmasks himself as D.A. Chase. Robin appears to talk Chase out of murdering Scarapelli, but when Scarapelli pulls a gun on the pair, Chase kills him and escapes.

TALES OF THE THE NEW TEEN TITANS #1 & #2

"CYBORG" | "RAVEN"
Writer-Co-Plotters-Penciler: Marv Wolfman & George Pérez
Inkers: Brett Breeding (#1) & Pablo Marcos (#2)
Letterers: John Costanza (#1) & Ben Oda (#2) | Colorist: Adrienne Roy
Editor: Len Wein

The Plot: The Titans head to the Grand Canyon for a week's vacation. Over dinner, Cyborg describes his life's history to the rest of the team.

My Thoughts: A camping trip, with the new Titans explaining their origins to the others, is a great idea for a limited series. And Cyborg's history is a pretty good one. Wolfman takes an all-too-common trope in superhero comic origins -- the angry black youth -- and flips it sideways. Cyborg didn't start out angry. He had an unusual childhood, monitored constantly by his scientist parents, but he was also a genius and a gifted athlete with a scholarship education.

The problem came when he fell in with the wrong crowd and, despite his better judgment, got involved in more than one street fight in his young life, until his father finally disowned him. Then, as described in previous installments, his mother died and Cyborg himself was crippled and rebuilt by his father.

As I said, it's a twist on the most commonly seen black character origin. Unfortunately, we knew a lot of Cyborg's background already, as he is the most angst-ridden Titan. But Wolfman ties everything together well enough, and it's admittedly nice to have all the pieces we've seen so far gathered in one story.

THE NEW TEEN TITANS #6 & #7

"LAST KILL!" | "ASSAULT ON TITANS' TOWER"
Co-Creators: Marv Wolfman & George Pérez
Inkers: Pablo Marcos (issue 6) & Romeo Tanghal (issue 7)
Colorists: Jerry Serpe (issue 6) & John Drake (issue 7)
Letterer: John Costanza | Editor: Len Wein

The Plot: Trigon returns to his dimension with Raven. Upon their arrival, Trigon executes a young girl for calling him a monster, then destroys a world with which he is at war.

Meanwhile, the Titans convince Raven's mother, Arella, to lead them to Trigon's dimension. There, the group goes in search of Raven but finds Trigon instead. He easily defeats the Titans, but Arella escapes and rescues Raven. While Trigon fights Arella, Raven frees the Titans. The entire group then combines their powers to defeat Trigon, banishing him to a nether-realm between dimensions. But Arella sacrifices herself to live forever in that realm as well, keeping Trigon trapped there.

My Thoughts: As can be gleaned from the above synopsis, this is another issue featuring characters getting shuffled around in all different directions for little real purpose. Maybe I harp on this too much, but it's just such a weird storytelling mechanism that I feel it's worth noting.

Otherwise, this is a decent conclusion to the Trigon saga, complete with an X-MEN-esque denouement which features all the Titans (save Changeling, who is involved in his own side skirmish) combining their powers to stop Trigon. Arella's fate is easy to predict, given the big to-do made of her leaving Azarath, but it nonetheless adds some nice emotional impact to the finale.

THE AMAZING SPIDER-MAN #224

"LET FLY THESE AGED WINGS!"
A tale tastefully told by our Amazing Spider-Team:
Writer: Roger Stern | Artists: John Romita, Jr. & Pablo Marcos
Letterer: Joe Rosen | Colorist: Glynis Wein | Editor: Tom DeFalco
Seeker of True Happiness: Jim Shooter

The Plot: Spider-Man foils a bank robbery while the Vulture escapes from Bellevue Hospital after a chance meeting with Nathan Lubensky in the physical therapy ward. Vulture goes on a days-long crime spree in the diamond district while hiding out as one of Nathan's fellow tenants in the Restwell Nursing Home.

Eventually Peter Parker shows up at Restwell for lunch with Nathan and Aunt May, and recognizes the Vulture. Peter changes to Spider-Man and fights his winged foe inside the nursing home, but the Vulture eventually escapes after briefly taking Nathan hostage before realizing he considers Nathan a friend and letting him go.

The Sub-Plots: No sub-plots per se, though we do get an appearance by Peter's rival photographer at the Daily Bugle, Lance Bannon, who was introduced to the series about a year earlier by Denny O'Neil and John Romita, Jr.

IRON MAN #156

"THE MAULER MANDATE!"
Writer: David Michelinie
Breakdown Art: John Romita, Jr. | Finished Art: Pablo Marcos
Letters: Joe Rosen | Colors: Don Warfield | Editor: Jim Salicrup
Editor-in-Chief: Jim Shooter

The Plot: Scott Lang is taking inventory at Stark International's newly acquired subsidiary, the Cord conglomerate, when he discovers the Mauler battlesuit. Before he can act on his discovery, Scott is knocked out by a mercenary named Brendan Doyle, who takes the armor and attacks Stark International. Doyle is driven away by Iron Man, with some help from Rhodey, who the mercenary recognizes from their time in the same mercenary troupe.

Doyle later breaks into Rhodey's apartment and coerces him into getting them both past Stark security so he can carry put his mission to destroy all records of the development of the Mauler suit. But Iron Man again arrives to confront Doyle, and Rhodey again a aids our hero. Finally, given a choice between killing Rhodey or abandoning his mission, Doyle retreats, thus canceling a years-old debt between the two.

WRATH OF THE SPECTRE: ADVENTURE COMICS #437, 438, 439, 440, WRATH OF THE SPECTRE #4

"THE HUMAN BOMBS AND...THE SPECTRE"
"THE SPECTRE HAUNTS THE MUSEUM OF FEAR"
Script: Michael Fleisher | Art: Ernie Chan & Jim Aparo
Art Continuity: Russell Carley | Letters: Jim Aparo | Colors: Adrienne Roy
Editor: Joe Orlando

Ernie Chan (credited as Ernie Chua) provides guest pencils for two consecutive stories, and the work is excellent. A few years ago I read the majority of the BATMAN and DETECTIVE COMICS issues published in the seventies, and Chan had a long run on the character around that time. He was inked most frequently, as I recall, by Frank McLaughlin during that run, and while the work was good, it can't even begin to compare with Jim Aparo over Chan. Aparo's heavy blacks maintain the visual continuity from previous Spectre chapters, while Chan's layouts lose nothing from the previous all-Aparo chapters.

The stories are more of Fleisher's usual, featuring a gang who turns people into human bombs (and poor Gwen just happens to be one of them), and then a deranged taxidermist who kills people in order to stuff them and add them to his "exhibits". All villains meet suitably grisly ends.