Maybe if I bump it up to three a year...

There were 133 issues of the original Warlord series (and 6 annuals!) and while I've joked about blogging an issue or two a year, we're still maybe not quite a quarter through the series! (Do I even have all of them? Um, well...) I don't plan on covering every single issue, but today we'll do a quick one with a checklist of the others we've seen so far! From 1982, Warlord #52, "The Sorceress' Apprentice" Written by Mike Grell (with uncredited scripting by Sharon Grell), pencils by Mark Texiera, inks by Mike DeCarlo. This was the first issue with the main feature not penciled by Grell!

Travis had ended up in the frozen steppes of Soviet Russia and was working his way back to Skartaris; in bloody fashion. Admittedly, it's not like the Russian troops would listen to him or believe him even if he spoke Russian, but he's just tearing into them. Jacking a helicopter, Travis begins a long trip; while back at Castle Deimos, his daughter Jennifer was still mostly catatonic, severely traumatized by Deimos. The witch Ashiya sees something in her, though: Jennifer understood machines (at least, better than Ashiya did) so the witch wanted her help with the ancient Atlantean machines in the castle. In return, she would teach Jennifer magic.

Ashiya takes the form of Jennifer's mother, Travis's first wife; to gain her trust. The two begin teaching each other, even if Jennifer's protector Faaldren doesn't approve. He's never a major character, but I forget Faaldren's deal: from Ashiya's threat, I think he was a lizard or maybe a snake, turned into a man. Very Bibbidi-bobbidi-boo, but she just needed some muscle, someone to open jars and clean the gutters and so on.  Meanwhile, Travis nearly gets back to Skartaris when he runs out of fuel and crashes the helicopter, but is greeted by a pleasant surprise: Tara and Shakira! Who normally wouldn't travel together, but it was too cold for Shakira to change out of her "fur coat!"

Also this issue: back-up feature "Dragonsword," written by Paul Levitz, art by Tom Yeates. It...it's not one of my favorites.

Annual #5

#133

#128

#121

#111

#104

#100

#95

#93

#87

#84

#79-80 (The Barren Earth features.)

 
#77

#66

#63 (The Barren Earth feature, anyway.)

#60

#54

#50

#48

#46

#42

#41

#40

#39

#38

#37 (The OMAC back-up.)

#35

#31
 
#27

#26

#23

#22

#17

#4

#3

#2

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Getting through all the "Dead Earth" annuals feels like a race against time at this point.

And, as Claremont would often say, the last lap's the hardest; but we'll talk about that later. First, one that was in my garage--actually in a box of Superman comics! By which I mean a longbox with various eras of Superman, Superboy, Supergirl, World's Finest, G.I. Joe #50, a random old Lone Ranger...look, the point is that I found it, that's what you should takeaway here. From 1996, Adventures of Superman Annual #8, "Superman Forever" Written by Tom Peyer, pencils by Derec Aucoin and Mike Collins; inks by Jason Martin, Karl Story, and Barbara Kaalberg.

All together now: "Earth is dead. Those who might have called it home are long scattered to the endless stars. But in that scattering, on a thousand different worlds, by a thousand different ways...earth's greatest legends live on." I feel like most of these annuals had that page, and some (like the Flash one) had another, separate title/credits page; but this one gets right into it. Namely, a flashback, I think to the Man of Steel #6: the hologram Jor-El (thinner than Brando, seems kind of snooty?) is putting Kryptonian knowledge in Kal-El's head, whether he likes it or not, until Pa Kent saves his boy with a well-placed shovel. The hologram disappears, leaving only a patch of scorched earth...which, in the far, far future, is now a veritable collector's item; a relic of the dead earth, on Colu. That's a name Legion fans know well, as well as that of Dox, the Coluan talking up how great the wad of dirt was. Maybe he should've kept it to himself, as both it and Dox are taken, by Sarkon pirates, led by Captain Grumbb. Grumbb makes a pretense of not being a pirate, but a fierce advocate for everyone's rights...except maybe the Curatti, but they hardly count. Grumbb berates tiny slave Willigig, as having slavery coming to it: the Curatti tried to conquer the Sarkon, and failed, so nyah. Dox intervenes, and Grumbb throws Willigig aside, and his pick impacts the earth...

...treating him to Jor-El's knowledge implant, already in progress! Dox realizes he's seeing something amazing, which is immediately stepped on by Grumbb, in an amusing panel of slapstick brutality. (I could'a sworn I had blogged that panel before, and I did, back in 2006! If I'd labelled it Legends of the Dead Earth I would've counted it!)

Still, Willigig realizes the truth: he wasn't a scummy horrible Curatti, he was a noble Kryptonian! Back at his slum home, he tells his parents he now knows the truth: that he was adopted, but he still loves them, at least as much as it's possible to love a Curatti. His parents are skeptical of his story, and his new, brightly colored costume. Meanwhile, Dox has figured out Grumbb's scheme: use earth's heroic legends, but slot the Sarkon in as the heroes instead, the better to conquer and oppress races like the Cur--Dox catches a punch in the mouth before finishing there. Willigig, now dressed as Superman, has to step in and save Dox, with heat-vision goggles and a rather powerful jetpack. Grumbb wants him found and killed immediately, but is stopped by his--gasp!--district manager, who wants Willigig broken before he's killed, to keep the Curatti from getting any ideas.

Willigig explains to Dox his loathing of the Curatti: they were the greediest, most evil race ever, until a millennium ago when the Sarkon resisted and beat them. Dox asks who told him that, then tells him a little about Superman. They are then surprised and captured by Grumbb, who helps himself to Willigig's gear, and has worked out the hologram message, even if he doesn't seem to get the knowledge dump. Dox knows, the Sarkon intend to twist the legend, just like they did with the Curattis' history: the Sarkons were always the invaders, and had lied to make the Curatti hate themselves for centuries! Even though he was no match for Sarkon, Willigig still throws down with him, yelling "if that's what it takes to protect our adopted people--Supermen welcome death!" (That is a baller line!) Triggering the jetback, Willigig outmaneuvers and defeats Grumbb, but refuses to kill him, as that wasn't what Supermen did. He frees Dox, then skywrites in flaming letters, "We're the natives! Sarkons lied" exclamation point and all! "This is a job for--everyone!"

Disgruntled at having to do some work, the district manager guns down the injured Grumbb, then takes out Willigig with a shot to his jetpack. Mortally wounded, Willigig dies in Dox's arms, but dies a Curatti; as his people begin a long-overdue uprising. Dox finishes telling the story, to a crowd of Coluans, how the Sarkons' injustice was so great, both Krypton and Earth had to take part in setting it right...by sending a Superman. 

The Jor-El on the cover is the Byrne reboot redesign, who always feels colder and less helpful than the classic headband superdad version; and I always think this issue is going to be about the hologram taking over some alien schmuck. And I didn't think this was my favorite of these, but on re-reading it...yeah, it's moved up the rankings a lot! Anyway, after I got this out of the garage, I went to the comic shop and bought three of the Legends of the Dead Earth annuals we haven't seen here yet. I still think there's two out in that garage, but that last one...it's been retconned anyway, do I have to? We'll see.

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I thought this was a one-shot, but more confusion would follow.

The GCD mentions this was collecting stories that were originally published digitally; but the cover doesn't mention that, or that this was a seven-issue mini! From 2021, Justice League: Last Ride #1, "If People Are In Danger" Written by Chip Zdarsky, art by Miguel Mendonça.

I'm behind on my DC continuity, but I'm not sure this one is in-continuity: the Justice League's Watchtower was largely abandoned, as the League was mostly disbanded. I say 'mostly,' as there's the sense the members would still come together for a big emergency, but only grudgingly; as they do here. Green Lanterns John Stewart, Kilowog, and Jessica Cruz had captured the murderer of the New Gods--Lobo? I really doubt Lobo had the juice for that, but the GL's want to bring him in for trial. Hal shows up, in a big shoulder-padded number: it's fancier than the usual uniforms, especially since the other GL's are plainclothes, with Kilowog in a hoodie! Still, Hal's look kind of reminds me of Parallax, which you'd think he would try to avoid. Hal gets called out by Batman: if the GL's couldn't contain Lobo, why was that the Justice League's job and not the United Planets' military? Hal was hoping to use partnership with earth, as a bargaining chip in his efforts to rebuild the Green Lantern Corps (every time the GLC needs rebuilding, drink!) with the moon as the new Oa, center of the Corps! Superman appears to be considering it, as Hal describes the League as no longer being needed if the GLC was there; but Bats blows it off as "cosmic politics" while he had Gotham to take care of.

After Mr. Freeze claims to have planted ice bombs all over the city, he is shut down cold--ha, ha--by Superman, who had wanted to talk things through with Batman. While Batman isn't "sure earth needs space cops," something had to take the place of the fragmented League. Frustrated, Superman finally goes off on Bats, accusing him of getting J'onn killed, and slugging his colossal penny. He admits to being tired; of the never-ending battle, fighting everyone, including his friends. Batman seemingly relents, although he would never say so; but he has the perfect place to hide Lobo: on Apokolips. 

The League broken up, the GLC in a rebuilding year, J'onn dead, the New Gods dead...all of those feel like things that occur relatively frequently in DC continuity, although maybe not all at the same time? Also, I seem to recall multiple stories where assorted alien races are a little cheesed that earth had so many Green Lanterns, and those were back when they only had like three or four! And why were the other GL's plainclothes? Either they were using all of their willpower to hold Lobo and couldn't spare any to suit up, or maybe Kilowog and Jessica had other things they needed to do that day. 

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"Illegal."

In regular Marvel continuity, we've seen a few times where Kurt has been consulted as an expert on the subject of teleportation--Spider-Man/Black Cat: the Evil that Men Do #5 comes to mind, although that's Spidey and Daredevil asking; Kurt doesn't get to see Felicia there, as I recall. More often, we've seen him teleport robot's heads off; and Death's Head is not going out like that. Read more!

Continuity of the Savage Land.

Here's one I hadn't seen before: from 1997 (actually, maybe the last week of '96!) Ka-Zar of the Savage Land #1, "Nature of the Beasts" Written by Chuck Dixon, art by Frank Teran.

I'm not a huge Ka-Zar fan, but we did see the last issue of his 70's series a few months back, and the end of his 80's book years ago. I don't think we've seen any of his 90's book, although I do remember Priest having some fun at Ka-Zar's--and his own--expense, in Deadpool #34, with another visit to the Land Trailer Park of Cancelled Heroes, where Ka-Zar was still blind after his most recent last issue! That would've been about two years after today's book though; although, not unlike visits to the Age of Apocalypse, all the edges of continuity don't really line up smoothly. This issue, the Savage Land is under siege from "neo-men," who appear to be various degrees of mutated; but then again, so do most of Ka-Zar's forces? We do see longtime supporting character Tongah (misspelled as 'Togah' in one panel, unfortunately) but the rest of Ka-Zar's guys look like ogres.

Shanna was on a reconnaissance flight, checking out the incoming neo-men army, which seemed to be coming for the long haul; but she gets distracted by stowaway child Keeto, then shot down. Ka-Zar, Zabu, and some randos set out to find her: said randos get it pretty quickly, and Ka-Zar is separated from Zabu by a collapsing bridge. He still continues the search for his wife, unaware that an old foe was watching him...no spoilers, but you can guess! He's almost always in the Savage Land...no, not Stegron, although that would've been cool.

This is a solid enough adventure yarn; I maybe shouldn't be reading this so closely. The narration implies the neo-men were coming from somewhere, or they might have been mutated by something, like a lot of Savage Land types: think the old mutates Magneto made or found or whatever. There was also a comment that while they used to be allowed to come and go freely, there were too many of them now for the local ecology to support, so they hadda go: I am not 100% comfortable with that kind of talk, even if there did seem to be a lot of buggy, insect-like guys in the neo-men. Also, I didn't love that Ka-Zar's hair resembles white-boy dreads in some panels, and we don't get to see Zabu again after the halfway point, and I can't remember: can you see the stars in the Savage Land? I feel like you can, and that Dixon's thinking of hollow-earth type jungles like Pellucidar or Skartaris. I was also worried Keeto might get eaten, since there can be health concerns for a "Keeto" diet--hurk! (dragged offstage by hook) Read more!

This was one of my favorite lines from the cartoon, I don't know if I remembered it from here.

Also, I'm not sure I saw this on the GCD, at least in this format: from 2010, the Tick: the Edlund Epic #4, reprinting in color 1989's the Tick #4, "A Big Fight" Story and art by Ben Edlund, inks by Max Banks.

I feel like I have a reprint of this somewhere...maybe? But if I did, I should remember how the ninja storyline ended. This was early in the run, and the Tick's usual sidekick Arthur had only been seen in asides, but he was starting to make himself known here. Instead, the Tick is hanging out with Oedipus, who was a riff on Elektra: was the Tick inspired by Daredevil like the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles were? The ninja plotline feels like it as well, and this was nearing the end of it: Oedipus is hurt, when the ninjas come for the mysterious Thorn, and the Tick has what was described as a "crisis of sanity." Things were getting too real, so of course he then has a hallucination of the City itself yelling at him, before he finds his stuff where he left it after an earlier ninja fight, and decides to level the Ninja World theme park. Seems reasonable enough to me!

Oedipus's "old guy mentor" Shing tells the Tick that was futile, but wants the Thorn destroyed: Arthur had kept the ninjas from getting it earlier and gives it to the Tick, explaining that the ninjas believed if it was destroyed, all ninjas would be as well. Shing seems up for that, but the Tick worries that Oedipus was a ninja as well. Meanwhile, Paul the Samurai was coming ever closer, with his trusty samurai sword still inside of a loaf of French bread that was intended to disguise it for airport security.

I don't know if Oedipus would be around after the end of this storyline; and aside from Arthur, the Tick has issues with his supporting cast/guest heroes between the comics and various TV adaptations: with assorted rights problems, some of them weren't available between formats. (Others, like Paul and the Chainsaw Vigilante, weren't considered appropriate for a kids' show.) Anyway, "the world isn't what I want it to be anymore" would be used in episode 13, "The Tick vs. Arthur's Bank Account," which we mentioned the other day for its Achilles reference.  

"I'm Arthur, and this is my diversion." Man-Eating Cow! The Human Ton and Handy! Read a book! A great episode of a great show.

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I'm sad Kyle and Wally didn't get to hang with him like this, but they might'a thrown Batman in the volcano to keep him like that.

You have probably seen some panels from this one and not realized it, too: from 2008, Superman/Batman #46, "K, chapter 3: Varietals" Written by Michael Green and Mike Johnson, pencils by Shane Davis, inks by Matt "Batt" Banning.

Superman and Batman are midway through a quest to rid the earth of all forms of Kryptonite; with Batman working tirelessly, methodically, and tactically...and surprisingly, with Superman following suit. In his action-figure ready anti-K armor, Supes rips the heart out of Metallo; replacing it with a non-Kryptonite power source, that would keep him alive but not much else. Although he wants to take a break and see Lois, Superman keeps pushing; and next, Batman's satellite scan finds another small amount, at the Oblivion Bar, which I believe was mostly from Shadowpact: think dive bar for DC's magic guys and gals. (And the Creeper, who makes a cameo!) After Detective Chimp gets them in the door, the Phantom Stranger helps them find what they were looking for: a mysterious silver-ish charm, which Superman is compelled to touch, knocking him out.

Taking him up to the Watchtower, Batman gets a bit of a lecture from Zatanna: despite, oh, I dunno, everything, Batman seems stubbornly resistant to acknowledging "magic" as a thing. Then, Superman wakes up...and sees the Leaguers in attendance as cartoony versions, and has the munchies, and no attention span. Hmm. That seems familiar somehow; I can't put my finger on it. Anyway, Batman had already had John Stewart thrown the silver-K into the sun, but Zatanna explains they need the other half of the amulet to break the spell, and it was on Dinosaur Island...because why wouldn't it be? Zat says it's because the island, like the Oblivion Bar, was outside of normal space/time: yeah, that only narrows it down to like 20 other places in that hemisphere...Batman continues to be kind of a jerk the whole trip, saying magic still had rules, and could be broken down and understood; while Zatanna tells a tyrannosaurus to "tis!" (Editor's note: Read Zatanna's magic spells backwards!)

The locals explain, the amulet was inside a volcano, because they felt it was too dangerous for anyone to have. And, the old gods wouldn't allow magic in there; so Batman would have to go himself, with his talisman drawn on his chest. While Superman makes a run to the sun, to see if he could still get a hit off'a the first half of the amulet; the second half tempts Batman, with his parents alive, and Zatanna...wow, Superman is fu--oh, Batman resists. Then, when Zat asks him what he saw, he plays it off as huffing too much volcanic gases. She knows that's not it, but Batman doubles-down; I think because he doesn't want to let her get too close. (In the sense of, he feels like letting anyone get close to him would either undermine his effectiveness or open him up for future pain; not because of any Identity Crisis/lingering mindwipe resentment.) Superman recovers, and acknowledges that the amulet had done something for him: given him the break he didn't even know he needed. But, doesn't everyone need a break? Except Batman, of course...Batman ends the issue, alone, looking out the window at earth, presumably with a scowl that can be heard in space.

Superman hangs out and plays video games for a bit, with Supergirl, Red Arrow, and Red Tornado: Supergirl seems mildly afraid of him, while he sees Red Tornado as a wind-up toy robot, which is kind of condescending? I suppose we're just lucky this was Roy in his Red Arrow days and not Speedy...I wish Kyle and Wally had been there instead, although I could see them exacerbating the situation. If it had been Blue Beetle and Booster Gold...no, Batman would never have left Superman with them, never mind.

I feel like this one's reminding me to do something this weekend...oh, yeah, go see the new Superman movie, duh. Yes. That. 

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A chosen one, and people in pods used as batteries? I can't believe this predates THE MATRIX by three years.

Also, I haven't seen 28 Years Later yet, but the previews give away a priest losing it and opening the doors to the rage zombies, which I feel like was a beat before in those films? But then, when I see a priest or organized religion in sci-fi, I usually assume the worst. Today, well, yeah, pretty much: from 1996, Flash Annual #9, "Silent Running" Written by Peter J. Tomasi, pencils by J.H. Williams III, inks by Mick Gray.

This was, of course, another of the "Legends of the Dead Earth" annuals; and finds a world deep in the throes of an ice age. The remaining people seemed to have a bit of technology, but that wasn't going to keep them afloat much longer, but they had faith. Namely, a Flash-based religion, that rather surprisingly doesn't specifically name Saint Barry, but does have a Book of Iris. The lightning, speed force, "flash of light," whatever, seems like it was trying to do something, but in mysterious ways: true believer Stevan Mallory survives the cold pilgrimage to get struck by lightning, which ages him but may show him the future. He encourages his firstborn son Bryan, who shares his Flash-logo scars, to heed the call of the lightning, which Bryan doesn't really believe. His jealous brother Tristan does, though: he's the creepy, culty, fire-and-brimstone style preacher; who carves his own Flash-logo into his chest before killing his father. Bryan and Tristan get into a fight at Stevan's funeral--which, since the ground was too frozen for burials, is basically dropping the corpse into a hole--but then start their own journey.

Tristan goes snowblind, the brothers are attacked (...or are they?) by a somehow familiar creature, but eventually make it to get struck by lightning themselves. Which heals but ages Tristan, and accelerates Bryan into a blur. While Tristan howls at being forsaken, he notices under the still-unconscious but vibrating Bryan that grass was growing again. Tristan then beats his brother to keep him out, and starts a new age, which was moderately better for the people: they lived on average to the age of 50 now, in a warm domed city. Meanwhile, while preaching the lightning gospel or whatever, Tristan was also sucking lifeforce out of the people to turn himself younger at regular intervals, as well as enslaving Bryan and other newly discovered speedsters in pods to keep the city going. (The lightning kept not giving Tristan powers, keeping him resentful and weird.)

One of the flock, a bald young woman, Deborah, finally can't take Tristan's reign anymore, and feeling sorry for the sad-but-pretty Bryan, frees him. Escaping Tristan's goons, Bryan vibrates them through a wall, and they end up outside, in the water, which is full of bodies of those sacrificed by Tristan. They are saved from drowning by a mysterious traveler, who gives Bryan the Flash's costume, frozen in ice. They realize it was J'onn J'onzz, who leaves it to them: he was returning to Mars, probably to die. Bryan then fights it out with Tristan, who has donned golden armor and brandishes a Flash-logo staff: the fight lasts about three pages longer than it probably should, but ends with Tristan falling down the grave hole, telling his brother he wasn't sorry. "I was fated to create a world, as you were to serve it."

Fifty years later, Deborah reads the story to children, who seem more interested in if she and Bryan ever hooked up. The people were happy and peaceful, and she looks on sadly, as Bryan still runs...or whatever...in his pod, to keep the city going. 

Again, the Speed Force works in mysterious ways, its wonders to behold...? Or, it's basically lightning, and probably a mistake to ascribe any sort of human motivations or reasoning to it? Stevan seems to realize his fate, killed by his weirder kid, as part of some grander scheme; but it feels cruel. That and Tomasi might be playing with the idea that the Flash is at its core the platonic ideal of a life of service to others. Or a joyless slog. Maybe both. I also feel like the brotherly hate angle is something that the reader should recognize, but I don't offhand. A Cain/Abel thing, or another Bible reference? I could be wrong there. though.

This maybe gets us to 16 of the 25 Legends of the Dead Earth annuals! How many of the rest are going to be just brutal to find...Off the top of my head, I know there's a Aquaman one that seems to be set in a future desert, and maybe a Guy Gardner/Warrior annual that's largely "Guy's descendants are all awesome, Hal Jordan's are all dicks." 

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"Paranoid."

So, if the Age of Apocalypse didn't have the Fantastic Four (with powers, anyway) did a lot of things from the first 50 or so issues of their book just not show up there? Presumably Namor once again died a bum in the bowery, but would the Skrulls have turned up? Or was Apocalypse more a deterrent than we'd maybe care to admit? Read more!

Sometimes I wonder how much of this blog has been scraped by AI trawlers, and I guess we'll find out when AI really starts abusing ellipses, or using any of the recurring bits of nonsense I do, like "some time back" or "not that one!" I probably haven't mentioned it before, but I do hate so-called "generative AI" since it doesn't really generate anything, there's no 'intelligence' involved, and a lot of times it's not even 'artificial' since the work is merely farmed out somewhere. The program just takes a ton of data, and when asked something pieces together a response more-or-less resembling answers it has seen for that question before. Where have I seen that done before...

Page from the Ren & Stimpy Show #2, "Ask Dr. Stupid" Written by Dan Slott, art by Mike Kazeleh. Dr. Stupid (Stimpy) shows how comics are made: by cutting up old comics, and pasting the pictures in a new order! Just like AI! 

AI always feels, like a waste, on top of waste: you can use it to write emails, that will then be sorted by your recipient's AI and summarized but not read, with an autogenerated response, using real electricity and water and hardware at each step. If you can't be bothered to write or draw or create something, why would anyone be compelled to read it? Anyway, you have this blog's promise that it'll be hand-crafted nonsense for as long as I go. I suppose technically the action figure stuff isn't 'hand-crafted,' but no AI anyway.

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Lobo's a monosyllabic knuckle-dragger, but probably still gets the best lines here?

I found this in the garage, while looking for one of the Legends of the Dead Earth annuals I thought I had (and I did! That's four bucks I'll keep in my pocket) but until I looked it up the other day, I would've sworn there was a Lobo annual in LotDE. There wasn't, but man, wouldn't that have been fun to write? 40 pages of Lobo going "aww, diddum widdle pwanlet blow up? What'cha gonna do, nancypants, cry 'bout it?" and then exaggerated stories about how he kicked the living crap out of everyone in the so-called Heroic Age, from Superman down to the Red Bee. It would end with him having a cheerful guffaw that annoying planet was long gone, then having a coughing fit; before it was time for his pills and bowel irrigation at the nursing home...Anyway, on to this comic: from 2010, Green Lantern #55, "The New Guardians, chapter three" Written by Geoff Johns, pencils by Doug Mahnke, inks by Christian Alamy, Tom Nguyen, Keith Champagne, and Doug Mahnke.

Most of these GL comics I got from the cheap bins, but two surprises right off the start: this looked like a multi-part story completely within the title. Usually, the first chapter was here, then over to Green Lantern Corps or a myriad of other books, but this was maybe setting up one. Also, it opens in Montana! Specifically in Grass Range, Montana: I'm not sure I've ever even been through there, but it also may not be drawn with any reference besides "outsides." The Crispus Allen Spectre investigates a dead cow, which warns him to "stay away!" in a Red Lantern bubble. Meanwhile, in New York City, we find Lobo throwing down with Hal and Atrocitus, already in progress, with a two-page spread that I hope Mahnke got some folding money for on the back end.

Hal and Carol are momentarily unsure who they should help on that one, but Hal gets a message from the White Lantern that Atrocitus has his mission. So, killjoy Hal muzzles Lobo's dog, then runs him over with his own bike. After going over the rules, which Hal admits he doesn't really follow either, Hal does get a good shot in with giant green brass knuckles--the big green boxing glove wasn't going to cut it there, I suppose. This issue moves fast, without a lot of transitions, as Sinestro is also there, and coldly throws the works at Lobo: a giant skeletal hand, what looks like metal tentacles, and some chainguns. A disgruntled Lobo wonders "what god ate a rainbow and threw it up across the universe," then Carol tries to contain him, which only works for a few seconds, and Lobo whispers to her what he really loves...which catches him a power-construct slap. Dex-Starr takes on Lobo's dog, who was not expecting red rage vomit hairballs; Lobo tells him to suck it up.

Finally, since the bigger mission with the power ring entities had priority, Hal reluctantly tells Lobo if he wanted Atrocitus, he would have to go through all of them. Lobo scoffs, "yeah, I'm the one with screwed-up priorities," but still leaves; and Hal isn't quite sure why. Sinestro suggests, Lobo was afraid of Hal, that he still had a little Parallax in him. But, the real reason is, the one who set the bounty on Atrocitus was...Atrocitus himself! Not because he hated himself, as we'd see later in Red Lanterns, but because he needed the others to work with him. Job done, Lobo ponders his payment: a red power ring, 'cause if you can't beat 'em...

Also this issue, and possibly more of a draw than Lobo at the time: the secret origin of Dex-Starr! "Dex-Starr" Written by Geoff Johns, art by Shawn Davis, with special thanks to Jamie Grant. It's a tear-jerker, as little kitty Dexter is adopted by a lonely woman, who is later killed in a home invasion. He's then given the boot from his home by the cops, under the guise of not contaminating the crime scene, then grabbed by some punks who put him in a bag and throw him off a bridge; making him a veritable beacon of rage, perfect for a Red Lantern ring. We don't see him murder the punks, but that's gotta be a given. The story ends with Dex-Starr sleeping cuddled against what I think was his owner's skull, as he promises to find and kill her murderer. "I good kitty." I don't know if Dex-Starr ever did, though; because comics: he's been sucked into other things, and if he did find the killer, would it be like Batman finding Joe Chill? Would he have a reason to keep hating? (Probably because they weren't fully codified until later, Dex-Starr doesn't seem to follow the same rules as other Reds; but that could be just because he's a cat and always has a certain baseline of hate running in the background.)

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