"The End" Week: DC Super-Stars #18!

The joke has been made before, but they are probably more than a few people legitimately afraid the clock is going to roll over to 13 o'clock or December 32 tonight. Maybe the Phantom Stranger and Deadman can help! From 1978, DC Super-Stars #18, written by Martin Pasko and Gerry Conway, pencils by Romeo Tanghal, inks by Dick Giordano and Bob Layton.

Phrasing, Deadman! I know nobody can hear you, but come on. 

This wasn't set on New Year's, but Halloween: another one set during the annual costume parade at Rutland, Vermont. The festivities may be dampened by the kidnapping of a local girl, but they get an extra hour to party! As the gargoyles create a 13th hour to open the gates of hell, which honestly seems almost inevitable at this point. Rama Kushna puts Deadman on the case, but his powers may be limited: he's still able to fly and possess people, but is no longer an intangible ghost, which would hamper his search for the gargoyles' lair. He does get there, but only after some had already hatched: a search party, that had been looking for the girl, gets torn up by the gargoyles. Deadman becomes intangible again before he can grab the girl, so he tries to possess one of the searchers--who had already been mortally wounded, and dies after Deadman enters him!

Deadman is barely able to move his corpse-host, but manages to get it into position that the demon Qabal thinks he is the sacrifice, and feeds on it instead of the girl. Qabal enjoys it at first, but then realizes it was a trick with no life for him, and seemingly dissipates. Free to possess the girl, Deadman frees her with his gymnastic skill, then gets a torch to a convenient natural gas source, blowing up the cave and the gargoyle eggs. The girl is returned to her family, while Rama explains the 13th hour business disturbed the dimensional alignment or whatever, making Deadman exist in two planes at one, but that wouldn't happen again. Neither of them seem to realize, Qabal still lives.

Elsewhere in Rutland, 'ghostbreaker' Dr. Terrance Thirteen and his wife Marie have arrived late; although the Phantom Stranger arrived ahead of them and suggests they consider themselves lucky. Dr. Thirteen isn't having it, since he had long before lost any patience for the Stranger's schtick. Marie tries to make apologies for him, but the Stranger warns her to leave that place, or her husband could get involved in something that could lead to his death. Of course, he also promptly disappears without explaining any of that. The Stranger may have a good reason for a change, as he is then confronted by a mysterious woman, who had plans for Qabal, and would not let "her love" interfere!

Dr. Thirteen had a meeting scheduled with some "disreputable folks," namely Tom Fagan, Gerry and Carla Conway, Marty Pasko, Paul Levitz, and Romeo Tanghal! They had seen weird crap in Rutland before, but don't agree with Thirteen that the Stranger was behind it. They are interrupted by a local cop, warning Tom of doings up at his place: lightning striking his house, and the Stranger seemingly hanging in midair somehow! Thirteen doesn't believe in any of this, so charges in headlong, even as the Stranger warns him. Tom is dismayed to find his house transformed inside, but perhaps it's not his house: the hypnotic Quinton Abel greets them, and asks them to join him for a drink. Thirteen realizes the drink is blood, then notices a dark mirror, showing the truth of Qabal! With Fagan and the cop hypnotized, the Stranger tells Thirteen it's up to him to act: he may have meant to show Qabal the mirror, not smash it over his head, but that works too. Qabal dissolves again; as the cop and Fagan return to normal (with Fagan again dismayed, this time that the lightning destroyed his house!) and Thirteen tries to convince himself this was just a hallucination, a lightning induced nightmare.

Deadman returns to Rutland, and isn't pleased to see the Stranger, apparently having a beef with him from an earlier issue. (Per the footnotes, Phantom Stranger #41, the last issue of that series.) The Stranger calms him down since he knows Rama Kushna had just sent Deadman back there, and while Qabal was gone, they had a greater threat: "Tala! Queen of darkness, mistress of the macabre!" Neat; I remember her from episodes of Justice League Unlimited, but I'm not sure I've ever read a comic with her. Dr. Thirteen had inadvertently freed her, and she had clashed with the Stranger many times since. She had built up more power, and had planned on sending Qabal to torment the earth, then offer herself as earth's savior in exchange for eternal worship. Still, it's a much-too-quick fight, with Tala unable to comprehend how she isn't winning: with Deadman giving his strength to the Stranger, they were able to imprison Tala again. Deadman splits, creeped out by the Stranger, but both their battles would continue...here and there. We mentioned before, this was another casualty of the DC Implosion, but it was by no means the last time we'd see of either of them.