It’s A Grimmworld After All
Infinity Inc #50
Cover Date: May 1988
Released: 26th January1988
⋅ Writers: Roy Thomas ⋅ Pencilers: Vince Argondezzi ⋅
⋅ Inkers: Tony DeZuniga ⋅ Colourists: Liz Berube ⋅
⋅ Letterers: Jean Simek ⋅ Editors: Roy Thomas ⋅
In what’s the dying embers of Infinity Inc, a comic that doesn’t quite fit in a post Crisis world, Power Girl weirdly is bought back into the folds for this weird little tale.
We start our tale with Skyman (aka The Star-Spangled Kid) and Jade, Jade having given a lift for Skyman back to his pad. In the elevator, he’s confronted by a bunch of characters from fairytales. Falling out of the lift he’s caught by Power Girl, who didn’t see or more importantly hear anything he just encountered.
We get a brief mention of her trip to Skartaris (Warlord) and a meeting between Kara and Jonni Thunder (a character I wished I’d seen more of), whilst Sylvester get changed into his Skyman costume. Power Girl calls him back into the main room, which is funny to think of her using a sing-song voice, and it seems that this is a surprise party for Skyman’s birthday! We get a few fun interactions, however brief between Kara and Yolanda (Wildcat) and find out that Jonni planned this whole thing.
Meanwhile in another subplot, because what Infinity Inc without subplots, Fury and Nuklon are explaining how Hector Hall is alive as Sandman (apparently he appeared to die five or so issues ago). Apparently, Silver Scarab was a personality that took him over and now he’s free of the influence. We get a few pages explaining the whole thing including mention of a resue by Brute and Glob. Now as a fan of Sandman, the comic that got me into this whole mess, those two pesky demons are a neat surprise, though obviously, this is me projecting back from future history. The mention of him being lost in the dream stream and explaining away the last Sandman and says Hector comes back because Lyta is pregnant. Which is even better for my Sandman mention, as this pregnancy, through some shenanigans, will be the future Morpheus themselves, Daniel. Unfortunately, they’ll get will drift far away from the remit of this blog, so this is really the best place to mention the wonder that was how Neil Gaiman handles these two characters.
Back to this plot, however. It seems that something weird is going down at the local theme park, one based on Fairytail characters. They enter the place through a rollercoaster, Power Girl flying alongside, before being attacked by bat-eared creatures. They’re quickly dispatched and flee through a massive doorway in the sky, Infinity Inc follows through only to get overwhelmed by their foes. We then get the reveal of the real villains, Lorelei and The Wizard!
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| Like how am I meant to explain this? |
Lorelei has wishing powers, and fought the JSA in fairyland, because of cause, they escape back into the real world and Hourman killing Wizard bought him to this fairy world where the two of them teamed up. They put some kind of mojo on the majority of Infinity Inc, whilst we get Nuklon and Hourman to take a shortcut to join back with the rest of the team leading to a half panel reveal of a rather mixed up bodies of a changed Infinity Inc, something that the internet would have a field day nowadays.
The whole switch around isn’t that important, which is good because I’m not sure which blonde is meant to be Power Girl (my money is on the giraffe) because being a body swap issue (or a few panels) it’s about Jade getting Yolanda to use her green lantern ring to punch out the baddies whilst Sandman lets out a toot on his whistle to open back up the massive door that returns everyone to normal.
That all done we get a quick closing with Hector taking away Lyta to the dream world and a sure is a happy ever after!
Okay, fair they get married next issue! It’s also the last appearance of Power Girl, because she only turns up for birthdays and weddings no, and after a few pages she disappears from the story and we get the mess of subplots that is Infinity Inc. And only a few issues later, in issue #53 that’s it for this version of the team. I’ll admit I kind of wished that Roy Thomas was more interested in POwer Girl than Skyman/Star-Spangled because I would have liked to see her embroiled in the crazy team shenanigans that Infinity Inc gets up with, something thankfully we get in the next team she joins.
But first, we get her solo series!