Green Lantern #57 (December 1994)
After months of foreshadowing, Kyle Rayner finally joins the New Titans... in a fight to the death!!! After his little detour through R.E.B.E.L.S. #1 and New Titans #115, Kyle is finally back on Earth and in his own damn comic, and the first thing he does is visit the grave of his recently murdered girlfriend, Alex. Kyle apologizes for missing her funeral just because he was busy helping save all of time and then getting lost in space (but her pissed-off family doesn't know that).
Actually, we find out on the next page that Kyle's been doing a ton of other stuff since he got back to Earth, like finding an apartment to rent in New York (this comic has taken place in Los Angeles so far) (well, and in space), sending all his stuff there, and even finding some freelance design jobs. Looks like the "superhero finds motivation in his dead girlfriend" trope worked so well on Kyle that it cured his ADHD.
After a tearful goodbye, we cut to Kyle already in New York. Once he finds his building (with some "Marvelous" help I'll go into in the plotlines section), Kyle meets his landlord, Radu, who also owns and operates a coffee shop on the ground floor (more on him below, too). Kyle spends his first night in his new place pulling an all-nighter on a design gig for a toy company, and by the time he's done, he's so tired that he sees a creepy face on his window. Of course, the fact that there was a creepy face on his window probably helped there.
("I was always told to display your best feature," replies Psimon, raising his robe to show his calves.)
The creepy face belongs to Psimon, a New Teen Titans villain who was last seen getting killed by Brainiac during Crisis on Infinite Earths. Somehow, he ended up as a disembodied entity in deep space; he's the weird helix-looking thing that's been trailing Kyle for the last couple of months. Psimon wants to steal Kyle's ring, but Kyle informs him that, as established last issue, he's the only one who can wear it. Psimon's like, "fine, I'll just steal your whole body then."
Kyle Losing His Ring Counter: 2.5? (Not sure if we should count this as a "Kyle losing his ring" instance, since it's technically still on his person.)
So, Psimon possesses Kyle and takes him to visit his old enemies, the New Titans, who are currently in the process of fighting their teammate Changeling, who is currently evil. Kyle drops by and takes out Changeling pretty easily, but the other Titans think it can't be the real Kyle because the last time they saw him, it sure looked like he was about to die (at the end of Zero Hour). Normally, this would be a foolish assumption, since superheroes die and come back all the time, but Kyle/Psimon confirms that it's spot-on when he starts attacking the Titans and announces his intentions to kill them.
TO BE CONTINUED! IN ANOTHER COMIC, AGAIN!
Arguably the most important event taking place in this issue is the first appearance of Radu Stancu, whose thick Romanian accent will grace these pages for many years to come. He's also the icon for this blog, just like Bibbo Bibbowski is the icon for my other one. This is not a coincidence, since I consider Radu to be another good-natured-but-tough supporting character in the Bibbo tradition. You might say Radu is my idol.
Kyle's new address is at 175 Bleecker Street, Greenwich Village, which nerds will recognize as being right next to Dr. Strange's address at 177A Bleecker Street, Greenwich Village. The "Marvelous" cameo mentioned above is Dr. Strange's sidekick Wong, who helps Kyle find his place and even throws in a "strange" pun before disappearing. These little in-jokes happen in comics all the time, but let's overthink this, shall we? 1996's Green Lantern/Silver Surfer will reveal that Oa's destruction in GL #0 created a hole between the DC and Marvel universes, which causes characters to be randomly transported from one to the other (eventually leading to the DC Versus Marvel crossover). It's perfectly possible that Wong was one of the first people transported by the inter-company hole, especially since Ron Marz wrote or co-wrote all of these comics.
Wong warns Kyle that he should stay away from "the neighboring lot," which appears to be in ruins. This is a reference to the fact that Dr. Strange's Sanctum Sanctorum had been destroyed exactly one year earlier in Doctor Strange, Sorcerer Supreme #60 and the doc was still living in a new place at this point.
Meanwhile, on the other side of Kyle's building is an alley where, according to a crazy guy who accosts Kyle on the street, monsters materialize at night. Kyle, despite his well-documented love of alleys, declines going into this one. Radu calls the crazy guy "Felix the Cat" because he's always yowling. We'll hear his yowls again.
The New Titans present in this issue are Impulse, Damage, Terra II, Arsenal, and Changeling (in his evil gargoyle phase). You know who isn't present in this issue? Donna Troy, even though she's on the cover, wearing her new Darkstars costume -- unless you count a small visual flashback of her as Wonder Girl when Psimon is talking about the old New Teen Titans, which I don't. She'll show up in the New Titans issue that continues this storyline, but still, pretty low to mislead Donna fans like that.
Another important development in this issue is that we learn which CDs Kyle listens to on his Walkman when he's pulling an all-nighter. I see Face Value by Phil Collins, something by Nine Inch Nails (must be an unofficial compilation), and... I can't place the one on the lower left here. Anyone recognize that cover?
NEXT: More Titans! And Donna actually appears!
