Story: "Random Choice" (10 Pages)

Credits:

Ron Marz (plot, script)
Scott Kolins (pencils)
Jon Holdredge (inks)
Kurt Hathaway (letters)
Buzz Setzer (colors)
Digital Chameleon (separations)
Mike McAvennie (edits)

Feature Character:

Sinestro (in flashback)

Guest Stars:

Ganthet
Spectre II
Prohl Gosgotha (dies in flashback)

Villains: A Weaponeer of Qward

Synopsis:

Ganthet retells the story of how Sinestro came to gain a power ring. An archaeologist on his planet of Korugar, an alien vessel crashed into the ruins he was rebuilding. Inside, a strange creature pressed a ring on him and urged him to fight the coming enemy: a weaponeer of Qward. Sinestro was able to defeat the weaponeer, but (due to the ring's innate weakness against the colour yellow) only by collapsing yet more ruins on him. The alien green lantern then asked for his ring back to allow him to hold on to life until help arrived, but Sinestro withheld it. This of course was unknown to those who came to bless the new GL in his role, but they would learn in time when Sinestro turned against them, becoming first a despotic ruler on his own world, then a foe of all other Green Lanterns.

Ganthet has been telling the tale to Hal Jordan, now the Spectre, who has asked to hear the tale as a reminder of his own search for redemption and to encourage him to strive to redeem others.

Second Story: "[The Rise of Tartarus]" (10 Pages)

Credits:

Devin Grayson (plot, script)
Drew Johnson (pencils)
José Marzan Jr. (inks)
Comicraft (letters)
Jason Wright (colors)
Digital Chameleon (separations)
Mike McAvennie (edits)

Feature Characters:

Vandal Savage
Siren
Grodd
Red Panzer II
Lady Vic
Cheshire

Guest Star:

Omen

Comment: This story is told in small segments throughout the issue and takes place simultaneously with issues of the Titans monthly series.

Synopsis:

Vandal Savage is planning to raise up a group to oppose the Titans, and is torturing a woman to get the information on the perfect people for this group. First is Siren, a half-mermaid who has recently been turned over to the D.E.O. by Tempest, then, as an foil for the Flash, the power-hungry Gorilla Grodd. A new man is inside the armour of Red Panzer, so often an enemy of Donna Troy, and Vandal Savage chooses him also, revealing that he had the Panzer armour fitted with teleportation capabilities just in case he was ever to need whoever was in the suit. He also hires Lady Vic, a mercenary in the employ of Blockbuster, who has tangled with Nightwing on more than one ocassion. His team is then completed when Cheshire shows up, demading to be a part of the group. And his informant is revealed to be Omen, a kidnapped former Titans member.

Third Story: "Echoes Past" (10 Pages)

Credits:

Greg Rucka (plot, script)
Rick Burchett (pencils, inks)
Ken Bruzenak (letters)
Pamela Rambo (colors)
Digital Chameleon (separations)
Mike McAvennie (edits)

Feature Character:

Echo V (also in flashbacks)

Other Characters:

Lindsey
Sir Donald
Fawn Rollins (all die)

Synopsis:

Two high-ranking British secret service agents meet, to discuss the fact that the Russians have managed to create a 'turing'. The woman in question is known in Russia simply as 'pyat', or 'five', but English-speakers have designated her as Echo, learning of her existence when she invaded the No Man's Land of Gotham City fairly recently. At age 10, she began training as an assassin, 'graduating' at age 16 by killing everyone in a camp full of forty men. She also became involved in a project to fuse a 'wetware interface' with the human brain, an operation which would allow her to penetrate even the toughest encryptions. Pyat was the only survivor, from five guinea pigs, and it seems the interface worked better than intended, picking up all electronic transmissions, including, in time, human brainwaves. Unfortunately, she cannot shut out the constant 'noise', having to wear a suit that both dampens this and projects a holographic camouflage field.

Having concluded their briefing, the two agents wonder how to find and stop this operative. Their answer: she finds them, she's been in the room the whole time and wastes no time in killing them and erasing all the information they've gathered on her.

Fourth Story: "Dreams in Smoke" (10 Pages)

Credits:

Joe Kelly (plot, script)
Jackson Guice (pencils, inks)
Ken Lopez (letters)
Glenn Whitmore (colors)
Digital Chameleon (separations)
Mike McAvennie (edits)

Feature Character:

Encantadora (also in flashbacks)

Supporting Character:

Victor (her brother)

Villains:

Blockbuster II
Fitzy
Boom Boom Moretti (behind the scenes)

Other Character: Encantadora's father (flashback)

Synopsis:

La Encantadora, a woman who controls various magical abilities contained in a vial which drove her father mad, accepts a job from Bludhaven mob boss Blockbuster. Charged with destroying a foundry, she enchants one of the guards to turn on his colleagues before starting a fire. However, she discovers that the foundry owner's family have been kidnapped and held prisoner there - Blockbuster wanted to get them killed without the blood being on his hands. Family is very important to her: it's why she uses the magic her father never would, in order to care for her brother Victor. She saves the family, and, enraged, is able to use her power to throw Blockbuster off his building, regretting only the fact that he is bound to survive.

Fifth Story: "Goodness and Mercy" (10 Pages)

Credits:

Walter Simonson (plot, script)
Jon Bogdanove (pencils)
Bill Reinhold (inks)
John Workman (letters)
Sherilyn Van Valkenburgh (colors)
Digital Chameleon (separations)
Mike McAvennie (edits)

Feature Character:

Granny Goodness

Supporting Characters:

Mercy (first appearance; dies)
Darkseid

Other Character:

Snert

Synopsis:

Granny Goodness recalls the events that led to her being put in charge of Apokolips' 'orphanage.' She recalls the 'freedom run' where candidates for officer training pursue nameless denizens of Apokolips across a square to prevent them gaining a measure of freedom. On the ocassion when she took part, one man makes it to freedom, but Goodness kills him anyway, explaining that freedom is an illusion.

She and her hound, ironically named Mercy, become justly famous in their training for being unbeatable. Her final test comes, and an examiner hands her a gun, commanding her to kill her dog with it. She instead turns and kills the examiner, for which she is brought before Darkseid, the ruler of Apokolips, to whom she explains that Mercy would undoubtedly be a greater asset to him than the examiner ever could have been. What's more, Mercy will obey the lord of Apokolips unquestioningly. Accordingly, Darkseid orders Mercy to kill Goodness, but as she is wearing powerful energy gauntlets, she kills the dog herself. Admiring her foresightedness and ultimate cold-bloodedness, Darkseid gives her the job of heading up his orphanage, where she teaches all her charges that 'there is no place on Apokolips for mercy'.

Sixth Story: "Sorrow Ever More" (10 Pages)

Credits:

Geoff Johns and David Goyer (plot, script)
Phil Winslade (pencils)
Mike Perkins (inks)
Pat Prentice (letters)
John Kalisz (colors)
Digital Chameleon (separations)
Mike McAvennie (edits)

Feature Character:

Johnny Sorrow (also in flashback; next in JSA #10)

Supporting Character:

Icicle II (also in flashback to childhood; next in JSA #10)

Villain:

Icicle I (in flashback)

Guest Appearance:

Green Lantern (Alan Scott; in flashback)

Synopsis:

The Icicle is imprisoned at the Slab in a room so hot that it makes his cold-inducing powers useless. A mysterious stranger suddenly arrives in the guardroom and reveals his face to the guards, one of whom dies instantly, and the other claws his eyes out. This man, Sorrow, releases Icicle, and explains that he knew his father and even saved his life when he plunged into a river to escape the Green Lantern.

Years later, the original Icicle's wife gave birth and died in the process...of hypothermia. The child, Cameron, now the current Icicle had white skin and hair and could create instant cold and ice, having somehow internalised the abilities of his father's gun. Now, Sorrow offers him an opportunity to work alongside him and become a greater man.

Seventh Story: "Original Sin" (10 Pages)

Credits:

Tom Peyer (plot, script)
Cully Hammer (pencils, inks)
Comicraft (letters)
Lee Loughridge (colors)
Digital Chameleon (separations)
Mike McAvennie (edits)

Feature Character:

Amazo (last in Hourman #7; next in Superman Y2K #1)

Villain:

Professor Anthony Ivo (in flashbacks to childhood and creation of Amazo)

Guest Appearances:

Aquaman
Martian Manhunter
Black Canary II
Green Lantern (Hal Jordan)
Flash II (all in flashbacks)
Hourman III

Other Characters:

Leo Ivo (Prof. Ivo's father; dies in flashback)
Helmut Schultz (professional beach volleyball player; dies in flashback)

Synopsis:

The android Amazo recounts how he came to be. A young boy, Anthony Ivo, became obsessed with the death of his grandmother, vowing to himself that the same would not happen to him. As he grew older he experimented with ways of imparting consciousness to inorganic and therefore immortal matter, and failed over and over again. In the end however, he used the physique of a beach volleyball player Helmut Schultz, plus his estranged father's emotional abilities to create an android, Amazo, which he then used to steal the Justice League's powers, using these in turn to acquire various long-lived natural specimens, using these to create an immortality potion that eventually destroyed him.

Ivo destroyed his father, and Amazo destroyed Ivo, his own 'father'. And now Hourman, a futuristic android, looks like destroying Amazo, but Amazo wants this patricidal cycle to stop. Now.