InsaneJournal

When we last left our merry band, the JSA were getting their asses handed to them by Mordru, who'd used Hector's emotional instability in order to commandeer his body for nefarious purposes (Only it wasn't really Hector's body he took, but... Oh, you'll find out in the next few pages). While the battle rages, Hector wakes up inside the Amulet of Fate.









Arion, for those who've been trying to keep up with Power Girl's revolving door origin story, was thought to be her grandfather at this time. When she actually meets him while being one of the people who go to Gemworld to free his soul, he'll inform her that this was a lie on the part of others, which eventually leads into her tie-in miniseries to Infinite Crisis.

But that's neither here, nor there. Back to the Fate Family Reunion:















Nabu-Infused!Hector once again kicks Mordru's ass and, this time, gets some help from the Wizard (as in the one who powers the Marvel family) in doing a better job of sealing him away. Everything's shiny, right?

Yeah, uh, remember that this is DC.

For example, that little intervention? The one where Nabu said that all of the former agents were all just imagination figments? Yeah, he lied about that. And the whole affectionate worried fatherly figure thing was pretty much fake too. In fact, after he decides that Hector's too soft to do things his way, he pulls a Mordru himself and locks Hector back in the amulet in order to take a more ruthless hand in the fight currently going on between the JSA and Black Adam's forces (Black Adam having gone back to his homeland to squish a brutally dictatorial regime -literally, thanks to Atom Smasher- and take over the country himself).



And now for the return of someone very familiar...



Lyta! Honey! Good to finally see you instead of another illusion! But how did you get into the amulet? And why are you wearing your old Fury costume?



And why are you...uh...well...sane?

Oh, and these are hypothetical questions, of course, because they'll never get answered in this run, aside from a brief glossing over of everything that happened to Lyta. No, I'm not kidding. Chalk it up to yet another potentially interesting story that got chucked off a cliff.

Anyway, Hector regains control of his body and brings Lyta into the outside world with him, where they briefly join the fight with Black Adam before a truce (sort of) is called and the JSA go home.

Meanwhile, Degaton is floating through time, enjoying the more painful moments the JSA have lived. He decides Hector and Lyta haven't had enough to give him proper entertainment, and pays a visit to Fate's tower, only to get warned off by someone even he doesn't want to cross.





Yes, that voice in the mirror is exactly who you think it is. Whether it's genuine concern or a reflection of the promise-threat he made to Lyta at the end of The Wake, Daniel's protective of his folks.

Several issues later, we find that the crew of Prior Fates are still keeping Nabu locked up, trying to force him to understand that the method by which he imposes his will on his agents is fuuuucked up, and they're not putting up with it anymore. I had to leave those pages out for keeping-up-with-plot reasons, sadly, because it's one of the very few tiny bits where we get to see Lyta actually be badass in this series. However, we do get the barest glossy explanation as to why the hell she's being so chipper lately.



The situation Daniel alerts them to is a new-old problem of the JSA's returning. Namely, Sand, who was trapped in the Earth in a prior fight and has now had his soul sucked into the Dreaming, which is slowly driving him mad and causing tectonic problems. Doctor Fate and Fury rejoin the others to deal with it (and Power Girl's face when Lyta hugs her is both hilarious and totally appropriate, considering this is the first time they've even seen each other since way back in Infinity Inc.).



While half the team head underground to try and retrieve Sand's physical body, Doctor Fate and the others go into the Dreaming/Sand's mind to fix the problem there.











Damn, there's a familiar costume. Tune in for the next chapter, in which we have a "History Lesson Interlude" (Mine. They don't do this in the comic, thank God), and the team attempts to get Sand back.