Credits: Written by Judd Winick; art by Sami Basri; coloured by Jessica Kholinne; lettered by John J. Hill;  edited by Chris Conroy (associate) and Joey Cavalieri; cover by Sami Basri and Sunny Gho.

Synopsis “Old Friends”: Power Girl had been convinced by Maxwell Lord’s mind control that Captain Atom is Superman and that he has started to attack innocent civilians. The enraged Power Girl furiously attacked Atom until the JLI were able to break Lord’s conditioning (Justice League: Generation Lost #19).PG feels bad about the case of mistaken identity and wants to join the JLI’s fight against Max, but Booster asks her to find other people who also remember Lord’s existence. She goes to see Dick Grayson. Together they have managed to break Lord’s conditioning before, but its power always overwhelmed them again. Now PG’s mind is clear she tries to convince Dick by showing him that Ted Kord (the second Blue Beetle) was murdered by Max and did not commit suicide as the mind control makes people believe. Meanwhile at Starrware, the company’s creditors have sold off its assets to Day Work Industries. Simon Peters (Karen Starr’s executive assistant) and Nicco try to stall them, but Dr Ophelia Day sees through their charade. PG and Dick exhume Ted’s body and prepare to perform an autopsy. Dick still resists, but he’s over ruled by Bruce Wayne (the elder Batman and former member of the JLI). Together they show conclusively that Ted Kord could not have committed suicide. Batman (Bruce) then leaves Dick to contact Oracle and the JLA while he goes with Power Girl to aid the JLI.

Comments: The opening sequence of this issue takes place simultaneously with Justice League: Generation Lost #19. Last issue I questioned whether it was an art mistake that they showed the Bruce Wayne Batman and not the Dick Grayson Batman, but it obviously was deliberate. The conversation with the Blue Beetle is a flashback to Countdown to Infinite Crisis. I’m not really sure how this plays out, but in the Countdown to Infinite Crisis Max orders Ted’s body to be incinerated so I assumed that there was no real corpse to do an autopsy on.

Opinion: Another great issue from Winick and Basri. I love the way that this series dovetails with Justice League: Generation Lost, but also manages to tell a story that is completely its own. The stripping of Kord Omniversal is nicely paralleled with the falling apart of Starrware. The elephant in the room with regards to the Generation Lost storyline has always been those characters who weren’t around for the mind wipe or should have been able to resist it – specifically J’onn J’onzz and Bruce Wayne. As we’ve seen in the latest issue of Brightest Day that J’onn never had a chance to become involved. Bruce Wayne was lost in time until after this series started and I like the way that he doesn’t even need to struggle with the mind control. He shows that although Dick Grayson is a Batman, Bruce Wayne is still The Batman. Over the course of this series the colouring has transitioned between Sunny Gho and Jessica Kholinne. The overall result has been consistently of a really high standard and I’m impressed that there was no noticeable change between the two colourists.