Random Back Issues #146 - The Comet #12

The issue starts with Rob, aka the Comet, having a nightmare about a snowy wilderness. He finds his parents, who went missing around the time he gained his powers, but they're scared of him. There's someone he can't make out with them, but when he tries to move closer the ground opens beneath him and he sees some awful truth.

Which he promptly forgets on waking up and realizing he's late for breakfast with his TV reporter friend, Victoria. He gets a sarcastic greeting, and hits to his pride keep coming, as Victoria called detective Ben Lee to help fix her car's flat, because, 'she knew she could count on him.' While Ben retrieves aerosol fix-a-flat, Rob tries to use his powers to seal the puncture and expand the air in the tire.

So while Victoria goes to breakfast with Ben (who has both car and steady employment, oooh-la-la), Rob's in search of a new tire. He stops to watch the broadcast launch of a weather satellite co-engineered by the U.S. and U.S.S.R. on a store-window TV, but the broadcast is hijacked by a hyper-patriotic armored nutjob. Inferno's seized control of Strategic Air Command to decry this attempt to weaken America by sharing technology with its enemies, which he suspects is a deliberate conspiracy. So he's altered its course, and will intercept and destroy it.

Rob rushes home, gets in costume, gets the location of S.A.C. from Victoria and rushes off to stop Inferno. He even grabs a camera to take some photos of the fight, as a thank you to Victoria. Too bad the speed he flies at melted the camera. He takes a few hits but looks to have the upper hand, except Inferno's been gaining altitude the whole time and they just hit the jet stream. Inferno's armor guides him out, but Rob's struggling to tell up from down and running low on power in the process. By the time he gets his bearings, he's outside the atmosphere. Oops.

Or maybe not. Turns out he doesn't need air (concerning), and being beyond the ozone layer means he's soaking up more solar power than ever. One blast is enough to make Inferno bail, but the satellite's falling back to Earth. When Rob goes to retrieve it, Inferno triggers its engines remotely and sends it and Rob on a collision course with the Sun!

Which ought to take months at minimum, but turns out to be irrelevant as Rob overloads on solar energy and explodes! Destroying the satellite in the process. Not a great showing for the Comet, and from here, things only get worse for him.

{3rd longbox, 12th comic. The Comet #12, by Mark Waid (writer), Kevin West (penciler), Jeff Albrecht (inker), Tom Ziuko (colorist), Tim Harkins (letterer)}