Brightest Star Burns In Sky

Opal City - The world has once again suffered the loss of one of its finest heroes. Ted Knight, the first Starman, died stopping his arch-enemy, the original Mist, last week.

Details of what happened to Opal City during a several-day period in which the city was covered in a dome of darkness are still being clarified, but much of the story now stands revealed. Many of the initial assumptions that were made based on early reports from the city's outskirts have proven to be false.

The Mist was apparently only one of a number of super-villains responsible for a massive crime wave in Opal City during the darkness. The terror was organized by a man named Simon Culp, an immortal with darkness powers similar to those of the Shade, long-time enemy of the Flash and, apparently, an Opal City resident. Wanting to strike at the Shade, a long-time enemy, Culp gathered a host of villains associated with Opal City's past and used a magical spell to conjure a dome of darkness which was intended to draw the entire city into a dimension of darkness.

Surprisingly, the solution to this problem lay not in sorcery or in cosmic rod energy, but in solving an ancient mystery, dating back to colonial days, when Opal City was known as "Port O' Souls." The darkness was apparently based on an ancient curse by a seventeenth-century privateer who had been framed for murder. Former Justice Leaguer Elongated Man was summoned by Ted Knight to look into some murders for which the Shade had apparently been framed by Culp. When the darkness descended on Opal City, Elongated Man deduced that the privateer's ghost was at the root of the problem and used his skills to solve the crime, freeing the privateer's ghost to move on and depriving the darkness spell of its power source. It is believed that the Elongated Man and his wife intend to stay in Opal City indefinitely.

The Mist's plot was parallel to Culp's. Wanting revenge on Knight, he arranged, in the event of Culp's failure to destroy Opal City, for a nuclear device to be placed within an Opal City municipal building. When the dome of darkness lifted, the original Mist, thought to be senile, revealed himself as fully lucid and killed Culp. He announced his plot, to have the bomb detonate upon his imminent death (he had consumed poison), in front of Jack Knight, Elongated Man and several others.

However, as in so many times past, Ted Knight, the original Starman, defeated the Mist. Using a larger version of his cosmic rod, Ted Knight lifted the entire building into space, where it exploded harmlessly after a conflict in which the original Mist reportedly killed his own daughter and successor.

He will be missed by all.

As Starman, Ted Knight defended Opal City since 1939, and was a member of the Justice Society of America from 1941 until 1945. In his civilian identity, he was tangentially involved in the creation of the atomic bomb and felt responsible for the dead of Hiroshima and Nagasaki. It was later revealed that his departure from the JSA was due, in part, to a nervous breakdown. He rejoined the JSA for a brief period of time in 1951, and was a member on a somewhat spotty basis when the team came out of retirement in the 1960's. He was with the JSA when they disappeared for a few years, and shortly after they came back, he handed over his cosmic rod to his son David in order to devote his golden years to his scientific studies. His name has been applied to numerous patents for the use of cosmic energy, and it is believed that the principles he has described will revolutionize science for centuries to come.

He is survived by his son Jack, the current Starman, and by his grandson, Kyle Theodore.

Cheshire Escapes After Botched Assassination Attempt

New York, NY - An assassination attempt blamed on Quraci expatriates has resulted in freedom for the woman who was supposed to stand trial for the destruction of their home country, the terrorist known as Cheshire.

According to the Titans, Cheshire was attacked twice: first by a team of freelance vigilantes known as the Hangmen, and later by the infamous hitman, Deathstroke the Terminator. While the Titans managed to prevent the Hangmen from either killing Cheshire or allowing her to escape, the same could not be said of Deathstroke. During a battle between Deathstroke and Arsenal, Cheshire's bonds were shattered, and she escaped.

After an extensive investigation, police cleared Arsenal of any complicity in Cheshire's escape. Arsenal was suspected because he was known to have had a romantic relationship with her back during his days as Speedy, and the two of them have a daughter, Lian, who is in Arsenal's custody.

Instead, the escape seems to be a genuine accident which occurred during the attempted hit. The assassination attempt has been blamed on a group of Quraci nationals who sought revenge.

However, government sources have not ruled out the possibility that Deathstroke was acting independently. While the files on the nuclear destruction of Qurac are officially classified, sources say that Deathstroke was drawn into that affair and has borne the burden of the deaths of the Quracis ever since. While this seems odd for a man whose stock-in-trade is killing for hire, the Titans have said that genocide is not within the scope of Deathstroke's personality.

Also unaccounted for is the whereabouts of the Ravens, a group of criminals with whom Cheshire has been associated in recent months. It is not believed that they have had anything to do with the escape.

Other-World Series?

Mount Palomar Observatory, CA - Scientists have announced that the radio telescopes at this observatory have picked up broadcasts of radio waves from a distant solar system that appear to be communication signals. An initial effort at decoding these signals makes them sound like a baseball-game broadcast, clearly a result of some mix-up in the translation.