Justice League/Teen Titans: Secret Legends Issue 3

"Blue Hope Valentine" is the 4th issue and 3rd chapter of Justice League/Teen Titans: Secret Legends.

Featured Characters

 * Justice League
 * Batman / Bruce Wayne
 * Batgirl / Barbara Gordon
 * Green Lantern / Hal Jordan
 * Flash / Barry Allen
 * Star Sapphire / Carol Ferris
 * Wonder Woman / Diana of Themyscira (flashback and main story)

Supporting Characters

 * Blue Lantern Corps
 * Arisia Rrab
 * Mala
 * Collin Hill
 * Solovar
 * Superman / Clark Kent / Kal-El
 * The Fierce Flame / Mary Elizabeth Kane (first appearance)

Villains

 * Cold Cult
 * Captain Cold / Leotard Snart
 * Golden Glider / Lisa Snart (first appearance)
 * Killer Frost / Louise Lincoln
 * Mister Freeze / Victor Fries
 * Tattooed Man / Abel Tarrant (first appearance)
 * Ares (flashback only)
 * Sinestro (mentioned only)
 * Vandal Savage (mentioned only)

Other Characters

 * Unnamed Odym Fox
 * Hippolyta (flashback only)
 * Ronnie Raymond (mentioned only)

Premise
Since she learned of Superman’s whereabouts after the battle with Ares’ forces in Athens, Wonder Woman became a calmer and more optimistic fighter who turns her foes’ rages into their greatest weaknesses. This issue also reveals a tale of her trials with the Blue Lantern Corps. At the same time, Flash and Batgirl found for themselves a new ally with a new young heroine who has the best of both of them...

Plot
The Justice League (Batman, Batgirl, Green Lantern, Flash, Star Sapphire and Wonder Woman) are battling Tattooed Man, who had upgraded his living tattoos with a new radioactive ink composed of Yellow Fear Energy (though the substance also drove him irreversibly insane). Wonder Woman proves herself surprisingly immune to Tarrant's tattoos and manages to defeat him. As Tarrant is taken to prison and stripped off is radioactive ink, Green Lantern and Star Sapphire notice that Wonder Woman has been feeling less than angry since the League defeated Ares' Spartan forces in Athens, eventually deducing that it has to do with the Blue Lanterns.

While the others leave to the Watchtower, Wonder Woman is having a walk on the streets as she recalls the moment the League fought Ares and his Spartan forces, on which she eventually remembers her happy reunion with Superman, who has been patrolling in space with the Blue Lanterns since he left the League for his journey to regain his sense of Justice after Ronnie Raymond was killed by Vandal Savage. On the middle of her way, she encounters and watches Collin Hill playing fetch with a Odym Fox using a Lantern-Construct-made football, much to Diana's joyful amusement as Collin notices her and wins her mother-like loving sympathy.

Meanwhile, Flash and Batgirl are training together in the Hall of Justice until they are alerted about the "Cold Cult", a group of ice-based supervillains (consisting of Captain Cold, Killer Frost, Golden Glider and led by Mister Freeze) who plan to create a new super weapon which can put an entire city into a massive winter field with a single blast. The duo sets out to stop the villains while they are unknowingly followed by a mysterious young vigilante.

Wonder Woman and Collin arrive in Odym, where Diana voices her thoughts of the beauty in Odym's wildlife and also her pleasure of being there again; a flashback reveals that she was battling hordes of Circe's monstrous spawns until one of her colleagues ended up killed by one of Circe's serpents trying to protect a family nearby. Diana felt deeply guilty for failing to save one of her sisters until she was approached and comforted by Superman, who eventually stopped a Red Lantern ring (which sensed Diana's rage over guilt) from attaching to her and took her to Odym so that she could find peace in there.

After some inner peace training with the Blue Lanterns, Diana was given the strength to forgive herself when Adara projected a image of the Amazon she was mourning sympathizing with her, and forgiving her before Diana, now filled with great hope, returned to Earth. Back in Present day, Flash and Batgirl confront the Cult in Central City. After a long fight, the two are joined by Mary Elizabeth Kane, a new heroine dubbing herself the Fierce Flame. The new heroine eventually proves herself a powerful ally, who shares Batgirl's fighting style and Flash's speed-running power.

While the trio are kept occupied with the other three villains, Golden Glider attempts to fire the weapon despite Mister Freeze's warnings, but only for the machine to malfunction due to the lack of more power batteries, rendering the core unstable and threatening to unleash a nuclear blast which will freeze the entire city's population to death. Flash and Fierce Flame (with help from Wonder Woman and Superman, who also arrive in the battle) manage to speed up around the core to create a Speed Force vortex which drains the core's energies, saving the city and foiling the Cult's plans.

Golden Glider subsequently scolds at the other three Cult members for their mission's failure in a terrible sense of dangerous short temper, eventually drawing the attention of another Red Lantern ring which comes after her. But before she could take it, Collin stops the ring and destroys it, although Glider ends up losing her temper a lot more. In a failed attempt to talk his sister down, Captain Cold is forcibly dragged away by Glider back home for their long talk, much to Cold's great embarrassment while the others only watch speechlessly.

As Mister Freeze and Killer Frost are taken back to prison, Flash and Batgirl thank the Fierce Flame for their help while they voice their pleasure to count on Collin's help once more. Wonder Woman feels more and more confident of the Blue Lanterns' peace-keeping nature, as she wonders if more will be join the Corps soon, to which Superman replies that "it has already begun". Scene shifts to Odym, where countless Blue Lanterns had received their rings and are all meditating and training.

Note

 * The title of this issue pays homage to Blue Valentine, a poem by American poet Joyce Kilmer (1886-1918) and a 2010 romance drama film starring Michelle Williams and Ryan Gosling