Writer: Mike Tiefenbacher

Penciller: Alex Saviuk

Inker: Vince Colletta

Letterer: Shelly Leferman

Colorist: Jerry Serpe

Synopsis: Star Hawkins redeems Ilda from the pawnshop and Mister Viozi tells Star that he can no longer accept Ilda for pawn, as she is obsolete. They return to Star's office, where their clients, Stella Sterling and her bodyguard Automan, await. Stella explains to Star and Ilda, who is smitten with Automan, that there have been two kidnap attempts on her already and that she was hiring Star for protection. While they are discussing the case, a group of Corvan mercenaries attempt a kidnapping, but are stopped by Star, Stella, Ilda and Automan. The would-be kidnappers flee, but Automan sees a ticket stub that one of the mercenaries had dropped. Star tells Ilda and Automan to follow up on that clue while he got Stella to safety. Automan leads Ilda to a circus, where a special performance is being staged for the Corvus corporation. Ilda and Automan spy even more closely, and they hear the Corvans offer one another the Council of Five Planets salute and plan to attack Star. Automan and Ilda are then welded to the ground by lasers, but Ilda manages to use her telepathic spool to warn Star about the coming of the kidnappers. Star, meanwhile, attempts to make Stella safe in his private apartment, but the kidnappers blast a hole through its floor. Star and Stella try to fight themselves out of the situation, but the kidnappers immobilize them with an adhesive bomb. They then overhear the kidnappers talking about being unable to find "him," leading them to realize that Stella Sterling was not their target. At the Corvus headquarters, Ilda manages to touch Automan's body and this neutralizes the heat that welded them to the floor. In the apartment below Star's, Star tells Stells to make him cry, as the substance they are stuck together by dissolves in salt water. While they are escaping, Ilda and Automan bust in on the kidnappers and knock them all out. Later, they talk to the head of the National Science Center about the case, and he tells them that the Corvans were after Automan because his skin is made from manganese, which they could have used to build a super-weapon, but which is in short supply on their world. He then tells them that one of the Corvans they had captured was the most wanted criminal in the galaxy, and that Star will get a quarter of a billion credits. Months later, Star talks to Stella Sterling in his office as administrator of the Hawkins-Sterling Academy of Robot-Detection, a place where robots can learn how to be detectives, and one of the classes is given by Ilda and Automan, whose heroism has won new rights for robots: a special dispensation from obsolescence laws for Ilda, and for all robots, the right to marry other robots, as Ilda and Automan have done.

Notes: This story takes place in the year 2092.

The Corvan mercenaries are named after the creators who worked on the Star Hawkins stories in Strange Adventures:

Detective rating: Ilda and Automan properly traced the clue to the circus, but other than that, ther was no serious detection...the villains came to them. 4 on a scale of 1 to 10.

All characters and images are copyright DC Comics.

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