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Sunday, December 21, 2008

DC Comics Presents #71 - July 1984

sgComics Weekend The return of Bizarro Aquaman!

Not too long ago, I wrote a Comics Weekend post about Superman (Vol.1) #379, which featured the first-- and what I first thought was only-- appearance of Bizarro Aquaman.

But as soon as I bought the book, I looked the character up (using the nearly indispensable Mike's Amazing World of DC Comics) and discovered that, lo and behold, the shambling mess that is Bizarro Aquaman made a second--and final--appearance in DC Comics Presents #71.

The story this time around is titled "The Mark of Bizarro!", by E.Nelson Bridwell, Curt Swan, and Dave Hunt:

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We get a brief history of how the Bizarro Justice League came to be--the original Bizarro created them to be his friends.

But Bizarro wanted some exercise, too, so he created Bizarro versions of some super-villains, like Bizarro Shaggy Man (who only just sits and thinks, 'natch) and Bizarro Joker. But that wasn't enough, so he created a Bizarro Amazo:
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I love this transaction:

Bizarro Amazo: "...Me give you Bizarro-Aquaman's powers! Okay?"

Bizarro Green Lantern: "No-kay! Then me won't be big hero!"

Wow--Aquaman even gets dissed on the Bizarro World! Sheesh.

Unfortunately, just like in Superman #379, Bizarro Aquaman disappears from the story early, and never comes back. The story then moves onto how Bizarro and Bizarro-Amazo come to Earth, and how Supes and Bizarro have to team-up to stop the erstwhile Frankenstein.

Of course, Byrne's Superman reboot came along two years later, and all this Bizarro World stuff got wiped away, and Bizarro Aquaman never made another appearance in the DC Universe.

I guess Bizarro-Aquaman would've actually been happy about that.
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This cheery ad for the Brave and the Bold comic has been running in all the Johnny DC titles of the last two months--now having seen the show's take on Aquaman, I'm doubly glad to see how prominent he is in the marketing campaign for the show!

(Although in this particular drawing, Aquaman looks like he came right from a gig with Ren & Stimpy)

2 comments:

Plaidstallions said...

Aquaman does kind of look like Powdered Toast Man there eh?

Anonymous said...

I would have loved to have seen more of Bizarro Aquaman too. Despite this, DC Comics Presents 71 is a fun comic from one of my all time favourite series. I've always dug the idea of Bizarro Joker, who is the only sane person on Bizarro World and tormented by this fact.