] type='image/vnd.microsoft.icon'/>

Saturday, April 24, 2010

Adventure Comics #463 - June 1979

sg
Comics Weekend "Climax" by Paul Kupperberg, Don Heck, and Joe Giella.

Picking up from the last issue of Adventure Comics, Aquaman has confronted Vulko, after discovering that the deal Vulko made with the not-as-benign-as-they-seem UFP will result in an ecological catastrophe.

Vulko has had enough of Aquaman's hot-headed meddling, and calls his guards to have the former king arrested:
sg
sg
sg
But as soon as Aquaman leaves the Royal Palace, he is surrounded by a small army of Atlantean troops and UFP security forces. Aquaman fights them off long enough to send a mental command to his finny friends--in this case, a massive, dense cloud of plankton, who flood Atlantis, giving Aquaman time to escape.

No sooner has Aquaman escaped however, then a blast of hard-water grazes him. That can only mean one thing--his wife, Mera!:

sg
Aqualad tries to talk Aquaman down, but he won't listen. As he swims away, Mera and Aqualad team to stop him. Mera slows him down with a hard-water shield, and then he and Aqualad actually trade blows!

Aquaman can't stand fighting his former sidekick, so he arranges another diversion: a school of pilot fish who swarm around Garth and Mera, keeping them at bay without any further risk of harming them.

Aquaman then makes his way to one of the UFP's plants, and tries to shut it down. But just as he's figuring out what to do, a UFP sub comes by, with the company's president, named Amos, aboard.

Amos plans to blast Aquaman, and the resulting explosion with obliterate all the evidence of the UFP's nefarious plot. Aqualad, who got away from the pilot fish and has caught up with Aquaman, overhears all this.

Aquaman tears off a hunk of the control panel, not knowing Aqualad is nearby:

sg
sg
I have to say, Vulko gets off easy here. He makes a horribly misguided, potentially-fatal deal with the UFP, and its up to Aquaman--as usual--to clean up the mess. Gee, Vulko, do I have to do everything?

This issue was Paul Kupperberg's last as writer for the Aquaman strip, after a too-brief tenure. Bob Rozakis would take over, and continue with the character after he left Adventure Comics (for the umpteenth time!).

This issue featured a great wraparound cover by Jose Luis Garcia Lopez, where each of the heroes got a little bit of real estate to themselves:

sg

2 comments:

Luis said...

Looks like a great issue and a great cover by Garcia Lopez. I was never a fan of Don Heck's art, but Joe Giella's excellent inks makes the art much better.

Aaron said...

I AM a big fan of Don HEck's art. His Aquaman was a little weird, though. Awesome cover! I loves me some JLG-L