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Sunday, February 06, 2011

Adventure Comics #107 - Aug. 1946

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Comics Weekend "Ware Water!" by Joe Samachson(?) and Louis Cazeneuve.

It's Adventure Sunday!

Aquaman encounters a problem he's never faced before...and just in time for his old nemesis, Blackjack, to show up!:
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Blackjack and some of his gang take off in a speedboat, sure that this land-locked Aquaman can't follow. Aquaman plans to simply commandeers a motorboat, 1980s cop show-style, but finds that Blackjack is one step ahead, having damaged every other boat's motor!

Later that night, Blackjack, not knowing how to quit while he's ahead, plans another scheme, and even goes so far as to use some of his henchmen to tip Aquaman off to it, in hopes of double-crossing the Sea King. Aquaman smells a rat...or, more accurately, a fish:

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...and so ends another adventure with Aquaman!


I have a couple (okay, many) thoughts in regards to this story: first off, its the first time I can think of where one story relates to another in such a direct way: Aquaman dealt with some uranium in the previous issue of Adventure Comics, and we see that has after effects that show themselves here. Neat.

Secondly, I love how the doctor's response to a patient saying "I don't feel right" is maybe you have uranium poisoning! Ever heard of the flu, doc?

Third, Blackjack really is one sorry villain--here's his chance to commit a series of water-based crimes free of interference from Aquaman, but he insists on A)tipping Aquaman off to it, and B)committing a crime Aquaman could still stop, as opposed to robbing a cruise ship out in the middle of the ocean. And if Blackjack is so dumb, what does that make the henchmen who keep signing up with him?

Fourth, I know its meant as a sort of "waah, waah, waaaah" punchline to the story, Aquaman going off to the desert, but couldn't he have just gone to see a movie or something? These were the days when you could just sit in a theater all day, watching the movie over and over again. That's what I would have done.

2 comments:

Joseph Brian Scott said...

Yes, that doc is some kinda master diagnostician! Without even whipping out a thermometer, he knows exactly what ails the sea king.

And fyi, Rob, that's what I STILL do. If you hunker down on the floor inbetween showings the ushers don't see you.

Doppelgänger said...

What a small world. I just posted from a later story about the same lame Black Jack, only by that point he was spiced up a bit with a neat m.o. he didn't seem to use again: http://earth-one-earth-two.blogspot.com/2011/02/ingenuity-of-black-jack-beat-that-black.html