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Sunday, March 20, 2011

Adventure Comics #113 - Feb. 1947

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Comics Weekend "The Television Thieves!" by Joe Samachson(?) and Louis Cazeneuve.

It's Adventure Sunday!

Last issue, Aquaman was introduced to the brand-new technology of television; this week he get involved in the world of film!
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This is a special gun, all right: it shoots a bullet that emits a cloud of chloroform(!), which knocks Aquaman out!

The jealous actor throws Aquaman into the hull of a wrecked ship, locking him inside. He then heads to the surface, feigning knowledge of where Aquaman went to, and offering himself to take the Sea King's place in the movie!

Meanwhile:
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...and so ends another adventure with Aquaman!


I feel like writer Joe Samachson (who I assume wrote this) is having a little fun at Hollywood's expense: the leading actor is a vain fool, so vain he's prepared to turn to murder to further his career. And I like the way the fancy pants director is visualized, with his sunglasses and scarf.

Reading this story made me think of how awesome a 1940s Aquaman movie would have been: I can picture rich, beautiful Technicolor underwater sequences, like the films of Esther Williams had. Oh well.

4 comments:

Joe Slab said...

2 questions for you rob!

Do you own all these issues that you review? Is so, WOW!

What issue of Adventure was Aquaman's 1st solo cover appearance?
(I know Brave and the Bold #25 was his 1st cover appearance ever).

Thanks!

Joe Slab

rob! said...

Joe--I don't have the physical comics, no. A FOAMer (who chooses to remain anonymous, Charlie's Angels-style) provided me with a disc of all of the GA Aquaman appearances in comics. The whole book--ads and all. Its pretty keen.

Yes, Aquaman's first cover appearance was B&B 28. His first solo cover was (I believe) Showcase #30, his try-out run to see if he could fill his own book (yes!).

Anthony said...

Since no snarky-yet-amusing Superboy cover comment was made this week ;-) , I'll add that this cover was used for the 2010 DC Comics 75th anniversary calendar I had last year. This issue's cover was used for (appropriately) December 2010. (The story featured Superboy helping some department store Santa in the unnamed-at-this-point-small-town-Superboy-lives-in).

Given Superboy or the Legion were usually considered the stars of Adventure during Aquaman's stay in the title, I'd assume Aquaman didn't first appear on the cover of Adventure until his 1970s revival in the book...

Re: the story: I wonder if the Earth-Two Sea King hauled off the actor in question to jail or not (given his attempted murder attempt and all). And on another note, was "Merman" an 18th century superhero or something, given that pirate ship? Aquaman's right---Hollywood *is* strange...

I'd assume a 1940s Aquaman movie would be similar to the Batman, Superman or Captain Marvel serials of the era---rather than a big movie, it'd probably be a multipart serial, possibly shot in black-and-white...

IADW said...

I love the pulp lines of these early tales! Has DC already collected these?