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Sunday, April 01, 2012

Adventure Comics #175 - April 1952

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Comics Weekend "Mystery of the Disappearing Island!" by George Kashdan and Ramona Fradon.

It's Adventure Sunday!

In this issue, Superboy visits The Land of Funny Hats!

Meanwhile, the King of the Seven Seas has to solve a mystery...a very large mystery!
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Aquaman, with the help of some finny friends, manages to raise the island to the surface. Then some sawfish open up a hole at the bottom, freeing the witness Preston needs to exonerate his son.

Meanwhile, Captain Dirk escapes, heading for a nearby cannon:
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...and with that, so ends another adventure with Aquaman!


Whew, this is one wordy story! Check out page three, which has more dialogue than an Aaron Sorkin screenplay. I can only imagine Ramona Fradon getting this story and trying to figure out how the heck she was going to fit all this action in in just five and a half pages.

The whole "disappearing island" concept seems very Scooby-Doo, only in reverse. Its a fun enough story, with my favorite moment occurring in the last panel, with Aquaman flying away ala Superman.

On a side note--there seem to be so many damn scallywags, pirates, and scurvy dogs operating on the seven seas its kind of amazing there weren't more sea-based superheroes. I mean, the market was there!

3 comments:

Unknown said...

Viva Adventure Sunday!

This was kind of a fun mystery, with some decent stakes, and a nifty gimmick. Is this the third or fourth variation on Black Jack so far? I say bring him back.

Do Sea Eagles naturally fly in formation? I'd hate to be in that raft if one of them just didn't want to turn left at Greenland.

Oh, and George K., when spelling friend, it's i before e, except after c.

James Chatterton

Anthony said...

Lots of sea eagles appearing in these stories now!

Re: Superboy: the plot: A small European country claims their hero "Prince Power" is greater than Superboy. Clark and two Smallville representatives go there and discover it was really a temporarily amnesiac Superboy. The story's later recycled in "Adventure" #295 in the early 60s.

rob! said...

I really don't get getting rid of Black Jack, only to replace him with half a dozen even-more-colorless clones.

And I guess sea eagles were all the rage in the 1950s!