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Sunday, May 06, 2012

Adventure Comics #180 - Sept. 1952

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Comics Weekend "The Bank Beneath The Sea!" by George Kashdan(?) and Ramona Fradon.

It's Adventure Sunday!

This Superboy cover is just weird.

This month, the King of the Seven Seas takes on a scourge worse than any supervillain, sea monster, or pirate...bankers!
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Willie Desmond shares his plan with a fellow sea-faring crook, which involves calling Aquaman to another location many miles away.

While Aquaman is otherwise engaged, Wilie and his gang don diving suits and head straight for the underwater bank, which triggers it's levels of sea creature-based security:
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...and with that, so ends another adventure with Aquaman!


Okay, so I lied...Aquaman doesn't really take on bankers in this story. When I first saw the title, I imagined--hoped for, really--the 1940s head-busting Aquaman laying waste to the fat cats at Goldman Sachs. I guess it was not to be.

That aside, I really loved this adventure--Fradon's art is crisp and beautiful; I love the whole diving suit stuff, and the the entire concept of the underwater bank is crazy weird, and distinctly Aquaman.

5 comments:

Joseph Brian Scott said...

Blackjack Award?!? What?! Aquaman's old nemesis is showing up in the Superboy strip?! Ohhh...no; Superboy is just being auctioned off as a slave to a bunch of men. Ok. Got it.

Anthony said...

Not only is he a superhero, but also a banker? Nice. (Have any post-Golden Age stories shown Aquaman dealing with money directly like this?)

Re: Superboy: The plot: A crook vows to gain the "Superboy Award" (for outsmarting Superboy) at the underworld's "Blackjack Awards" ceremony, though a gunshot's temporarily blinded him. I'll assume it's not named after "our" Blackjack, unless he somehow moved from Earth-2 to Earth-1 (or there's an *Earth-1* Black Jack... who I guess would've been thwarted by Aquaboy?). :-p

Unknown said...

Viva Adventure Sunday!

This story raises so many questions: Does Aquaman offer interest? Does he offer loans offset against the principle that garners interest for him? Is there a Christmas Club? What happens if he's trapped by some pirates for weeks at a time, does the octopus have the authority to handle deposits and withdrawals? Lollipops for children? And where are those sea-eagles?

James Chatterton

rob! said...

JBS--That cover probably inspired a lot of Superboy slash fiction.

Anthony--I think this might be the first time they ever dealt with "money" per se. Treasure, sure, but actual currency?

JC--Indeed! This story needed a Part 2 to be sure. What are the deposit slips made from, since they can't be paper? What holidays do they recognize? SO many questions!

Hugo said...

My favorite part of those reviews are always... the Superboy covers :D

There is no month missing the question: "What the hell were they thinking ?" ^^