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Sunday, December 02, 2012

Adventure Comics #211 - April 1955

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Comics Weekend "The Mystery of the Seven Sea Statues" by Jack Miller(?) and Ramona Fradon.

It's Adventure Sunday!

I've had dreams like this, though they weren't about my secret identity.


Anyway, this month Aquaman makes like Saddam Hussein and commissions statues...of himself! Why? Let's find out:
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But, much to the disappointment of the onlookers, Aquaman is just setting up yet another statue of himself! They wonder what Aquaman is up to, but all anyone can figure out is that he's pretty mad about what happened in Ocean Square.

A few days later, a salvage crew is pulling up a treasure chest containing gold dubloons. Aquaman, being carried by two sea eagles, drops out of the sky and dives straight down. The salvage crew is happy, assuming the Sea King is there to help them:
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...and with that, so ends another adventure for Aquaman!

We all should have known Aquaman was doing this for a grander, more noble purpose, and shame on us for doubting him.

I will say it feels like the conclusion to the story comes out of left field (The Attractornator?), and the surplus of word balloons on page six bears that out a bit--there was a lot of explaining to do.

I wonder what "Seacoast town" the Aquaman statue is in? As Liz Lemon would say, "I want to go to there."



Post Script: I really should have mentioned this (thanks to F.O.A.M.er Anthony for reminding me)--anyone notice that Aquaman is now rocking green gloves in this adventure? I guess there's a case to made this is the debut of the Silver Age Aquaman, except for the fact that he toggled back and forth between green and yellow gloves in subsequent stories (I guess there were more than one colorist doing the series), and of course his new origin is still a few years away.


6 comments:

Anthony said...

Maybe that "seacoast town" is the Earth-2 version of New Venice? :-)

Of note in this story is this must be the first time in comics Aquaman's gloves are green instead of yellow, though they end up alternating colors over the next several years' worth of stories.

Re: Superboy: Superboy dreams about what his future as an adult might be like, including meeting the adult Lois Lane (who he'd met before in an early Superboy story in 'Adventure Comics").

rob! said...

Thx for the reminder Anthony! I just added that to the post.

Earth 2 Chris said...

Man, the green gloves look so much better.

Chris

Anthony said...

You're welcome, rob! :-)

Hmm... Silver Age doesn't completely equal "Earth-1", of course (the former is about a shift in writing style/themes/elements, the latter continuity-focused), but like you, I don't think this story counts as the first appearance of *either*, given the glove coloring inconsistency. For the first fully SIlver Age story, most of the reprint collections, etc. seem to start with "Adventure" #260 (the Silver Age origin). The first Earth-1 Aquaman appearance seems debatable, though I'd probably go with either "Adventure" #218 (out in Nov. 1955, same month as J'onn J'onzz's first appearance) or "Adventure" #229 (Topo's first appearance).

Anonymous said...

Viva Adventure Sunday!

Those sea eagles again! Did they have any on Earth-1? maybe that's the demarcation point. And yeah, green gloves ties the whole room together.

I know how Aquaman feels. I usually feel odd distributing my statues around town, too.

James Chatterton

Joseph Brian Scott said...

My attractornator is on the blink.