Splash Page Saturday: Adventure Comics #445

Jim Aparo tends to show up a lot in these Splash Page Saturday installments. Partly that's because he had a long run on Aquaman, both in his own book and in Adventure Comics, partly because for a long while the classic "splash page" was kinda done away with in superhero comics...but mostly because Jim Aparo's splash pages were so damn good!

This one, from Adventure Comics #445, has got everything you could want: a big-as-life image, but one that does double duty as the beginning of the story proper, while also hinting as to what's to come. It's perfectly balanced visually, with the heavy, flat darks in the front and the more detailed stuff in the back. And I love the spire of the brand-new Aquaman HQ breaking through the top panel border. All that, and there was still room for a ton of text, the classic Aquaman logo, and the classic Aquaman stock art shot!

Man, if this Aparo kid keeps this up, he just might get somewhere in comics.