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Sunday, May 05, 2013

Adventure Comics #233 - Feb. 1957

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Comics Weekend "The Sea Clown" by Bob Haney(?) and Ramona Fradon.

It's Adventure Sunday!

This particular adventure of Aquaman's looks very disturbing. Let's see if we can make it through together...
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Aquaman gets sprayed by Wackyman's "whale", followed by almost getting sliced and diced by some mechanical swordfish! The Sea King manages to evade them all, but realizes that he'll never be able to get close enough to the crooks' boat. However, he then sees a Signal Fish and gets an idea:
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...and so ends another adventure with Aquaman!

Sadly(?), Wackyman never made another appearance in the DCU. I can only assume he got out of a life of clowning and became an Aquaman Impersonator full-time, hitting the club circuit. Two shows a night, three on Saturdays.


7 comments:

Richard said...

I was going to say this was an obvious swipe from "Batman Meets Fatman" from Batman #113 -- a surprisingly warm-hearted story -- but it turns out this issue of Adventure hit the stands a year earlier! Bill Finger borrowing from Bob Haney...?

Anthony said...

DC in the 50s/60s seemed to like showing in-universe parodies of the heroes; the Lois Lane comic in the early 60s had a pro wrestler performing as the "Ugly Superman," for instance.

Since I'm not afraid of/don't dislike clowns, this wasn't disturbing. ;-) However, that cover on the other hand looks a bit odd (re: where that rock's bouncing off the "Man of Steel"...).

Finally (and yeah, ignoring the Earth-1/-2 debate), I wonder what Mera made of hearing about all this stuff about her hubby's earliest adventures ("...and after that time I got shrunk by some crook hiding out in the suburbs, I then dealt with a clown version of me and..." "Oh, Arthur, *really*?! Your pre-JLA, early adult career was certainly, erm, 'interesting'..." "I'm *serious*! I still don't understand why things were...'different'...early on myself." "You're *sure* it's not your Earth-2 counterpart's adventures?" "Good question...") ;-)

Re: Superboy: Radiation gives some guy named Joe Smith super-powers; Superboy tries to prevent him from being exploited by a greedy promoter. The story takes place mostly in Midvale, the future home of Supergirl.

Joseph Brian Scott said...

That Crazy Joe Davola.

Andy Luckett said...

Ugh, clowns. Not a fan. Hopefully Wackyman soon found a less nightmare-inducing way of sharing the legend of Aquaman.

Unknown said...

Viva Adventure Sunday! (he said on Wednesday)

I've had my share of Dali-esque dreams, but "I never dreamed that my mechanical fish would be used for crime!" Only Bob Haney could make that work.

James Chatterton

rob! said...

RAB--Aquaman, trailblazer yet again!

Anthony--I think there's a sitcom in this!

JBS--Had to look that one up. Forgot who Davola was.

Andy--He later went to work for McDonalds. True story!

JC--Not sure Haney made it "work", but he went ahead and did it anyway.

BBNETMAN said...

Bring back the Wackyman!!! :) Aquaman's Slipknot!