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Sunday, August 04, 2013

Adventure Comics #246 - March 1958

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Comics Weekend "The Town That Went Underwater" by Otto Binder(?) and Ramona Fradon.

It's Adventure Sunday!

In a Post-Comics Code world, a story called "The Girl Who Trapped Superboy" would have taken a much different turn. But I digress...

In this month's Aquaman adventure, the Sea King helps one small town become the Venice of North America! What will this do to property values??
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Aquaman's hard sell works, and soon the rest of the town wants to see what lies beneath. Meanwhile, a cargo ship is in danger of being sunk by a raging storm. They put out a distress call to Aquaman, but he's too busy with the underwater amusement park! "Is Aquaman off his rocker?", the Captain wonders. Good question!

Aquaman promises his customers that Davy Jones' Locker is hidden somewhere below, and that they'll find it if they look hard enough:
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...and so ends another adventure with Aquaman!

Once again, it seems like Aquaman's name is mud, but then we find out on the last page that the whole thing is a ruse. After, what a couple of dozen cases like this, you'd think Surface Dwellers would trust the King of the Seven Seas, but they never do. And yet Aquaman save them all--yet again--with a smile. He's a peach of a guy, that Aquaman!


I love Ramona Fradon's visualization of the portly mayor in the scuba suit, official sash included. Vote Quimby!


7 comments:

Anthony said...

"Town submerged"? Wonder if someone thought of this story when New Venice would be introduced a few years later...

Question: will you be continuing these weekly bits when you get to the Silver Age with #260?

Re: Superboy: a teenage heiress invites Clark and a few other boys to her mansion for a weekend, hoping to prove one of them's Superboy. Given the New 52's as much fun as a trip to the dentist, I'd imagine such a "different turn" would be grim indeed... :-p

rob! said...

Anthony-

While Adventure Sundays was meant to focus on the GA Aquaman, yes, we'll be continuing these after the switch-over to the SA.

There's still about 40 issues of Adventure to cover, plus Aquaman's back-ups in Detective and World's Finest that overlap briefly with his ascension to solo star.

Russell said...

I have to admit to two things.

a. When I first saw the cover and the title of the Superboy story, my mind went directly to where Rob thought it would. Another Superbaby, maybe?

b. When I first saw the Aquaman story, I thought it WAS New Venice. Now I think Bob Rozakis must have stolen that idea from this story. That makes me sad.

Wouldn't it have been easier if Aquaman had said "there's a comet coming to town, we need to have everybody underwater?" instead of this ruse? I know, I'm silly.


And is it just me, or are these word verification thingies getting harder? Does that mean I'm actually turning into a robot?!?

Anonymous said...

I'm just not comfortable with a superhero using a large octopus to disable criminals. Octopi are exactly the sort of animal I steer clear of, by which I mean, any remorseless predator with more than four legs.

Joe Slab said...

They are Russell. Takes me 2 or 3 tries every time! :(

Joe Slab said...

They are Russell. Takes me 2 or 3 tries every time! :(

Unknown said...

Viva Adventure Sunday!

The color scheme for the first panel on the last page is super nifty. I wonder if Fradon gave any color directions?

Glad to hear that Adventure Sundays will continue. Had no idea Aquaman was ever in Detective.

Re: Superboy. Imagine if that story was adapted for the first season of Smallville. Ohhh, the scandal!

James Chatterton