] type='image/vnd.microsoft.icon'/>

Sunday, October 20, 2013

Adventure Comics #257 - Feb. 1959

sg
Comics Weekend "The Imitation Aquaman" by Jack Miller(?) and Ramona Fradon.

It's Adventure Sunday!

A truly disturbing story on tap this month for Aquaman:
sg
sg
sg
The townsfolk are thrilled at all the valuable booty Aquaman and his finny friends have delivered to them, which will pay for the rebuilding. Aquaman then heads out to find the fake version of himself, so he's not there when Hadley shows up to steal some the pearls!

Hadley pulls this same trick--stealing the treasure Aquaman unearths--the next day, and then again that night:
sg
sg
...and so ends another adventure with Aquaman!

Of all of Aquaman's Golden/Silver Age villains, I feel as though it's Hadley that is the greatest candidate for a reboot. His fish-like visage is truly disturbing (kudos to Ramona Fradon), and a bad guy subjecting himself to dangerous experimentation just to gain Aquaman's powers seems like the kind of concept that perfectly fits today's "grim and nasty" view of supervillains.

Since Hadley was never seen again (he's no Electric Man!), I wonder if he ever got his face put back the way the doc promised? I bet that would make a good story for Aquaman #23.3: Imitation Aquaman, don't you?


4 comments:

Earth 2 Chris said...

Why DIDN'T this guy come back? Seriously?

The gimmick of turning a man into a fish-like creature is the reverse of "The Creature Walks Among Us", Universal's last entry in it's Creature from the Black Lagoon series, where they awesomely-designed Creech is experimented on by scientists and turned into more of a humanoid than before.

Hadley's fish face reminds me a bit of Fradon's later Metamorpho.

Chris

BlUsKrEEm said...

That's a pretty nifty tale, especially that ending, very clever. How did this character get one story when the Fisherman kept coming back? Imitation aquaman would have made a great nemesis.

Anthony said...

"Imitation Aquaman". Interesting, if ugly, foe...do wonder if he ever did get his face fixed (or back to normal).

Re: Superboy: Samson and Hercules travel through time (via a seer) to seek the help of Superboy in their own era, where a wicked king is making trouble.

Joseph Brian Scott said...

It DOES look like Metamorpho! Tanks, Earth 2 Chris; I was wondering why that face was so familiar.