Superman (Vol.2) #162 - Nov. 2000

Comics Weekend Superman vs. Aquaman?!? That's going to be a quick fight!

This is the first part of a two-part story, and for whatever reason it took me years to getting around to to picking up the second part. But now I have, so we'll be talking about next issue tomorrow.

But we're getting ahead of ourselves--this issue's story is called "The American Dream" and is written by Jeph Loeb, with art by the boffo team of Ed McGuinness and Cam Smith.

I love McGinniss' work, I have as soon as I first saw it His people are weirdly proportioned and have giant, tree trunk-like feet, and even the skinniest people he draws look like they could punch a hole in a wall, but yet it all works for me. His stuff is so dynamic, so fun, that's he perfect for superhero comics. So I was excited that I'd get to see him draw the King of the Seven Seas.

This was during the time when Lex Luthor was running for President (don't even get me started on that), and the first half of the issue revolves around that. Then an old friend of Supes' shows up, Lori Lemaris:

...I know how you feel, Jimmy!

Ironically, Lori doesn't figure into this story--even though you think she's be the conduit between Superman and our eventual guest-star--and we meet back up with Superman as he investigates a distress call coming from a LexCorp oil refinery.

When Supes arrives, he sees this:

A truly great creature design (see! McGuinness!), and even though he's a big fella, it doesn't take much effort on The Man of Steel's part to scoop the thing up and toss it miles away.

But when he does, an old friend makes his presence known:

With the matter unresolved, Superman returns to Metropolis to meet up with Lois, Lana, etc., for an event involving Luthor.

But suddenly Luthor is scooped up in a net, dropped from some sort of Atlantean hover bike, ridden by Aquaman! Aquaman charges Luthor for crimes against Atlantis, and takes off!

Clark does the quick change bit, and follows Aquaman, out into the ocean, where he's met with a little resistance:

To be continued!

As usual, Aquaman is a bit of a hothead here, but he's a good hothead. The idea that Lex Luthor could be President registers an "11" on the Goofy Meter for me, and I like that Aquaman doesn't want to hear any of Clark's crap--he's arresting Luthor, end of story.

Well, not really, I guess, since tomorrow we'll see what happens in Part 2!

Ezra Klein On Aquaman (Sort of) - 2008

This is part of a blog post from Ezra Klein, a journalist who writes for the political magazine The American Prospect. Ezra just doesn't talk about politics, and his informality of style makes his blog a place to discuss lots of topics, like he does here, talking about the newest season of Entourage.

Anyway, the phrase "Aquaman outgrossed Spiderman" jumped out at me, and I left a comment in response to it. That started a brief-but-spirited debate between me and another commenter:

Luckily the back-and-forth didn't turn ugly (a first for blog commenting ever, I believe) and "MosBen" and I found common ground.

But as you can see, I don't just have the Shrine to promote Aquaman, I do it in my free time, as well. Defending Aquaman is a 24-hr.-a-day job!

Heroes Con Poster by Darwyn Cooke - 2008

This beautiful poster by Darwyn Cooke was for the 2008 Heroes Convention, held in Charlotte, NC.

It was right around the time of the New Frontier movie, so the poster worked to promote two things at once, aside from just being a really gorgeous piece of art.

I always appreciate that Cooke, when doing a group shot, always manages to work Aquaman in, even if it is in some tiny corner. Sure, Aquaman didn't get much to do in New Frontier, but I always get the sense Cooke knows its important to include him when you're doing anything that's meant to represent the DC Universe of the 50s and 60s.

AquaFamily Nesting Dolls - 2008

This is a great set of "nesting dolls" custom-made by F.O.A.M. member Mac Schafer and his family. How cool are these?

I like how the dolls go in loosely the same order of importance as the characters do to the Aquaman Family--Vulko, Ocean Master, Aqualad, Black Manta, Mera, and then finally Aquaman (who kicks the whole thing off in a tiny tiny version). This will probably be the closest we ever get to any sort of Vulko action figure.

Mac is also the creative genius behind the (so far) set of three AquaFamily Paper Dolls, so we can see he is quite the craftsman. Thanks Mac!

Parade Magazine Article - 1971

This wonderful little bit of "Won't someone think of the children?!?" paranoia was sent to me by F.O.A.M. member Brian Heiler.

It appeared in a December, 1971 edition of Parade, and as you can see the example shown as typical, harmful TV fare includes the Filmation Aquaman! Even better superheroes is put in quotes, as if Mr. Kupferberg doubts that the Sea King, the Dark Knight Detective, and (one assumes) the Lone Ranger are not really superheroes. Feh!

I wonder what Mr. Kupferberg thought of The Snorks.

Thanks Brian!

Brave and The Bold: "Evil Under The Sea!"

As all of you know, last Friday Aquaman made his debut on Cartoon Network's new Brave and the Bold cartoon series, in an episode titled "Evil Under The Sea!"

Like all the episodes of the show so far, it opens up with a short, pre-title sequence featuring Batman and another hero, this time The Atom, squaring off against Felix Faust. I really like these little segments, and its a fun way to work in even more characters from the DCU.

But the episode proper starts with Batman heading towards Atlantis (in his Bat-Sub, something I'm sure we'll see on toy shelves by Xmas 2009), to meet up with his old friend Aquaman. When we first meet Aquaman (voiced by actor John Di Maggio, Bender from Futurama), he is relating one of his fabulous exploits:

When they meet up, Aquaman gives Batman a big bear hug, and we can see this is a different interpretation of the character than we've ever seen before.

(In fact, with his barrel chest, manly beard, and booming, confident voice, this Aquaman reminded me a lot of Brian Blessed as Prince Vultan in Flash Gordon, probably my favorite character from that movie.)

Anyway, we find that Batman has been tracking some unusual undersea tremors, and he thinks that Aquaman's n'er-do-well brother Orm might be involved.

Aquaman is having none of it, admitting that Orm has had some troubles, leading back to the day his younger brother was made King of Atlantis.

But we see that Orm is in fact causing trouble, and a lot more than that--he's in cahoots with Aquaman's #1 foe, Black Manta!:

Manta is voiced by actor Kevin Michael Richardson (who played The Joker on the previous Batman series) with the help of what sounds like the exact same super-badass reverb effect used on Challenge of the Super Friends.

One of the things I really like about the show is its combo of new, manga-ish character designs and staging with some old school-looking backgrounds, like this one of Atlantis:

...that looks like its right out of a 1960s Filmation Aquaman cartoon.

Also, during fight scenes, the action stops for a few seconds and we get still shots like this one, that look like comic book panels coming off the screen:

During this fight scene with some Manta-controlled sea creatures, we see that this Aquaman seemingly has the same hard-water powers Mera had in the comics. If I wanted to be cynical, I could say that's so the Aquaman action figure can come with some accessories, like a hard-water sword. Whatever the reason, the change didn't bother me.

Speaking of Mera, she makes an appearance in this show, too, when Aquaman is speaking to his subjects:

Batman thinks Orm is trying to poison Aquaman, and embarrasses himself by hitting him with a Batarang. He's asked to leave, and is escorted out by some sharks.

Later, we see that Batman was right, and Orm was just waiting for the right moment to reveal his plan, and his new identity as Ocean Master:

This costume is a bit different than the one in the comics, and it didn't do much for me, what with the claws an all, but what the hey.

Batman's shark escorts, under the control of Manta, turn on him, but he manages to escape. We learn that Manta has a machine underneath a ridge near Atlantis, which is causing the sea quakes, with the plan of sinking the city.

Ocean Master is displeased to learn that Manta has turned on him, and after a well-placed zap he finds himself chained up alongside his brother.

Aquaman calls on some lock-picking mollusks, and he gets free. He calls his finny friends, in a scene that gave me goosebumps:

...for a few seconds, I was seven years old again. They even added the classic "doop-doop-doop" sound effect to when Aquaman was using his mental telepathy.

Aquaman and Orm team-up and destroy Manta's machine, saving Atlantis, and Batman gets to take out Manta personally.

There are times when this show genuinely made me laugh out loud, like this part, when Aquaman congratulates Orm for smashing Manta's machine with his bare hands. Orm then impolitely shares that every time he smashed it, he was thinking of his brother's face:

...um, er, okay there, Orm!

The episode wraps up with Orm in an Atlantean jail cell, and Batman ruminates that, if Aquaman wanted to, he could have Orm exiled. But Aquaman is committed to his brother--he is family, after all--and wants to try and rehabilitate him.

But not without forcing him to listen to some rambling stories of Aquaman's past:

And as we see Orm cover his ears, we have reached...the end.


Overall, I thoroughly enjoyed this episode. Yeah, there's a lot of changes made to the basic Aquaman concept--the addition of the hard-water powers, how Aquaman became King of Atlantis, the fact that Orm has the same powers as Aquaman, not to mention Aquaman's wholesale personality change.

But none of that stuff bothered me, because after so. many. years. of Aquaman being a miserably mopey and/or angry guy, I enjoyed seeing him here as an upbeat, happy superhero, looking for adventure but also sensitive enough to still try and care for his brother.

And in the larger sense, I think this Aquaman is much more appealing a character to kids--the show's target audience, of course--because he is fun and upbeat and, well, cool. This guys rules the oceans, and enjoys the job!

I'm sure the show's creators have a lot of other characters to introduce first (can't wait to see how they work in Kamandi, of all people, seen briefly in the opening credits), but I eagerly await the return of this Aquaman to Brave and the Bold.
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This item has been added to the Shrine's Aquaman Timeline! From now on, any time you see the above graphic, it means another we've reached another Big Moment in Aquaman History. Yay!

Superman's Girlfriend Lois Lane #72 - Feb. 1967

Comics Weekend Lois Lane channels Aquaman in this issue of Superman's Girlfriend Lois Lane!

I first saw this comic cover back when Hembeck talked about it in Hembeck #5 (which we saw here on Friday), but had never read the story.

But I always wanted to get to it--I mean, how can I (or anyone, really) turn down a story called "Lois Lane's Aquaman Tricks"?? So a few eBay clicks later, and here we are.

Behind the very dynamic, totally insane cover by Kurt Schaffenberger is this equally crazy splash page, courtesy writer E. Nelson Bridwell and Schaffenberger:

"I sure hope Lois doesn't look too closely at 'Clark Kent' while I'm taking care of that emergency! This old pirate's skeleton and sponge head I brought up from the bottom won't stand too close an inspection!"

Oh, we're in for something wacky now...

On the campus of Pacific University, the young teens are having a discussion about the guest lecturer speaking that day, world famous reporter Lois Lane! Turns out Lois belonged to a chapter of the sorority on campus, so they invited her to talk.

They refer to her as "Superman's girl friend" but one of the girls, an arrogant girl named Artis, scoffs at that, showing off (for the 1000th time) her giant engagement ring and walking off. The others are not amused.

Later that day:

Some of the kids are impressed that Lois answered Artis' rude question at all, and one of them, Benny, decides to play Cupid. He calls Lois and tells her there's "something fishy" going down at McDowell Hall.

Lois arrives, only to find a fish laying outside its tank. Realizing its just a prank. she puts the fish back in the tank, but is met by a man who asks Lois what she's doing.

Lois explains, but the man points out that the fish in question was an Anabas fish, which can survive for long periods of time out of the water. The man introduces himself as Professor Thorne, an Icthyologist.

Thorne invites Lois out to lunch, and she accepts. Thorne invites her to his apartment, and we see that Thorne is an unusual guy:

He then introduces Lois to a machine he has built, which enables him to communicate with fish and other sea creatures. Lois thinks he's cracked, but he shows her that it does work, as the octopus and swordfish perform tasks that he asks them do. "Shades of Aquaman!", Lois exclaims.

Lois realizes Thorne's inventions would help her with a story she's investigating on the weekend, since it requires her to go scuba-diving (what is Lois' beat, anyway?). She likes Thorne a lot, but is worried when she sees a picture of a beautiful woman on a table, just as she is leaving.

That weekend, Lois does indeed go scuba-diving, on the trail of some racketeers. She discovers an underwater armory(!), and then sees three armed goons come out of it and chase her. But luckily for Lois, she's not alone, even under water:

The goons begin to flee, but they then run into the Man of Steel, Superman! Superman rounds them up, tosses them back into their armory, then lifts up the entire thing and puts it on the beach.

Superman gets a JLA distress call, so Lois heads back to Thorne's apartment. He admits that he instructed the turtles to help her, and decides he can trust her with his secret!

He tells her that his invention must remain a secret, since we worries, in the wrong hands, it could be used against all the creatures in the sea. Lois is touched that he would share so much with her--more than Superman ever has, she notes.

Outside Thorne's building, two crooks, who followed Superman and watched him drop Lois off here, get ready to bust in:

One of the thugs kidnaps Lois and Thorne, while the other takes control of the machine. As the three are leaving they run into Clark Kent, who is taken along for the ride.

A few hours later, we see a nuclear sub being herded by a group of sea creatures, under the command of the machine. The sub is beached, and other members of the gang demand the Polaris Missiles on board.

Nearby, Clark, Lois, and Thorne are watching all this. Clark has Thorne create a distraction, giving Clark the time to tackle their kidnapper and knock him out.

Thorne tells them there's a second machine inside the nearby boathouse, and Lois and Clark take it and head out to sea to ward off the sea creatures:

"...Aquaman himself couldn't have done it better!" Oh really, Kal?

In just a few moments, Supes corrals the sea creatures, knocks out the thugs stealing the missiles, and then knocks out the guy back at Thorne's apartment, all in time to return to Lois before she notices the switcheroo.

They meet up with Thorne, and we learn who he really is:

I'm a little ashamed it took me so long to figure out that, often as not, these Lois Lane stories from the 50s and 60s were meant to be high comedy. I mean, Clark using a skeleton dressed in his clothes with a sponge wearing glasses to fool Lois? I hope Bridwell poured himself a drink after that plot turn came out of his typewriter.

Interesting, all the references to Aquaman, and...yet...

Hey! Aquaman isn't even in this story at all!!

Aquaman (Vol.1) #42 - Dec. 1968

Comics Weekend Aquaman faces his most deadly foe, The Black Manta!

I can't believe it took me this long to get this issue, featuring this cover by Nick Cardy, which to my mind is one the classic images of 60s superhero comics.

Sure, like a lot of covers around this time that broke the established rules, its gummed up a lot by adding all kinds of other stuff to remind people what they were buying (like those annoying "Aquaman"s going both horizontally and vertically in the corner there), but overall the design and execution is impeccable. An issue of Aquaman never looked so exciting.

This issue's story is just two issues into the run of the classic team of writer Steve Skeates, artist Jim Aparo, and editor Dick Giordano, who hit the ground running and were picking up speed. The story is titled "Is This My Foe?":

Aquaman manages to get himself free and knock out his two of his attackers, and demands answers from the third. But he doesn't speak the same language as Arthur, so he cannot answer. He takes off, running scared.

Aquaman wonders if they are involved with those who kidnapped Mera (which happened in a previous issue), so he decides to investigate further. He reaches a more populated area, when he sees a group of these people, named Maarzons, fighting each other!

He goes looking for the Maarzon king, and sees some dwellings built on a high cliff. But that's not all he sees:

...Black Manta!

The Maarzons bow and kneel to Manta, as if he was a god. Aquaman thinks it had to have been Manta who kidnapped Mera, and he grows red with rage.

He surprises Manta with his presence, and Manta sicks a gang of angry Maarzons on him. Aquaman fights with such fury that it scares even Manta that he calls them off.

Manta is not involved with Mera's kidnapping, but he pretends to have been, and tells Aquaman he will tell him the truth, but only by fighting in the Maarzons' fighting arena. Aquaman thinks something is suspicious, but goes along with the plan.

Aquaman and Black Manta go at it, with Manta going on the offensive. He blinds Aquaman with force beams from his eyes, knocking him over. He prepares for the killing blow:

But Aquaman, still blinded, does the unexpected, and hurls himself right at Manta, not giving him enough space to use the spear Manta is carrying.

With his blindness wearing off, Aquaman starts knocking Manta around, demanding to know where Mera is.

As it looks as though Manta will lose, one of the Maarzons pulls a switch on a machine inside a cave, transporting Manta away into his Manta ship! As Manta's ship starts to pull away, he tells Aquaman the truth--that he knows nothing of Mera's disappearance, but he knows who was! His ship then also transports away.

Aquaman takes on one last group of Maarzons, wondering what to believe. Not wanting to fight anymore, he uses less direct tactics to end the fight:

To be continued!

Aquaman has a full mad-on all throughout this issue, making for weird reading. You want to take Arthur aside and just try and get him to calm down a bit, think it all through, then continue searching for Mera. Jim Aparo excelled at fight scenes, and this issue is chock full of them.


Before we go, let's take one last look at this issue's amazing cover, but with a few changes to better let the design breathe a little bit, the way it should have been:

Aquaman on TV!

Did everyone catch tonight's episode of The Brave and the Bold, which featured Batman and Aquaman? I hope so!

The Official Aquaman Shrine Review will appear here Monday!

Aquaman by Hembeck

For today I thought I'd post two Aquaman-related cover re-dos by the great Fred Hembeck.

Both of these appeared in Hembeck's independently published collections of his work, the Aquaman #42 cover in Hembeck #1 and the Lois Lane #72 cover in Hembeck #5 (you can find almost all the Hembeck books on eBay for not a lot of money, and I suggest you do, they're a lot of fun and packed to the staples with gags).

It occurred to me a while back, when scanning the top piece in to post it here, that I have yet to talk about that classic issue of Aquaman on the Shrine, which is ridiculously overdue, since its cover is one of the great images of 60s comic books. So be here tomorrow where we will discover the delights that await us behind that amazing cover for Aquaman #42.

And for good measure, we'll be talking about "Lois Lane's Aquaman Tricks!" on Sunday!

Comic Book Savers Ad - 1977

Did anyone ever actually buy these? I remember seeing a lot of ads for them, but I never knew anybody that actually had them.

I've never seen them surface on eBay, or even the separate sticker sheets, featuring the classic stock art shots of Aquaman, Superman, Batman, and the rest--you'd figure the sticker sheets at the very least would be still be around in some capacity.

Questions, questions!
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Congrats to our pal Paul Kupperberg for hitting 100 posts over at his blog, And Then I Wrote...

It's cool now that Paul has a blog, and I enjoy keeping up with what he's doing and reading some of his older material, a lot of which I've never seen before.

I figured this image was the perfect one to use for this, since it has Aquaman on it, a big "100" on it, and the story inside was written by...Paul Kupperberg!

Dolphin Pog - 2008

This is a Dolphin Pog.

I tried really, really hard to come up with anything else to say about this, but I failed. Please forgive me.








Moments Later Update: I was going to subtitle this post "Brevity Is The Soul Of Wit", because I thought it was funny that it was short. Usually, of course, I can on and on about even the tiniest piece of Aquaman minutiae.

But as soon as I posted this, it didn't seem as funny to me as when I first wrote it, so to fill out the post a bit here are two gorgeous pieces of art featuring DC's underwater lady of mystery--first, her Showcase cover by Jay Scott Pike, and then her Who's Who entry by the late great Dave Stevens:

...whoever at DC had the idea to hire Stevens to draw this, I hope they got a free lunch out of it, or one of those "Grape Job!" stickers at the very least.

"Dear Santa"

This is a collection of letters written by kids (hopefully kids!) to Santa that were printed in the 12/23/84 edition a newspaper, sent to me by F.O.A.M. member Brian Heiler (author of the blogs Plaid Stallions and the wonderful new Sitcom Diablo).

This is the letter that caught Brian's eye and made him think to send it to me:

As Brian said: "Michael Walton and you would have liked each other..."

I wholeheartedly agree, and I can only hope little Michael got an Aquaman doll for Christmas, installing in him a lifelong love of the character.

Thanks Brian!

AquaSketch by Dan Parent - 2008

This super-super-awesome sketch was given to me as a gift(!) by my pal, F.O.A.M. member and frequent Hey Kids! contributor George Rears.

George had seen the AquaArchie sketch I got by this same artist, Dan Parent, at the 2007 Philly Wizard World Con, and he was super-generous and super-thoughtful in getting this follow-up piece for me when I couldn't make it to that year's show.

This is Archie regular Cheryl Blossom as Aquaman's queen Mera, and all I can think to add is...hubba hubba.

(Note to self: Make sure to attend 2009 Philly WW show to get "Reggie Manta" sketch)
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Speaking of my Hey Kids! blog, over there today is the first new story we've put up there in four months, and from a new contributor.

People have asked me why Hey Kids! had ended, but it never actually did--for some reason, submissions just stopped coming in, so I had nothing new to post.

And rather put some weak anecdote of mine pulled out of my head just for sake of having something to post, I thought it would be better just to let it go until we got a new cool story in...which we finally do today, please go check it out!
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If I may continue my shameless self-promotion for the moment, I also have something new and cool over at TreasuryComics.com today--an interview with a Big Time Comics Pro talking about his love for the self-same oversized comics that I'm always going on and on about.

So once you're done here, and then after you go to Hey Kids!, then go over to the What's New page at TreasuryComics.com and check that out!

*Whew!*