This awesomely fantabulous ad comes from newest F.O.A.M. member Colin Smith, promoting the World's Greatest Superheroes newspaper strip!
I had never seen this ad before, and even though I was never that big a fan of artist George Tuska's superhero work, this poster is so well composed and dynamic that I find it irresistible.
I love that it includes characters you didn't see much on merchandising, like The Atom(hey Damian!), Elongated Man, Black Canary, and Black Lightning, and gives little bullet-point descriptions of each of them(sorry I don't have a larger, more readable version). And of course no ad featuring the stars of the DCU would be complete without the King of the Seven Seas!
Colin sent this and some other really fun stuff, so he's earned his certificate big-time! Thanks Colin!
Happy New Year, and welcome to the Aquaman Shrine's first official blog team-up!
For your reading pleasure, today we present a review of Brave and the Bold #73, featuring a team-up of the King of the Seven Seas, Aquaman, and that Tiny Titan, The Atom!
Both the Shrine and my pal Damian's super-fun Tiny Titan blog are reviewing the same book today, so once you've finished this post, head on over there to read Damian's thoughts from a more Atom-centric perspective! It's the first of what I hope will be many team-ups(next year we'll visit a world where blogs are only about super-villains, I guess).
Ok, so let's get started: This is "Hail, Galg the Destroyer!" by regular Aquaman scribe Bob Haney, with pencils and inks by Sal Trapani, with a busy cover by Carmine Infantino and Chuck Cuidera. As you can see, it appears Aquaman is choking to death, underwater! What the--?!?
It opens with Aquaman and his sidekick Aqualad stumbling upon a band of underwater thieves, who are busy plundering some treasure. Aquaman assumes this will be easy pickings, but as they approach they are blasted by some sort of high-tech weaponry!
Aquaman and Aqualad manage to shake it off, but after a few punches thrown the thieves manage to get away. As the good guys give chase, suddenly the thieves begin to shrink andshrinkandshrink...
Aquaman takes a sample of the water to Atlantean scientist Vulko(making his first appearance and looking decades younger than he would later on), and after careful examination they realize that the waterdrop contains a whole universe inside it. Then without warning, Aquaman is hit by a beam and sucked into this tiny world! Vulko, Aqualad, and Mera realize the only one that can help them is Aquaman's JLA teammate, the Atom! Ray Palmer receives the urgent summons for help and gets the skinny from Mera, who gives him a kiss for luck. Ladies Love Ray Palmer.
The Atom shrinks himself down into this microscopic world, where he confronts--don't laugh--a giant evil purple starfish-kinda thingy named Galg, the Destroyer(I said don't laugh!). Galg is holding Aquaman captive, having rendered him completely unconcious. Unfortunately, this is pretty much all that Aquaman does for the rest of the issue, letting the Atom be the real hero of the story(I can hear Damian smiling from here!).
Galg reveals his plan to escape his tiny dimension and rule Earth(of course), and quickly finds the Atom's brilliant intellect to be worthy of respect, and foolishly explains his plan to Ray. Has Galg never seen a James Bond movie?
Ray manages to play along and at the right moment, uses his powers as he's never had to use them before and defeats Galg by expanding in size so rapidly it knocks Galg out(I know, I know, but this is a Bob Haney story; it doesn't--in fact, doesn't want to--have to make a whole lot of logical sense).
Aquaman wakes up, thanks Atom for his help, and Atom gives him the whole "just glad to be of help" thing. The ever-lovin' end!
Obviously, I was a tad disappointed when I first read this story, since Aquaman gets knocked out early and pretty much stays that way(you know, just like in Justice), but since Bob Haney wrote Aquaman for years you can hardly accuse him of not being able to write the character. More likely he had either never or rarely had the chance to write the Atom before, and took this opportunity to write a story centering on his abilities. The art, "by" Sal Trapani(I put that in quotes because I've read that in a lot of cases, when Sal Trapani was listed as the artist, it was frequently him inking over others) isn't bad, and in the opening pages especially the book looks to be by Nick Cardy, who of course was Aquaman's regular artist.
The style loosens up a bit as it goes on, and there a couple of panels(like this one) where the lighting is pretty darn cool and makes for an unusual looking book, at least by DC's standards at the time.
This issue is sort of historic, in that its the last issue of Brave and the Bold that didn't feature Batman as half of the team-up. Since sales reports couldn't have come in that fast, we can't blame Batman's headlining of the book on low sales of this issue. In fact, both the Atom and Aquaman would reappear here, teaming up with Batman less than a year later.
...we hope you enjoy today's first-ever team-up bewteen our two humble blogs. Aquaman and The Atom frequently commisserated with one another(probably at the open bar after JLA meetings) about their supposed "lesser light" status, and I think the shame that comes from spending part of your life obsessing over such characters informs both my and Damian's outlook on life(but we don't let it stop us...that's what makes us heroes).
Just like Arthur and Ray stood up for one another, I think that's what The Aquaman Shrine and The Tiny Titan("T3") will do, and I hope this is the first of many team-ups between our two blogs, just without the endless transporter malfunctions that dumps us both on some crazy planet where the Nazis won World War II or something.
And who knows? If someone out there has a Seven Soldiers of Victory or Freedom Fighters blog, maybe we'll work them in one day, too...
I thought I'd wrap up 2007 with the last two issues of my imaginary Aquaman team-up title, Surf & Turf.
As I mentioned previously, my faux-storyline consisted of seven issues, each featuring Aquaman teaming up with a founding JLA member, concluding with him rejoining the team in the seventh issue(after that, the Sea King would be free to team-up with more unusual choices, like Sgt.Rock, Ultra the Multi Alien, and who knows maybe even Santa Claus!).
Using Jose Luis Garcia Lopez to do the Batman/Aquaman cover was a no-brainer, but finding the right JLA image was a tougher call. I had a hard time finding the kind of piece that would fit within the cover design I had already, and also have it not be by someone earlier chosen to do a cover, like Neal Adams, George Perez, and Alex Ross.
So when I realized I could repurpose a portion of Darwyn Cooke's brilliant New Frontier cover by moving some of them around and boosting Aquaman's presence a tad, I knew I had the bright, happy, ready-for-adventure cover I was looking for!
...so that wraps up 2007 as the Shrine heads into its third calendar year! I'm excited over some of the cool stuff we have in store, and if my 2008 is half as good as my 2007 was, it'll be a truly amazing year!
Be here tomorrow, when we present a team-up so titanic it will rock the worlds of two blogs!!
I thought I'd go for something goofy(I mean, goofier) for this final Comic Friday of 2007, so today we'll discuss "Crisis on Earth-C!" by Scott Shaw! and E.Nelson Bridwell(with "Editing/Kibitzing" credited to Roy Thomas), from Captain Carrot and His Amazing Zoo Crew #'s 14 and 15, which featured, among other things, the debut of... ...AquaDuck!
Earlier in the series, Roy Thomas introduced us to the Just'A Lotta Animals super-team, and he thankfully included an ersatz Aquaman in the group! Thanks Roy!
With this story, we got to see that the characters drawn by Rodney Rabbit(aka Captain Carrot) in his comic book are not just comic book characters, but real heroes who populate another Earth(gee, that sounds familiar...)!
In this story, one of the JLA's most fiendish foes, Feline Faust(man, they must have had a field day writing this story) transports several of the team to another Earth--the home of Carrot and His Amazing Zoo Crew--and its here that the two teams team-up, going so far as to split up into several smaller teams to handle a series of disasters popping up all over the world, and eventually confront other supervillains, like Armordillo, Digger O'Doom, and the Shaggy Dawg. Aquaduck teams up with two members of the Zoo Crew, Yankee Poodle and Rubberduck, and its cute to see this version given the same impressive abilities the "real" one has.
Turns out Feline Faust was using these bad guys as decoys, keeping the JLA busy so he could plunder their Earth without interference. The two teams figure this out and head for that Earth to stop him, which leads into the next issue.
Both issues are a lot of fun, and the Shaw/Bridwell/Thomas combo throw in a lot of sly jokes, mostly aimed at DC arcana but not limited to it--there's also sort-of cameos by Disney characters, Pogo, Tom and Jerry, and even the Justice Society!
I can only imagine what an uphill sales battle this book must have been at the time--all non-superhero comic genres were dying out, and here's a book sort of poking fun at all the conventions of all that. Most kids wouldn't be caught dead reading a "funny animal" comic(I was one of those kids), and so Carrot only lasted twenty issues.
Going back and reading them now, I see how fun they were and how I wish I had had the ability to appreciate them at the time.
You didn't see too many non-Superman or Batman titles get the full-page ad treatment in the early sixties, but I guess DC decided it was worth it to group a bunch of them all together.
The art is all pulled from previously-published comics(Atom #1, Brave and the Bold #42, Aquaman #4, and...some Metal Men splash page, I guess), but it still makes for a nifty-looking ad, even if the Aquaman image makes no sense out of its context.
Back in November I ran a Justice League stamp from a 1976 book of DC Comics stamps, not knowing at the time whether Aquaman had received his own.
Well, thanks to F.O.A.M. member David Kelly, I now know there was in fact an Aquaman stamp, and a fine one it is! Ah, if only I could've actually mailed letters with this!
But that wasn't the end of it! Not too long after, I received another email, from newest F.O.A.Mer Jose, sending me a pic of the entire Wonder Woman stamp book, of which the Aquaman one was part:
...sweeeet!
Those books are so cool looking, I have got to get me a few of 'em sometime. Thanks David and thanks Jose!
As Aquaman and the rest of the DCU help Santa make his toys, we here at the Aquaman Shrine wish everyone a happy holiday season!
(and by the way--while this is a fine comic all the way through, the closing Deadman story, "Should Auld Acquaintance Be Forgot" by Alan Brennert and Dick Giordano, is worth the price of admission all by itself!)
Have you finished wrapping your Christmas presents yet? Even if you have, don't you wish you had had this cool wrapping paper for some of them? I know I do!
Courtesy F.O.A.Mer Russell Burbage come some samples of way-cool Christmas wrapping featuring the stars of the DCU!
The art looks to be by Dick Giordano, featuring the Sea King of course(yay!), the usual suspects, as well as some unusual characters for a product like this, like the Legion of Super-Heroes and Plastic Man.
Batman and Aquaman are back--in newspapers, that is!
Today is the first day of the second set of Batman daily newspaper strips that featured Aquaman in a guest-starring role.
Like the last set, these were hunted down, collected, and sent to me by F.O.A.M. member Jon Helfenstein, who deserves a knighthood or something for all the effort.
This second storyline is a lot longer, and also features Aquaman much more prominently, so we'll be running seven strips per day every Saturday and Sunday until we reach the exciting conclusion! Click here to see Part 1!
Ok, so we're back for the second part of my review of the first year of Aquaman, Volume Six, written by Peter David.
Like I said last week, I was a little surprised that I did enjoy some of the moments in the first year of the series--hardly a rave review, I know, but considering that my memory of the books was that I hated everything about them, it felt almost like a relief to find either the times, or I, have changed, probably a combination of the two. Seeing what a tough sell Aquaman seems to be makes me have an instant appreciation for anyone whose efforts manage to make Aquaman a "hot"(or however close he got to that designation)title.
Issue seven picks up with an attack by the Deep Six, who in a plot to be reborn and take control of a new water elemental(for an eventual Earth takeover by their master, Darkseid) have attacked a small Alaskan village, where Aquaman's former love, Kako, and his son, Koryak, live. They attack Kako and Dolphin, and after getting Dolphin to safety, Aquamand and Koryak team-up to take on the Deep Six. It ends with the elemental being born, but via the body of Kako, and as a fire elemental!
In issue eight, Aquaman tries to control Kako, who is filled with anger and wants to destroy not only the Deep Six, but Aquaman as well. This issus is pretty much one long action sequence, as Aquaman volunteers to sacrifice himself to end Kako's thirst for revenge. She can't bring herself to do it, and Naied, a water elemental takes Kako with her to commune with the Earth(it makes more sense when you read the comic).
Issue nine opens with a bad guy, Deadline, being hired to rub out Aquaman. Meanwhile, he and Dolphin head back to Atlantis, where they talk with its uneasy king, Thesily, who is none too happy always being in the shadow of Arthur in the eyes of his subjects. This is the issue where Aquaman replaces his hook with the cybernetic harpoon version, and while I find it a little Batman utility belt-ish, it at least is better than just a plain ol' hook.
Deadline of course tracks Aquaman down, and foolishly thinks he's going to be the one to bag him. This issue is drawn by fill-in artist Joe St. Pierre, someone whose work I'm not familiar with, but in this issue he has at least one moment where he effectively uses shadows and light to make Aquaman look really cool:
We find out that Thesily has had a hand in this plot, and he is furious when he sees that Atlantis' people are looking to Koryak as possibly their next leader!
One of the things that surprised me reading these issues was the ongoing letters page debate over whether this new look for Aquaman was working. Editor Kevin Dooley had the guys and the class to print several very harsh pans, and I have to say at points I found myself agreeing with the critics.
Not because I wanted Aquaman to be the same character that they read as a kid, but because I felt all the reasons Dooley stated they were doing this to Aquaman(making him tougher, cooler, more compelling to a modern comic book audience) could've been done without making him look like another tired example of the oh-so-trendy, angry anti-hero that was filling comics at the time.
Fortunately, my favorite--and what I thought was the best--issue of this whole first year was up next, the tenth issue, guest-starring Green Lantern.
GL gets involved in some shark attacks at the local town of Crescent Shore, and just like in Jaws, the town is now obsessed with killing these sharks. Of couse, he runs into Aquaman, who tries to warn Green Lantern off, telling him that the sharks are going through a life-to-death process and if the local people would just leave them alone, it would all be over soon.
Green Lantern won't listen to that, so of course they get involved in a classic hero vs. hero misunderstanding set-up. Aquaman correctly senses that this new Lantern isn't quite as sharp as his old teammate Hal Jordan, and actually manages to get Kyle's ring away from him!
It's here where we get a nice moment where even though this looks like a very different Aquaman, it is the same one we all know and love from his JLA days:
The issue wraps up nicely, as Lantern decides Aquaman was right and tells the town to back off. I liked how Aquaman decided to talk his way out of this, instead of more hot-headed fighting. He may look odd, but this truly is my hero, Aquaman!
Aquaman returns to Atlantis to find that King Thesily has been killed in an undersea earthquake, and that his former subjects are leaning towards choosing his son, Koryak, as their new leader. Since Atlantis is severely damaged, the people decided to let Koryak find them a new place to settle. Aquaman is left behind, all alone, where he is haunted by the ghosts of his past.
Just when he feels totally alone, Dolphin appears and they consummate what has been brewing during all these past issues. Of course, Aquaman can never win, so even as he's lying there in post-coital bliss with Dolphin, who shows up but...Mera!
Even though its well drawn, I'm not a big fan of issue 12's cover, with Mera in a very porn-star-esque pose. I try to remember this was very much the trend in comics at the time, when every formerly well-respected superheroine (Invisible Woman, Supergirl, Catwoman) suddenly got trussed up in the most flimsy, revealing outfits. I found the whole thing embarassing and it was one of the things that really soured me on comics during this period.
Mera and Dolphin get into a cat(fish?) fight, until Aquaman finally separates them and they talk. Mera thinks she's only been away for minutes, when in fact she's been gone for months, having told Aquaman she never wants to see him again!
Mera starts to wig out, seemingly torn up by memories of some other Aquaman(a big, evil looking one, in the blue camo suit, no less!) and she takes off the Great Divide, a part of the ocean no one has ever returned from. Aquaman follows her in, instructing Dolphin to stay behind. But she loves Arthur, and refuses to heed his advice.
They all go through some sort of dimensional portal and wake up about to be executed in some sort of alternate version of Napoleon-era France, with the evil Aquaman as the executioner! What the?!?
Like I said last week and again above, I still have a lot of issues with the necessity of making Aquaman look so trendy and badass--there's a reason why Aquaman had managed to last virtually unchanged over four decades, and I still don't believe you needed to put all those trendy trappings on him to make him cool and/or relevant. It says something that this look didn't stick, and he was eventually returned to his classic look.
But I will say I enjoyed the stories a lot more than I thought I would, and I want to find issues thirteen and beyond, because I am enjoying the stories. Peter David definitely had some solid ideas, and while I may quibble with the execution, I am more comfortable with this "version" of Aquaman than I ever have been before.
Courtesy newest F.O.A.M. member Ramiro, this is the first of a whole slew of Super Amigos Sticker Album pages.
Ramiro sent me an email directing me to Amos Del Retro, a site featuring foreign versions of American toys. There I found a couple of massive downloads featuring all the various Super Powers sticker album pages featuring all the stars of the DCU, including of course the King of the Seven Seas.
One of the most interesting things I found though were the breadth of DCU characters represented here, characters that never made it into the toyline itself--you've got The Atom, Kid Flash, The Changeling, Air Wave(!), and Manhunter(!!).
Even more unusual is that not all of it is done by top merchandising artist Jose Luis Garcia Lopez--the Dr.Fate and Manhunter pieces are right from the comics drawn by Walt Simonson!
Like I mentioned above, I have a whole bunch of these pages so they'll be popping up here regularly. I'm so glad I got a chance to see this stuff, thanks and welcome to F.O.A.M. Ramiro!
We haven't done a Super Dictionary entry in awhile, it's long overdue!
First up is a Jim Aparo Aquaman reading a letter(I like the fish peering in through the window...dude, can I get a few minutes alone?!?).
Next is what looks like another Aparo Aquaman falling...er, diving, into the water, and then a third Aparo Aquaman taking a little nappy. Nighty-night, Arthur!
I was inspired by a comment F.O.A.Mer Damian made yesterday on his Tiny Titan blog, about he's partially making it his mission to get the "behind-the-scenes" heroes of the DCU some more attention.
That made me think of this soliloquy by Tommy Tomorrow, from Fred Hembeck's awesome Bride of Hembeck comic he put out in 1980.
Not only does it stand as a nice tribute to all the non-headliner DC heroes, but it's a nice specific shout-out to Aquaman! Thanks Tommy, and thanks Fred!
Not too long ago I got a surprising email--it was from long-time comics artist Ed Hannigan, who as you all know drew about fifty thousand covers for DC as well as lots of other stuff.
Ed told me that the original back cover art he did for Best of DC Blue Ribbon Digest #38 Superman vs. The Supernatural had gotten damaged and some pieces of the paste-up had dried up and fallen off. Since he didn't have a copy of the book, he wasn't exactly sure where the piece featuring his signature should go, and he hadn't been able to find a pic of the back cover anywhere. Perhaps I could...?
I said of course and quickly sent it to him. And, not wanting to miss an opportunity, asked him if he'd be willing to do an Aquaman sketch for me. I had seen so much of his work as a teenager and liked it, and told him had I ever seen him at a con I would've asked him for a sketch, so here was my chance!
He said sure and then refused to take any money for it, saying he was grateful for me helping him out! Even though I eventually insisted on sending him some dough(as a fellow artist, it doesn't feel right to not pay for any artist's time), that was an enormously generous gesture, especially since all I did was scan something and email it; hardly back-breaking labor.
He then sent me this awesome piece of the Sea King and his finny friends. I love the heavy darks and lights and how commanding Aquaman looks. Ed went above and beyond the call; thanks a million Ed!
So not only do I have another great sketch for my sketchbook, but I have the satisfaction of knowing that one of my blogs helped Ed get in contact with me and I got to talk to someone whose work I really like in return. The Rob Kelly Family of Blogs--bringing people together since 2006!
The fourth and last of the PSA stickers DC put out in 1992, this one being the grimmest of them all, and that's saying something.
I've said it each time before I posted one of these, but I'll say it one last time--the effort and message is admirable, commendable; but the execution is misguided.
No one wants to look such a depressing image. This really doesn't make you want to Get Involved; more likely it makes you put it down and walk away.
A poor defenseless bird covered in oil? Sadly realistic, yes, but I want to see Aquaman tell and/or show me how I can help!
This ad was sent to me by newest F.O.A.M. member, and creator of the super-fun Tiny Titan blog, Damian Maffei.
Damian and I have been trading ads featuring our respective obsessions for a week or two, and I had forgotten all about this one until it popped up in my in-box. Thanks Damian!
It's a nicely done ad, handsomely designed and well executed, though I wonder why DC couldn't spring for the full-page...
Today is a very special(and long--be warned) Comic Friday, where I'll discuss a half year's worth of the Peter David run on Aquaman.
My general loathing of Aquaman's "badass" look is well known, but as my efforts here at the Shrine inch from Gushing Fan to Fan/Historian, it started to feel...wrong to me that there was this long period in my hero's adventures that I went out of my way to avoid. After all, of all the Aquaman solo series, it was this one--the sixth to bear the name Aquaman--that lasted the longest(seventy-seven issues).
Obviously, there was something to this Aquaman that people responded to, and that seems to be something Aquaman, more than a lot of other(and, to me, lesser) heroes has had a real problem with. So I decided to buy the entire first year of Aquaman, read them all in close to one sitting, and see how I felt. We'll talk about issues 1 through 6 today, and then 7 through 12 next Friday.
The first issue doesn't open that promisingly, with Arthur and Garth pissed at each other. Aquaman is caught in a funk of depression, disappearing for a few weeks, totally incommunicado. During this time he grows his hair long and scraggly beared, and Aqualad shows up to get help retrieving a lost nuclear Navy sub. None of this seems terribly heroic to me, and Arthur and Garth even come to blows.
Luckily they put all this aside and go talk to the Navy. The art by Martin Egeland leaves me cold--it's very Comic Book Anatomy, definitely part of the whole Image movement of comic art. But there are moments where he does put across the power and grace of the Sea King's movements, like when he pops directly out of the water into a hovering Navy helicopter:
Here they run into bad guy Charybdis, who has a whole bunch of powers Aquaman isn't ready for and at the end of the first issue Arthur awakes imprisoned by Charybdis, who has also captured...Dolphin!
The second issue, "Single Wet Female" is the most famous issue of David's run, I'd say, because this is the one where Aquaman loses his hand. Charybdis has a throng of crazed piranhas, and when he dips Aquaman's hand into the river where they are, Aquaman is left with just his bones---eww. Dolphin shoots our bad guy, and then Aquaman trips him so he falls into the river, the victim of his own death trap.
The violence level in this issue is very high--aside from all the flesh-eating, Dolphin shoots the guy at point blank range, Charybdis shoots a woman's head off(and we get to see a big ol' blood spatter), and we get to see him dump a defenseless mouse into a piranha tank.
I flat out don't think this level of gore belongs in a mainstream superhero comic, but David and Egeland were hardly alone in doing this, and in fact major DC series like Infinity Crisis featured just as much, so this kind of stuff is still with us.
And even though I didn't like the whole hand thing at the time--and still don't--I ca admire the dramatic tactics David was employing here. You don't expect a big, character-changing event to happen in the second issue of a title, so this was David's way I think of saying everything is up for grabs, anything can happen. It's sorta like Hitchcock killing off Janet Leigh in the middle of Psycho--it disorients you, since you think you knew where the story was going.
In the third issue(featuring a nifty cover by Tom Grummett and Terry Austin--classic comic book superhero fisticuffs!), Aquaman, Aqualad, and Dolphin try to talk to a Navy bigwig, but he won't see them. They run afoul of Superboy(can I still say that name?) and then unleash a massive tidal wave on the mainland to show they mean business. Um, what? Not terribly heroic.
In the fourth issue, Aquaman finds out what secrets about him the Navy knows(like who his mother really is, and that she is currently being held by them) and he takes off to rescue the dolphin, Porm, who raised him(I had a tough time keeping all this new origin stuff straight).
Lobo gets involed because one of his beloved space-swimming dolphins has been captured and is held at a research institute in Japan. Of course, Lobo and Aquaman cross paths and kick each other around for a while until Aquaman lets it slip that he was raised by dolphins, which earns him the grudging respect of Lobo. Nice touch.
One thing David has a lot of fun with is assigning different sea creatures personalities. There's a very funny scene of Aquaman rescuing some sharks trapped in a net, and instead of going through the hole he's made, they simply stare at it:"It's a very nice hole." This was my favorite sequence so far, since it was some relief from all the heavy-duty grimness and violence.
The fifth issue is drawn by Jim Calafiore, who of course would have his own long run with the character. In this issue, we meet a Inupiat mother and son, who has just come back from fighting a mysterious creature tormenting their village. Who is this brave, headstrong young man?
Meanwhile, as Aquaman tries to sort out the truth about his past, Dolphin takes matters into her own hands:
...I love the look on Arthur's face in this panel.
Aquaman's research tells him his father's last known appearance was in Alaska, so he heads there and searches out the Inupiat woman from before, named Kako. When he reaches her house, the young man--named Koryak--attacks him! Kako reveals that this man is...Aquaman's son!!
In issue six(featuring a nifty Mike Mignola cover), Kako explains that her and Arthur's romance(first shown in the Aquaman: Time and Tide mini-series, I believe)produced a son, Koryak. Turns out Koryak has some extraordinary abilities....hmm. Aquaman agrees to go with Koryak to find this creature that's been attacking the village, and here we have the chance to watch two hotheads snipe at each other. (Meanwhile, there's a subplot featuring Aqualad in a search for who he thinks is Aquagirl--even though she died!--that references a two-page Aquagirl solo story that appeared in Aquaman, Volume One, #56. Nice touch!)
Back on land, Dolphin and Kako are attacked by one of the Deep Six, at the same time one of them attacks Arthur and Koryak, part of a planned attack to prepare for the birth of a new elemental!
While I still wish they had found some way to make Aquaman more interesting and dynamic without making him look like a quasi-Wolverine, I have to remember these books were very much of their time. The era of making everyone grim n' gritty was in full swing, so it only made sense to try that approach for a character that always had a tough time selling.
And reading these issues over again, I have a better appreciation for what Peter David was trying to do--he was creating a long-term arc for the character, and not simply regurgitate the same stories. And while I don't think it always(or even most of the time) worked, I'm glad I re-read these issues and gave them another shot.
Another Paint By Numbers set, this one giving you the chance to color the classic Aquaman stock art pose!
I like how the kid colored Green Lantern(lower left) in mostly flesh tones, and how the classic Infantino/Anderson Batman and Robin pose(bottom-most right) has been rejiggered to where they're fighting robots!
The fifth and final set(click here to see readable versions) of the Batman 1968 newspaper dailies co-starring Aquaman, courtesy F.O.A.M. member Jon Helfenstein.
These three strips feature the most Aqua-Content, as his participation in the story wraps up. Thanks Aquaman!
And thank you, Jon, for the unbelievable effort you put into getting the strips to me. I would've never even thought to look for these(and would've had no idea where to look even if I had)so you really earned your F.O.A.M. membership!
Post Script: Just a few days ago, Jon provided me with a complete set of dailies from the longer 1968 storyline featuring Aquaman in the Batman strip. Aquaman plays a much larger role in this story and I'm thrilled to get a chance to see--and put up here--this extraordinairily fun storyline.
There's so many dailies in this second batch that when I start running them, I'll be putting up seven strips per day. The fun starts next Saturday, December 22, and will run every Saturday and Sunday after that until its over. Be here, it'll be a whole bunch of awesome!
Writer David Michelinie had a brief stint on Aquaman--only eleven stories total--but he ended up writing some Aquaman's best-remembered and historic moments in the pages of Adventure Comics and Aquaman, where he got to work with two of the Sea King's best artists, Jim Aparo and Don Newton.
I had wanted to interview David for the longest time, so I was thrilled when I got the chance just a few days ago: Aquaman Shrine:What kind of stuff did you read growing up? David Michelinie: I assume you're talking about comics here, but I also read a lot of science fiction novels and short story magazines, along with occasional adventure or historical novels. Comics-wise, I mostly read DCs and was always drawn to the slightly offbeat characters: Sea Devils, Cave Carson Adventures Inside Earth, Rip Hunter Time Master, as well as science fiction characters such as Space Ranger, Adam Strange and The Atomic Knights. And while I did read a few Superman and Batman stories, when I read super heroes I was generally drawn to the second tier characters: Green Lantern, The Flash, Hawkman and--dare I say it?--Aquaman.
AMS:Did you set out to write comics?
DM: No, I set out to be a world-renowned novelist. When I was a little kid there were no credits in comics; that was pretty much started by Marvel in the early '60s. So it never occurred to me that real people actually wrote the things. I didn't think they appeared by magic, but I never really thought about it. I wanted to be a writer since I was about eight years old, but never really considered comics until I rediscovered them when I was in college.
AMS:About half a dozen writers worked on Aquaman's mid-70s run in Adventure Comics. How did you end up with the assignment?
DM: I don't remember the specific details, but I was one of Joe Orlando's stable of writers and Aquaman/Adventure was handled by Joe's office at that time. So I imagine it was a question of an open assignment matched with my availability.
AMS:How was it working with Jim Aparo and later Don Newton?
DM: Jim already had quite a history on Aquaman, and his look suited the character well. Don Newton was a good storyteller and a very nice man who died way too early.
AMS:Was writing the Aquaman series fun?
DM: It was a challenge, but challenges can be fun if you tackle them in the right spirit. Writing the series was more like writing tales of another civilization on another planet, more than writing a super hero on Earth. Aquaman had his own environment and culture, and unique underwater problems to deal with, and this cut him off from the familiar and comfortable trappings of most super hero series. He couldn't hang out at the mall, come across bank robbers while patrolling the city, make pop culture references to movies and such. You had to come up with stories that fit a very specific set of conditions. So it was work, but it was fun when it paid off.
AMS:Whose idea was it to kill off Aquaman's son? Did anyone at DC express reservations about it?
DM: Strangely enough, you're the second person to ask me that question in the last couple of weeks. And I'll have to give you the same answer I gave him: I don't remember. I don't think it was my idea--that possibility doesn't ring any bells. But I can't officially deny it, either. Paul Levitz was plotting the book for a while and I and other writers were doing scripts from his plots. So the most likely scenario is that the death storyline was something Paul was building up to and I just carried it through when I took over plotting the book. You might want to contact Paul and see if his memory is any sharper on that question.
AMS:Aquaman went from his lead in Adventure Comics to his own title again under your tenure. Was this planned before you came aboard or did sales spike while you were writing it?
DM: It wasn't planned, but I welcomed it as it gave me a chance to write my first "super" character when the lead slot in Adventure Comics was taken over by Superboy stories. I don't really know if sales had anything to do with it or not.
AMS:Why did you leave the book?
DM: I have no idea. Probably because some other assignment opened up and I moved on to that.
AMS:What new projects are you working on?
DM: I currently have a couple of prose short stories appearing in paperback anthologies: The Phantom Chronicles and Werewolves: Dead Moon Rising, both from Moonstone Books.
For 2008, I've got a couple of Iron Man projects going at Marvel, for publication around the release of the Iron Man movie in the Spring. One is a four-issue weekly mini-series called Iron Man:Legacy of Doom, which I'm co-plotting with Bob Layton and is being pencilled by Ron Lim and inked by Bob. The other is a one-shot called Iron Man:The End, with Bernard Chang pencilling and Bob Layton co-plotting and inking. I'm also writing a graphic novel for Moonstone, featuring the first pairing of a couple of classic pulp characters, The Avenger and The Spider. It's tentatively titled, The Blood Moon. Thanks fer askin'!
It's always a thrill when I get to talk to the writers and artists who put together the Aquaman comics I read growing up. David was generous with his time and I thank him so much for doing this interview with me. Thanks David! __________________________________________________________
AquaLink #1: Newest F.O.A.M. member Rian Fike wrote this piece on the UpperDeck website all about the King of the Seven Seas and his Vs. cards, and graciously plugged the Shrine! Thanks Rian!
AquaLink #2: John Zakour and Kyle Miller's online comic Working Daze featured this strip about someone obsessed with Aquaman. No, not me.
Back on my birthday, Darlin' Tracy had given me the single best present I ever got, an original Craig Hamilton drawing of Aquaman--this drawing.
Unfortunately, I couldn't post it at the time because Craig had done it for a future Vs. game card, and he asked me not to put it up on the Shrine until the art was officially released.
Well, the art(and other card art) is now up on an Upperdeck website, so I would say the sea horse is out of the bag! Yay!
As you can(now) see, this piece simply kicks all known ass. The colors are fantastic, the design is dynamic, and Aquaman looks about as regal and impressive as he ever has.
Craig generously offered me first crack at buying it, but I knew I had no way of affording it, even if Craig asked for half--a tenth--of what it's worth. That saddened me, but I saw no way around it.
Thankfully, my better half heard me talk about it, and went to Craig directly, and a week or two later this beauty was on my doorstep. One more time--thanks Craig and thanks newest F.O.A.M. member Trace!
This piece is such a prominent part of my Aquaman obsession over the years I can't believe it took me this long to get to it--Power Records' Songs and Stories About the Justice League of America, with smashing sleeve art by Neal Adams, Aquaman front and center!
It wasn't until just a few years ago that I learned this record's contents are taken from the 1968 Tilton record of the same name; that record also featured theme songs for Flash and Aquaman, which were omitted here(for running time?). I don't have a personal copy of that record(yet), but once I do you can be sure it'll show up here, as well(and of course the Aquaman and Flash stories were separately released on a Power Records 45").
As a kid, I must have listened to this record a thousand times--the songs are catchy yet totally goofy; and the stories are well done and yet very idiosyncratic, with little touches that still surprise me were included. This thing could've been seen as just a kid's record and made as dull as dishwater; instead we get very specific characterizations for each hero. Plus the Aquaman story features Mera!
I'm currently featuring the entire record's contents over at my Power Records blog today, but here we'll just feature Aquaman in..."The Defeat of the Dehydrator!":
It's Comic Friday again, and time for some Earth-Shattering Disasters!!
This is a fun collection of three tales starring Batman, The Legion of Super-Heroes, and the King of the Seven Seas, Aquaman!
The Batman tale is entitled "And The Town Came Tumbling Down" by Bob Rozakis, John Calnan, and my old Kubert instructor Tex Blaisdell, and the Legion tale is "The City That Stopped...Dead!" by Paul Levitz, Arvell Jones, and Bob Layton.
But of course it's the Aquaman tale we're here to talk about, and it's a cool one: "A Creature of Death and Darkness!" written by Gerry Conway with art by the late, great Don Newton(drawing Aquaman for the first time) and Dan Adkins.
Since this Aquaman tale doesn't really reference any current storylines(this issue was released just as Aquaman was going from Adventure Comics back into his own title again), we can assume this was some sort of inventory tale, or at the very least specifically written to appear in an anthology.
It opens with Aquaman beating the kelp out of some modern-age pirates as they try to take over a cargo ship. He makes quick work of them and notices the pirates are carrying some sort of weird chemical cannon.
As he attempts to rescue the cargo ship's crew(a whole has been punched into their ship and it begins quickly sinking), a weird dark, viscous cloud comes up from the depths and capsizes the ship. Aquaman wants to investigate it but decides to take the sea men to safety first.
He consults with the Navy and they tell him the cloud is a gian patch of oil that has somehow come alive due to radiation(are we sure Stan Lee didn't write this?)!
Aquaman enlists the help of save whales to help create a giant wave to steer the cloud, but it crashes down upon them, killing them! Aquaman is enraged and he tries to use his mental powers on the cloud, which nearly kills him. The Navy says that the cloud is getting dangerously close to a Hawaiian island, and they tell Aquaman the only way to stop it from killing more people is to drop an A-Bomb on it!
Aquaman of course won't stand for this, and digs up the chemical cannon that he came across on the pirate's ship, and aims it at the cloud, which kills it! Aquaman explains to the Navy brass that he used basic science and figured out that oil producers use a corrosive acid to control oil slicks, and that the cannon would do the same job in a pinch!
The Navy men thank Aquaman for helping them out, but he reminds them his goal was to protect the ocean, at all costs.
It's a fun little tale, told at a breakneck pace and Don Newton does a superb first job on the Sea King. His Aquaman is regal, dynamic, and imposing: ...Aquaman could've done a lot worse than to have Newton become his regular artist, taking over for Jim Aparo a few issues into his solo title's return.
The fourth set(click here to see readable versions) of Batman 1968 newspaper dailies co-starring Aquaman that we started awhile back, courtesy F.O.A.M. member Jon Helfenstein.
Hey, Aquaman gets something to do this time! The exciting conclusion next week!
Most of you reading this are already familiar with this book--it's been a long time coming and every Mego fan has been anxiously awaiting its release.
It's my pal Ben Holcomb's giant-sized, full-color tribute to Mego Toys' classic "World's Greatest Super-Heroes" 8" action figure line, which of course counted Aquaman as one of its inaugural efforts.
My copy arrived on my doorstep yesterday, and my original plan was to wait until Saturday to sit down and dip into it, but as it sat there on my art table it called out to me and I just couldn't resist.
After reading the first twenty pages or so, I brought it with me to bed and a few hours later, I found myself hitting the back cover--I had finished the entire book, mostly in one sitting. I kept telling myself "just one more character", later "just one more chapter", then "just one more year" until I realized I simply couldn't put it down.
To say this book is fun is to understate the word. First up, the presentation is nigh-perfect: big, glossy, and easy to read. The design is flawless; these toys *pop* off the pages and I bet if you handed this book to a kid who's never seen Megos you'd create a new fan within an hour. So many books about toy lines are dry, text-laden treatises that do nothing to get across why these toys(whatever they are) are so fun and cool; this book upends that and makes the Megos look as exciting as they did in those Mego catalogs that all of us drooled over as children.
The writing is detailed yet breezy; even though the detail is exhausting(an examination of the different kinds of costume fasteners?!) it never reads as boring. And even if loads of detail on the costumes and accessories don't thrill you, the book also provides a year-to-year history of the Mego company, and Ben finds some amazing quotes from former employees and little bits of arcana that I simply can't believe are still around(cancelled royalty checks?!). I've read history books that aren't this well-researched.
Plus, Ben throws in some details on the toy biz at that time that I never knew before, like how most department stores only maintained toy aisles near Christmas until the late 70s, and other nitty-gritty of the toy industry that have such an effect on what you eventually see on your local store shelves. It makes for fascinating reading, and is a great bonus to all the fun Mego goodness.
Of course, Aquaman and Mego's histories are intertwined; he was one of Mego's first four WGSH figures, and Aquaman's simplicity of design and high pop-culture awareness afforded Mego a(relatively) easily figure to execute and promote; in turn, he was again at the ground floor of a soon-to-be hugely popular part of pop culture.
While never a good seller, Mego's Aquaman hung in there(even getting his own, now-impossible-to-find playset!), and he's one of the easier Megos to find today. I distinctly remember having an Aquaman doll as a kid, and seeing all these photos--glorious in their bright, cheery colors--was a trip back in time.
I'm more than happy to be a shill for something I like, and I liked this book, a lot. Ben's achievement--from initial idea to a fully-realized book you can hold in your hands--is awesome, and maybe one day I'll be capable of such a feat. Ben's book is an inspiration. I recommend it anyone who loves these wonderful toys, and you can order it via Amazon here.
In addition, we'll be doing an interview with Ben about the book here on the Shrine shortly. In Mego we go!
This cool JLA sticker sheet was sent to me by newest F.O.A.M. member Mark Campbell(man, we have more members than the Legion of Superheroes now!), featuring the World's Greatest Superheroes in a very Brady Bunch-esque design, with art by Howard Porter and John Dell, the art team on JLA at the time. Thanks Mark!
Just as a side note: I absolutely loved it when Plastic Man was in the JLA. He's one of DC's biggest stars(pop-culture-wise) and I always thought he belonged on the team.
Ok, so I finally got around to viewing the late, lamented(?) Aquaman pilot film. I knew as soon as I heard it was being made available as part of some Smallville boxed sets, it would show up on ebay by itself. And of course, ebay didn't let me down.
The main complaint I've read about this is that "its not Aquaman." And in a lot of ways, those criticisms are correct--there's a huge of amount of differences between this Aquaman and the one we/most people know, but I think it matters what kind of "different" it is.
The Gene Hackman Lex Luthor was certainly very different from the one in the comics(at the time), yet I don't know too many people who complained--the movie Luthor was a murderous, vain genius who could face down Superman, so it seemed like the people who made the movie understood what Luthor represented in the Superman mythos.
Then there's Catwoman, the Halle Berry movie where you got the sense the producers didn't give a crap about the character or its fans; it was just a "property" to be mined for whatever bucks could be squeezed from it.
To my relief, I felt that Aquaman was much more the former; an attempt to take some of the basic elements of the Aquaman story(mother from Atlantis, can communicate with sea life) and turn it into a contemporary, ongoing series. Plus, all we ever got was the pilot, where of course the differences from the source material are that much more stark. Smallville seemed a pretty big reinvention of the wheel when it first debuted; after six seasons it's become almost a live-action Who's Who in the DC Universe.
Justin Hartley is pretty good as Arthur, Ving Rhames is a bit one-note as his mysterious mentor(but again, this was just the pilot), and of course(this being a show aimed for the WB audience) its filled with lots of eye candy for both sexes. It opens with Arthur being arrested--again--for freeing some dolphins from theme park captivity; a nice, humanistic touch that I thought lines up perfectly with the Aquaman most of us know.
The effects are pretty good--Arthur looks good swimming at superspeed, and a scene of him jumping out of the water onto a boat was suitably heroic. There's a backstory involving Atlantis that clearly would've provided the backbone for several seasons. And he occasionally dons a t-shirt/shorts combo made of orange and green, which made me smile every time I saw it.
While certainly no masterpiece, I thought it was a solid show and certainly deserved a chance(hey, if there's room for another season of One Tree Hill, there was room for this) to find its creative footing. If they had been a little more far-sighted, perhaps the struggling CW Network would now have a show poised to take over for Smallville and entertain its large, youthful audience. Good job, CW. __________________________________________________________
Shameless Plug Department: I just updated TreasuryComics.com, so for all you regular readers of the site(and you know who you are), please head over there and check it out!
This was a very small section of an ad among a million other items for sale in one of those awesome Heroes World catalogs we all saw(and drooled over) as kids. It's the only ad for this playset I've ever seen in any non-Mego catalog or comic.
A pretty no-frills ad, even by Heroes World catalog standards, so a lot of kids passed it by, I bet, on their way to the much cooler-looking Batcave or Hall of Justice playsets.
But--a MIB "Aquaman Vs. The Great White Shark" playset for only $12.95??I'll take ten!
This awesomely fantabulous ad comes from newest F.O.A.M. member Colin Smith, promoting the World's Greatest Superheroes newspaper strip!
Ray Palmer receives the urgent summons for help and gets the skinny from Mera, who gives him a kiss for luck. Ladies Love Ray Palmer.
The art, "by" Sal Trapani(I put that in quotes because I've read that in a lot of cases, when Sal Trapani was listed as the artist, it was frequently him inking over others) isn't bad, and in the opening pages especially the book looks to be by Nick Cardy, who of course was Aquaman's regular artist.
Aquaduck teams up with two members of the Zoo Crew, Yankee Poodle and Rubberduck, and its cute to see this version given the same impressive abilities the "real" one has.
AMS:
Of course, Aquaman and Mego's histories are intertwined; he was one of Mego's first four WGSH figures, and Aquaman's simplicity of design and high pop-culture awareness afforded Mego a(relatively) easily figure to execute and promote; in turn, he was again at the ground floor of a soon-to-be hugely popular part of pop culture.
