"Ah, Yes, Killing Aquaman" - 2010

F.O.A.M.er Chuck "D.C." Dill caught this throwaway line (check the last panel) in the newest issue of Action Comics, #895.

At first I thought this was the lead-in to some Aquaman guest-spot, but then I noticed that this sequence takes place sometime in the past, so obviously this was a plan of Vandal Savage's that never came to fruition (thankfully). Why writer Paul Cornell chose Aquaman to be the target of Savage's then-latest scheme, I know not, but its a funny gag nevertheless--there are all sorts of skirmishes in the DCU that we never get to see!

Good catch Chuck, and thanks!

Action Comics #540 - Feb. 1983

Comics Weekend "Water-War One" by Bob Rozakis, Alex Saviuk, and Joe Giella.

Aquaman ends his run as the back-up in Action Comics with this issue, with he and Mera fighting V'Lana, a woman bent on usurping the throne of Xebel, Mera's home planet:

While Aquaman is unconscious, Mera and V'Lana fight inside her throne room. V'Lana admits that once she had a taste of power, she can't bear to give it up. She assumes Mera has the same feelings, and won't listen when Mera tries to assure her it's because Mera can no longer live on Earth.

V'Lana has an octopus grab Mera and try and subdue her, but suddenly it lets go, seemingly for no reason. Mera then offers to fight V'Lana mano a mano, and creates a hard water ring with just the two of them inside.

Mera and V'Lana engage in hand-to-hand combat, with Mera finally knocking V'Lana's crown right off her head:

...not to be continued!

A rare happy ending for Aquaman, this would be his last solo strip until his 1986 mini-series. In between, he (with Gerry Conway's help) would take control of the JLA and lead that book through its biggest changes ever.

DC must have felt that Action Comics didn't need a back-up strip anymore, for this was not only the last Aquaman feature, but the last back-up in the book entirely.

As I've said before, this was a nice strip, well written by Bob Rozakis and nicely drawn (if inconsistent because of the constantly-changing inkers) by Alex Saviuk. I was fortunate enough to get an Aquaman sketch from Mr. Saviuk a few years ago, and it's one of the nicest ones in my collection. He served the Sea King well!

Action Comics #539 - Jan. 1983

Comics Weekend "Help! I'm A Prisoner In My Own Body!" by Bob Rozakis, Alex Saviuk, and Dan Adkins.

At the end of last issue, Aquaman finally realized that this woman he thought was his wife was not exactly just Mera:

With the evil half of Mera unconscious, Aquaman tries to communicate with the real Mera, laying dormant inside.

Mera uses telepathy to tell her husband what happened: back on her home world Xebel, the woman who took over for Mera after she left to marry Aquaman, V'Lana, refused to give up the throne to the returning monarch. But because Mera was queen by birthright, V'Lana was forcibly removed.

Some time later, V'lana, who seemed to have gotten over the turmoil, invited Mera to see her newest invention--a machine that enabled her to take over Mera's mind and body!

V'Lana then went to Earth, to try and learn how Mera had telepathic control over the planet's sea creatures. She then infiltrated the Navy(what, they don't do background checks in the Navy?), to get involved with the project that also involved Aquaman.

Why do this, Aquaman asks, since there are no sea creatures on Xebel? Mera says her plan was to gain control of some of them on Earth, then bring them back to Xebel to help her regain control of the throne!

(By the way--all the description above just covers page three. Lotta words on page three!)

Anyway, Aquaman figures the best thing is to get Mera/V'Lana back to Xebel, which he does. Its then that Mera feels V'Lana leave her body, no longer controlling it :

Aquaman and Mera go find V'Lana, who says she looks forward to having Aquaman as her new husband (what can you say, the ladies love Aquaman!).

When Mera says V'Lana will never rule again, V'Lana begs to differ, having brought a horde of angry sea creatures along through the portal, ready to attack!:

...to be continued!

Whew, a lot of plot crammed into seven measly pages!

Once again, Alex Saviuk's solid work is handed off to another inker, this time Dan Adkins. Wonder why DC had such a hard time finding one regular inker for this strip.

That page of Arthur admiring his wife as she swims around is cute--makes me wish somehow DC could just scrap all the stuff that's happened to Aquaman over the years and just get him back with Mera once and for all.

Next Comics Weekend, we'll have the conclusion to this storyline, which was also Aquaman's final installment as the back-up in Action Comics. Be here!

Action Comics #538 - Dec. 1982

Comics Weekend "Mera, Mera, On The Wave--Who's The One You've Got To Save?" by Bob Rozakis, Alex Saviuk, and Frank McLaughlin.

Picking up from the previous issue last Comics Weekend, Aquaman--convinced that he has found his wife Mera in the form of a Naval officer named Lt. Bridgman--finds himself in trouble, under attack from some rogue dolphins who don't respond to the Sea King's telepathic commands:

Aquaman continues to get battered by these dolphins, and it gets worse when they suddenly start generating electricity, an inadvertent result of "Mera" continually trying to use her telepathic commands to get them to stop!

Two dolphins begin to charge, but Aquaman manages to get himself out of the way in time, causing the two dolphins to collide into one another. He manages to free himself from his hard water prison by slamming it into three other dolphins, while "Mera" thinks it was her doing:

...to be continued!

It took Aquaman a little while to stop thinking entirely with his lower half (don't blame yourself, Arthur, I'm the exact same way about redheads), but now evil Mera has her hands around his throat, we'll see in the next issue whether he can save himself and the real Mera!

By the way--killer splash for this installment by Alex Saviuk!

Action Comics #537 - Nov. 1982

Comics Weekend "Something Fishy!" by Bob Rozakis, Alex Saviuk, and Joe Giella.

Picking up from last issue, Aquaman--haunted by dreams of his wife Mera, last seen stuck in another dimension--saves a deep-sea diver trapped in an undersea quake, only to discover the person he saved...is Mera!:

...Aquaman, quite the ladies' man!

The Navy admiral and Dr. Carmel insist this woman is who she says she is, but Aquaman is equally insistent. So they decide--and she agrees--to hook her up to the same brain-monitoring machine that Aquaman subjected himself to before the quake.

The test results are inconclusive, so Aquaman tries something else: to have Lt. Bridgeman go underwater with him, to see if she can breathe underwater. Not only is she willing to put up with all this, but she looks great in a bikini:

Further testing what she can do, Lt. Bridgeman--who Aquaman flat-out calls Mera now--tries to communicate with sea life, and she sees that she can!

Unfortunately, her thoughts somehow turn a bunch of nearby swordish into marauding attackers, and she's unable to get them to stop! Aquaman is able to turn them around, but then a dolphin comes by, hitting him from behind:

...to be continued!

Penciller Alex Saviuk--who turned in some great work on these strips--was subjected to a revolving door of inkers. Vince Colletta, Dennis Jensen, Frank Chiaramonte, Pablo Marcos, Frank McLaughlin, and now Joe Giella all had their turn, each with different results--some good, some not so good.

Which is too bad, because one of the things I think Aquaman as a character has suffered the most from is inconsistency, of both tone and look, over the decades. And Saviuk did really nice work here, its too bad DC couldn't find one inker to handle the strip for its brief run.

Action Comics #536 - Oct. 1982

Comics Weekend "I Talk To The Seas, But They Don't Listen To Me!" by Bob Rozakis, Alex Saviuk, and Frank McLaughlin.

After several issues in a story featuring back-ups starring Atom and/or Air Wave, Aquaman returned to Action Comics:

Inside the sea station, Aquaman is introduced to S.T.A.R. Labs scientist Dr. Todd Carmel, who has built a machine that can tap into Aquaman's mind to see just how he communicates with sea life, which ought to help the Navy how to communicate better with the creatures of the sea, as well.

Aquaman asks if the machine could also be used to tap into a person's memories, and determine whether a specific memory is real or imagined.

Dr. Carmel says it might, and is willing to try, so they hook Aquaman up to the machine, where he conjures up memories of Mera. But within a few moments, the entire ship starts to list, and Aquaman heads outside to see what's happening.

One sailor seems terrified to fall overboard, which strikes Aquaman as odd. He grabs the sailor, and asks what he's so scared of:

...to be continued!

It would seem by this point, DC planned to eventually phase out back-ups in Action Comics. Not only did the story get reduced by one page (from eight to seven), but they stopped mentioning the back-ups on the cover of the book.

But Aquaman would hold on for a few more issues, and we'll continue with them tomorrow!

Action Comics #530 - April 1982

Comics Weekend "Home...Home On The Waves!" by Bob Rozakis, Alex Saviuk, and Frank Chiaramonte.

Aquaman, at the end of last issue, has helped the citizens of Vortuma fight off the assault of the Land-Masters. But this still leaves him stuck on their planet, with no conceivable way of getting home:

The leader of Vortuma mentions something called the Vibrus, a malevolent creature that lives in the depths of the sea. When attacked, it gives off high levels of vibration-energy, energy that maybe could be used to replicate the beam that brought Aquaman there!

Aquaman finds the Vibrus--a magenta-colored, multi-fanged creature--and attacks it with just enough force that it expels some of its energy into Aquaman, causing the Sea King to dematerialize!

Meanwhile, back on Earth, Ray Palmer is on a sailing cruise with his wife Jean. Ray is enjoying himself, but Jean is nothing but complaints, especially about them having to be there to rendevous with Aquaman:

...I love the fact that, no matter where she appeared, Jean Loring was always written as a real shrew. Always complaining, no matter what the situation, and Ray's just too dumb to see that they aren't a good match (boy, have I been there). He's probably blinded by the kind of outfits that Jean is wearing here--you never saw Lois Lane show that much skin.

Anyway, Ray finds an unconscious Aquaman, and has to change into The Atom to have enough strength to bring Arthur to the surface:

It was The Atom and then Air Wave's turn at the Action Comics back-up slot, with Aquaman returning in #536, which we'll see here next Comics Weekend!

Action Comics #529 - March 1982

Comics Weekend "Death If By Land...Death If By Sea!" by Bob Rozakis, Alex Saviuk, and Pablo Marcos.

Continued last issue, Aquaman has taken it upon himself to help defend the undersea society of Vortuma against a group of marauders called the Land-Masters:

Aquaman leads the denizens of Vortuma to safety inside a nearby cave. But just as he gets them all inside, he is hit on the head and knocked out by a tentacle holding a rock.

When he finally awakens, Aquaman finds himself in the middle of some sort of desert--with no water in sight.

After staggering through under the blazing sun, Aquaman encounters some of the Land-Masters. Hoping they're not the same ones he met before, he tries to communicate with them, to no effect.

He then grabs one of their shirts, and find it tears off in his hands, spilling water all over him. Aquaman is confused--the Land-Masters were supposed to be air-breathers, so what are they doing with the water inside their suits?

The other two of the other Land-Masters run off, and Aquaman chases them, discovering...open water!

Too weak to run any further, he collapses, and let's himself roll downhill into the sea:

...Aquaman discovers that the Land-Masters are the same creatures as the citizens of Vortuma!

A battle starts, and Aquaman manages to fend them off long enough for his friends who he left in the cave to reemerge, and together they defeat the Land-Masters:

...to be continued!

This final chapter in this part of the story is maybe a tad too condensed for just eight pages, considering all that has to happen.

But overall it works well, and penciller Alex Saviuk pulls off a couple of very nice shots, aided tremendously by colorist Tom Ziuko, like the final panels of pages two and six, above.

Tomorrow, Aquaman tries to get home, with help from The Atom!

Action Comics #528 - Feb. 1982

Comics Weekend "Land-Masters of the Sea!" by Bob Rozakis, Alex Saviuk, and Frank Chiaramonte.

Picking up from last issue, Aquaman got zapped by an outer space beam, transporting him to the homeworld of an alien creature:

Aquaman is introduced to the denizens of the undersea community, called Vortuma. Aquaman is greeted warmly, but the tour is cut short when his guide senses great danger, and pulls Aquaman inside!

The "danger" are the two underwater goons we saw attack Air Wave last issue, called The Land-Masters. Its explained that they live outside Vortuma, and regularly come into the city and steal food and other vital supplies.

They make a bee-line for Vortuma's leader, but Aquaman steps in and breaks it up. One of them seems to have amazing powers, as he creates a Red Tornado-style whirlpool and aims it Aquaman!

Aquaman manages to "reverse" the whirlpool (a trick he learned from The Flash!), and knocks both of the Land-Masters out.

The governor of Vortuma is thankful, but scared for Aquaman's safety:

...Aquaman learns that the planet used to be a lush, floral paradise, until a horrible blight left it barren. Soon after, the Land-Masters appeared, and enslaved the inhabitants of Vortuma.

Aquaman now realizes what he has to do:

...to be continued!

I love the recurring character trait of Aquaman that he makes it a personal crusade to help out the various creatures of the sea, whether they be from Earth or another planet. He can't stand surface dwellers--any surface dwellers--inflicting pain or subjugation on beings of the sea.

And, odds be damned, Aquaman's gonna step in! Be back here next Saturday to see the next installment of Action Comics!

Action Comics #527 - Jan. 1982

Comics Weekend "Air Wave Under The Waves!" by Bob Rozakis, Alex Saviuk, and Dennis Jensen.

Picking up from last weekend, we're continuing our look at Aquaman's run in the early-1980s Action Comics, written by Bob Rozakis.

Last issue's Aquaman segment was a self-contained story, where Aquaman teamed up with The Atom. He has to share his back-up slot with another guest star, this time it's Air Wave:

Air Wave gets attacked by a group of uniformed goons, but they run right past him and instead attack the octopus!

He manages to scare them off, but the octopus has been hurt. Before Air Wave can figure out a way to communicate with the creature, he finds himself beamed out of the room, back to where he started!

Dropping out of his cape, he sees a miniaturized version of the octopus. He sees it obviously needs water, so he brings it to his cousin's apartment, where there's a fish tank. Not knowing what to do with this creature, he asks for help from his mentor, Hal Jordan!

He tells Hal the story, who says if the need to communicate with sea life, he knows just the person to contact:

...finally! It's page six already, I was wondering when Aquaman would show up!

Anyway, Air Wave and Green Lantern catch up with Aquaman, and they tell him what's happened. Aquaman tries to telepathically communicates with the creature, but fails. When Air Wave explains the nature of the "beam" that zapped him, Aquaman surmises it sounds a lot like a Zeta Beam, the one that zaps Adam Strange and carries him to Rann!

They guess that maybe another planet has perfected the Zeta Beam technology:

...to be continued!

Never having been a big fan of Air Wave, as a kid I was frustrated that Aquaman had to share space with him, especially considering the back-up was just a measly eight pages. Now I don't mind it so much--I like the way Rozakis weaved the three rotating characters in and out of each other's stories.

On a side note: I think I'd like to get the "Forward, brother whales!" panel made into a t-shirt.

Action Comics #521 - July 1981

Comics Weekend "Grow, Little Growfish!" by Bob Rozakis, Alex Saviuk, and Vince Colletta.

I haven't run a series for Comics Weekend in a little while, so I thought we'd spend the next couple of installments talking about Aquaman's run in the early-1980s Action Comics.

Some of you will remember that this series started off in Adventure Comics #475, by the boffo team of J.M. DeMatteis and Dick Giordano. That series sadly only ran four issues, before being continued in the back of Action Comics, still written by DeMatteis but this time drawn by Don Heck.

But DeMatteis' run on the character (and an excellent one, at that) ended with Action Comics #520, which is where we left off. So now we pick up with the very next issue, with Bob Rozakis and Alex Saviuk taking over the creative duties:

Aquaman asks the Atom to find this microscopic organism in the ocean--a, no pun intended--tall order, but the Atom takes up the task.

Amid all the life forms in the ocean, the Atom actually does manage to find what he's looking for. But when he gets close to it, the organism immediately doubles in size!

The Atom also enlarges himself to deal with it, but the blob of matter grows even bigger, wrapping itself entirely around the Tiny Titan!

The thing grows so large it breaks the surface, where Aquaman sees it:

...I love third panel, where the colorist tinted Aquaman a few shades darker for the portion of him that's under the water. A nice, exciting pose by Alex Saviuk, topped off with a simple but dynamic color effect by Jerry Serpe.

Anyway, Aquaman is able to pick up a telepathic message from the Atom, still trapped inside the blob. He commands a bunch of swordfish to puncture the creature repeatedly, giving the Atom a chance to escape.

The Atom--this time as Ray Palmer--surfaces, warning Aquaman not to hurt the creature any further :

...panel three is very funny, where Aquaman and Ray have a little argument over the correct nomenclature of the creature. A nice character touch, especially when you consider writer Rozakis had only eight pages to write a complete story featuring two heroes.

After several issues of Action Comics featuring solo Aquaman back-ups, next issue would begin a run of Aquaman, the Atom, and Air-Wave rotating in the slot, sometimes featuring 2 o the 3 heroes teaming-up, like they did here.

Aquaman would return in Action Comics #527, which we'll cover next Saturday for Comics Weekend!