Adventure Comics #466 - Dec. 1979

Comics Weekend "Death On Ice" by Bob Rozakis, Don Newton, and Dan Adkins.

Aquaman's final (for now) installment in Adventure Comics starts off with him and Mera fending off an attack by snipers:

Aquaman and Mera find their way back into the the secret base. Once inside, they make their way into a locked chamber, which is the main control room of the entire operation!

They continue searching, and find...Helga! Turns out the Helga Aquaman that died in the explosion (last issue) was merely a clone. As Aquaman tries to fight his way through some more henchmen, we see that he gets no help from Mera...for she is a clone, too!

Aquaman's head is met with the butt of a gun, which means he'll be waking up in some strange place:

...with everything back to normal, Aquaman can relax. For now, at least.


This was the last issue of Adventure Comics in its "dollar" format: all the regular features would be jettisoned in favor of a Plastic Man/Starman split, which would last all of eight issues, when they would be joined by...Aquaman! (In the meantime, Aquaman would take up residence in World's Finest, by the same team of Rozakis and Newton, which the Shrine covered back in 2008)

And so that ends our look at the 1977-1979 Aquaman solo appearances, which feels like we started ages ago! Now I'll have the chance to get to some one-off and guest appearances the Sea King made, starting next weekend!

Adventure Comics #465 - Oct. 1979

Comics Weekend "Ice Pact" by Bob Rozakis, Don Newton, and Dan Adkins.

Adventure Comics' dollar, no-ads-format got downgraded as of this issue--one of the features got dropped (Wonder Woman) and was replaced with ads. Luckily for us Aqua-Fans, that meant each of the remaining strips got a couple extra pages to work with.

This issue's Aquaman feature hits the ground running...er, swimming:

Aquaman wakes up inside a strange place, and is greeted by two people: an older man named Professor Graen, and an admiring woman named Helga. Helga calls Aquaman "a fine specimen", something Aquaman doesn't take too kindly to.

Aquaman wants to get back to rescuing the sub, but Helga tells him its been saved, as well. She insists on showing him around their facilities, which are located "miles beneath the Antarctic Ice."

Aquaman can scarcely believe an entire eco-culture could be built in such a place, but Helga tells him their scientists have developed a device that translates cold into heat. She also tells him they've been there for almost 35 years...and was approved and financed by The Third Reich!

Aquaman is stunned, but Helga continues her explanation of their little pocket world:

Aquaman brushes off Helga's advances, but she asks him to stay so they can study him, with the idea of pooling their knowledge and save the world. Tempted by the thought of scientific advancement, Aquaman says he'll ask Vulko and see what he thinks.

We learn that Aquaman isn't serious--he's merely going along with this madness until he can learn more about it. But Helga and her people aren't willing to wait: one of her henchmen hits Aquaman over the head, knocking him out.

Aquaman wakes up in yet another strange place:

Mera follows "Aquaman" and Helga, while the real one tries to free himself from his bubble prison. With the help of a finny friend (in this case a giant octopus), he gets himself free and heads for Atlantis.

But, just at that moment, Helga's men are marching into Atlantis. As the real Aquamna arrives, Helga warns him that if he comes any closer, she will fire a torpedo into the city!

Aquaman doesn't believe she'll do it with her men there...but of course she's a Nazi, so she could care less. Helga fires the missile, and Aquaman chases after it, trying to change its course:

...if it seems like Aquaman's being a bit careless here, letting an underground cabal of Nazis continue to live in their secret underground lair, rest assured he'll deal with them again next issue!


Once again, to my eyes Don Newton takes an okay story and makes the most out of it. I particularly love that panel of Helga planting one on Aquaman...I just love how well staged and how well drawn it is. Plus his use of silhouettes is really sharp--it really helps balance out the pages, especially since some panels are very busy.

Since we don't have an issue of More Fun Comics to recap on Sunday, we're going to wrap up this Aquaman run in Adventure Comics tomorrow! Be here!

Adventure Comics #464 - August 1979

Comics Weekend "Invaders From Above" by Bob Rozakis, Don Newton, and Bob Smith.

In the last issue of Adventure Comics, writer Paul Kupperberg wrapped up the Atlantis/UFP storyline, ending with Aquaman having been proved right, and reconciling with Mera, Aqualad, and Vulko.

With this issue, the Aquaman feature changed hands once again, with Bob Rozakis taking over the strip, and Don Newton returning to the penciling chores. It opens with a bang:

Aquaman heads for the surface, and sees the ship that caused the commotion. Its called Detox, and Aquaman assumes its an oil-drilling ship of some sort, but not the kind Aquaman has ever seen before.

He hails the men on board, and meets its owner, "Greek shipping tycoon Stavros Markos." Aquaman tells Markos that his oil drilling is right over Atlantis, and they need to move on.

Markos adamantly refuses, saying he has approval by the U.N. itself. Its called "Operation Detox", which will remove all the pollutants from the seas! Markos says Aquaman should support such an effort. He does, but the Sea King has some reservations:

Aquaman spies a gang of looters outside an Atlantis museum, and helps the Atlantean guards stop them.

One looter shoots a harpoon gun at Aquaman, and a guard dives in front of it, sacrificing his life to save his king! The looter begins to reload, giving Aquaman enough time to kick him the face.

As Aquaman tries to get information out of him, a school of sharks arrive (drawn by the spilled blood), and Aquaman makes good use of them:

...the end...for now.


For me, this story is okay, but it feels very similar to the Aquaman tales that came just before it--you've got Aquaman meeting someone who is promising to help the environment, but really isn't. Its also reminiscent of the very first Aquaman story in this Adventure run, where Aquaman meets a billionaire surface dweller aboard his yacht.

That said, its still fun, and I thought Don Newton did a terrific job. The near-wordless scene with the looter and the octopus is so well done its a shame Newton didn't do much "adventure strip"-type work; he would've excelled at it.

Here's this issue's back cover, by Jose Delbo and Dick Giordano, where the rest of the Adventure features got some attention:

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!