Who's the Best... Character With "Black" in His/Her Name?

Doug: Today is known as "Black Friday" here in the States, so in honor of that, let's discuss some more of our favorite longjohn types! And as a sidenote, it took me years to fully grasp the concept of "black" in "Black Friday". As a history guy, I was always stuck on "Black Tuesday", that day in 1929 when the stock market crashed and the Great Depression began. Ironically, the "black" in "Black Friday" also has to do with money, but in the opposite way -- Black Friday signifies the beginning of the Christmas shopping season, a time when retailers should see their balance sheets shift over from the "red" to the "black". Whoo... don't know if anyone else needed that lesson, but I'm glad I finally figured it out! Now, on to the comics!!

Uncharted Waters -- Aquaman on the BAB? Adventure Comics 435 and 436

Adventure Comics #435 (September/October 1974)(cover by Jim Aparo)

"As the Undersea City Sleeps"

Steve Skeates-Mike Grell

Adventure Comics #436 (November/December 1974)(cover by Jim Aparo)

"The King is Dead; Long Live the King!"

Steve Skeates-Mike Grell 

Doug: Talk about a superhero who is more often than not the butt of the joke around here (and elsewhere!). Aquaman... is he anyone's favorite character? I know he has his apologists; neither Karen or I would be among them. But is it the character we malign, or what has/has not been done with him? Several months ago I decided to take the plunge (heh heh) and purchase the trade paperback The Death of a Prince. The book reprints Aquaman's Bronze Age tales from Adventure Comics and then in his own self-titled magazine. The issues included begin in Sept./Oct. 1974 (today's review) and conclude in Aug./Sept. 1978, and maybe those statistics tell a large part of the story -- over a four year period the character never saw the spinner racks on a monthly basis. In all, there are 27 stories, yet only a handful are full-length (18+ pages); most run the length of your typical split-book allotment, which is around 10 pages. So due to that fact, I selected the first two stories in the tpb to tell you about today. By no means do I endorse these tales as the best in the book, nor would I say they are the worst. They're simply the first two, I like Mike Grell's art, and so that's why we're going with them. Seems fair. One more thought -- those Jim Aparo Spectre covers are sweet, aren't they? Makes me wish I had those stories in reprints, too. Shall we head under the sea?

Doug: Aquaman is swimming toward the domed city of Atlantis after some time away dealing with Justice League of America affairs. He remarks how good it feels to be back in the depths, when suddenly he begins to feel lightheaded -- something isn't right here. He spies some "farmers" asleep on the ocean bed, and then immediately spies the Manta Ship and his old nemesis, Black Manta! Manta and his goons are... rustling squid. SCREEEECH!! That was the sound of my ride coming to a sudden halt. Say what?? Farmers? Rustling squid? Hokey smokes -- now I know why I've never read Aquaman comics! And we're three panels into this.

Doug: The preceding paragraph break was to allow me to regain my composure. OK, so Black Manta takes advantage of Aquaman's stupor and bests him in hand to hand combat. As Aquaman kneels to clear his head, the Manta releases an inky substance akin to that emanated from the very squid he had just pilfered. In his present condition Aquaman is no threat, and Black Manta gets away. Back in the palace, Aquaman ponders his next step. Of high import is determining exactly what sort of chemical or compound Black Manta had used to cause the Atlanteans to become drowsy. Aquaman consults Dr. Vulko to see if he's been able to isolate the threat. No dice. Outside a few days later, we see a shrimp farm (man...) suddenly attacked by several projectiles, each releasing a chemical into the water (I'll tell you this -- I was pleased that the term "gas" was never used in this underwater story). As had been the case earlier, the farmers fall to the ground, unconscious, and Black Manta and his men emerge on the scene to steal the shrimp harvest. He's going to be rich from all this heisting! By the way, do any of you marine biologists out there in BAB-reader land know if squid and shrimp can survive in depths to the ocean floor?

Was Rob Liefeld in charge of backgrounds on this page?

Doug: As Black Manta gloats, one of the farmers begins to rise. Manta looks at him incredulously, , when suddenly the man's cloak comes off to reveal Aquaman underneath! The Sea King outfitted himself with an air tank, and as he could get his oxygen from either air or water, he could make himself immune to whatever pollutant Manta had introduced to the waters around Atlantis. Since this is a superhero mag, our two antagonists mix it up a bit, with Arthur Curry getting the better of his big-domed opponent. In fact, Aquaman threatens to break Black Manta's arm if he doesn't call off his goons. Inside the Manta Ship, though, the thugs are just waiting for an opportunity to fire a blast ray. Because that's what thugs do. However, those of us who know Aquaman best from the Super Friends shows know that mental telepathy with sea creatures is his dominant power. And that's indeed what he uses, calling several whales to him to buffet the Manta Ship.

Doug: While everyone's occupied with the whales, Aquaman batters Black Manta senseless. He thinks to himself that this is about the 47th time he's knocked out his foe. Aquaman surfaces, where the Manta Ship has gone in hopes of getting away from the whales. He hurls Manta toward the ship and tells them to get lost. Say what? Don't they have some sort of dungeon in Atlantis, or some underwater version of Arkham Asylum? As the Lord of Atlantis returns to his kingdom, he thinks that sooner or later all this messing with Black Manta is going to come to a head. Duh... did you get a look at the title of this trade paperback, bro?

 

Doug: The second story flat-out wastes a page at the beginning, with a three-panel look at the climax! Inside, we begin in the royal chambers of Aquaman's palace. One of the ages-old tropes in DC comics is the stand-in robot, and here we get the underwater version. One of Atlantis's scientists has basically invented the DC version of the life-model decoy, prospectively to be used at state functions when Aquaman is away. Aqualad (yes! -- loved the Teen Titans!) is present, but takes leave right away. He's miffed that Aquaman seems to be shirking certain state duties in exchange for convenience. Aqualad just thinks that a king's place is doing a king's business. But as he swims away, he encounters a large underwater fish/lizard -- the Bugala. Having fought the beast in the past, and knowing that he cannot defeat it alone, Aqualad quickly returns to Atlantis.

Doug: In the palace, Aquaman has picked up the presence of the Bugala on his video monitors. Understanding the danger, he readies to head out to engage it. But Mera cautions him that his meeting with the Canadian ambassador is about to commence. Aquaman shrugs it off and tells the science staff that now would be a great time to test their robot. Outside the dome of the city, Aquaman swims toward the Bugala. He pulls up short, and attempts to influence the creature telepathically. However, he decides that the beast must have developed immunity to his commands. Trying a more direct approach, the Sea King is instead battered down onto a coral reef, and slumps to the ocean floor. Reeling, he attempts to clear his mind and to quickly deduce the goings-on. As he locates the Bugala, it is only a short way from the dome.

Doug: Aquaman swims as fast as he can to catch the leviathan, but then zooms past it and into a hatch in the dome. He swims headlong into the meeting he was supposedly attending, alarming the Canadian dignitary. Then Aquaman busts the head clean off the robot and clutches a small remote control-looking doohickey, that had been in the neck of the robot. Aquaman crushes it in his hands; outside, we see the Bugala collapse. Turns out that big beastie had itself been a robot, but was being controlled from inside the city! And the scientist who created the Aquaman robot? He's making tracks, but Aquaman overtakes him. Question of the day is -- who put him up to it? And out on a bluff, waiting for the dome to fall? Black Manta and a larger-than-normal army of goons.

Doug: I really can't say that I enjoyed these stories. The Mike Grell art was nice -- jibed nicely with what he was doing in Superboy and the Legion of Super-Heroes around this time. But Steve Skeates's scripts were pretty pedestrian. That's part of the problem with any done-in-one and I think handcuffs an author; but a seven-page done-in-one is a whole 'nother animal. Another issue that strikes me is the difficulty in drawing underwater stories. In most of the panels in the first tale above, there is very little to show the reader that the setting is beneath the waves. Additionally, I think almost all artists have deficiencies in differentiating swimming poses from flying poses. With Grell's Legion work as my only basis for this statement, I can declare that throughout the 15+ pages I read there were many times I felt like I'd seen a particular action pose but in an airborne situation. I'm not knocking Grell's figurework, which again I generally enjoy. But it would have been nice if more often we could have seen some sort of swirling effect, certainly some bubbles, to show us that we were not in a surface setting and that motion was perhaps slowed by the resistance of the water. But all that being said, I am intrigued enough to continue reading the Death of a Prince trade; I'm looking forward to the advent of the Jim Aparo stories, as Aquaman is one of his hallmark characters.