posted January 25, 2003 12:56 PM               

God bless DCs extensive reprinting in the 70s!

I had nearly forgotten that first Aquagirl story, and don't even get me started on the Human Flying Fish! (Revival! Revival!)
I remember now...HFF showed up in the first issue of Superfriends not long after the Aquaman reprint special. He even had a sidekick this time around!

posted January 25, 2003 04:17 PM               

quote:

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Originally posted by Cave Carson:
I was surprised at how many of these stories I had read before! I figured there was a wealth of previously unseen (by moi) Fradon material here, but nooooo....

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posted January 25, 2003 05:04 PM            

Just finished the Aquagirl story - did anyone else wonder how Aquaman can be stymied by a giant clam, of all things? I was hoping that would turn out to be a pretense to meet the lovely Miss Morel - and would you blame him ?

One other thing about that story - I think it's the first mention of the infamous one-hour time limit! After all, just a few stories before, his finny friends bring him up to convalesce in the open air after the aforementioned surgery.

posted January 25, 2003 07:08 PM            

quote:

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Originally posted by Osgood Peabody:
One other thing about that story - I think it's the first mention of the infamous one-hour time limit! After all, just a few stories before, his finny friends bring him up to convalesce in the open air after the aforementioned surgery.

Funny how in the early JLA stories, it seemed like this was such an established weakness, when it had only been introduced months earlier in his strip!

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If this is the first mention of the time limit, you have to wonder who developed it. As I mentioned above, the early JLA stories relied heavily on a formula using each hero's weakness. Maybe it was Gardner and Julie who needed a weakness for Aquaman, and due to the quirks of the publishing schedule, it first saw light in Aquaman's own strip.

posted January 25, 2003 08:07 PM               

quote:

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Originally posted by Bgztl:
You know what I would REALLY like to know??

I'd love someone with inside knowledge to write about why DC (or was it Weisinger) engineered the salvation of Green Arrow and Aquaman (and Johnny Quick for a while I think) by moving them to Adventure Comics, but ditched Spectre and Dr. Fate--not to mention Sandman and Starman over in Adventure Comics. (Was it economics, loss of creators to "real" art work like advertising, kickbacks to Weisinger, honest support for the characters, etc.)

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I've also been curious about this, but my curiosity is about why Johnny Quick over The Flash; why Green ARROW but not Green LANTERN, and why AQUAman but not Hawkman. The heroes have some similarity, but The Flash, GL, and Hawkman were really big guns in the '40s. You'd think that DC would have wanted to keep them going, even if only as 6- or 7-page featurettes in the back of Adventure or World's Finest.

posted January 25, 2003 08:46 PM            

quote:

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Originally posted by NecessaryImpurity:
If this is the first mention of the time limit, you have to wonder who developed it. As I mentioned above, the early JLA stories relied heavily on a formula using each hero's weakness. Maybe it was Gardner and Julie who needed a weakness for Aquaman, and due to the quirks of the publishing schedule, it first saw light in Aquaman's own strip.

Anyone have more info?

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I think Weisinger was loathe to acknowledge anything going on outside of his fiefdom, so I seriously doubt he developed the weakness with an eye toward Aquaman's JLA debut. My guess is that Fox (or Schwartz?) did some homework on the heroes he wasn't familiar with - particularly Aquaman, Wonder Woman, and the Martian Manhunter, since the big two didn't figure prominently in the early JLA stories.

posted January 25, 2003 10:00 PM            

It's over!!! There ain't no more!!!

What am I gonna DO? It'll be, like, what -- a year or so til another volume comes out... IF another volume comes out?

I need a fix! We're talking serious withdrawl, here!

WAAAAAAAAAHHHH!!!

I think just about the only thing I can do to cope with this is: I'll go back and read The Doom Patrol Archives for the third time, then I'll go back and read The T.H.U.N.D.E.R. Agent Archives for the second time, and THEN it'll be time to re-read The Aquaman Archives. Maybe somehow that'll help ease me thru this time of painful transition!

But...

WAAAAAAAAAHHHH!!!

Well, thanx to you all for this little enforced, impromptu intervention session.

Pitiably and in sorrow,
Matthew

posted January 25, 2003 10:11 PM            

"There is a wealth of previously unreprinted Fradon Aquaman--three more volumes worth of it, I think. But because of the way the division was made, it'll have to come at the tail end of the Golden Age Aquaman Archives. Grrrrrrrrrrr...."

But will the series even continue far into the Silver Age tales... much less ever spawn (so to speak) a Golden Age counterpart? God, I sure hope so, but not with confidence.

---------------

Osgood,

"Just finished the Aquagirl story - did anyone else wonder how Aquaman can be stymied by a giant clam, of all things? I was hoping that would turn out to be a pretense to meet the lovely Miss Morel - and would you blame him?"

Yeah, as with so many old comic book series, consistency and detail weren't always of the highest priority. I mean, just in this volume -- there are two stories in which Aquaman (with and without Aqualad) overcomes his weakness thru different means: first a hydro-helmet and then Oxegyn and Hydrogen capsules combined and heated to create water. Yet, mysteriously, Aquaman and his sidekick seem to be completely unaware of either of these possibilities when they pursue Rowe on land in the final Fradon-drawn story.

Matthew

posted January 25, 2003 10:34 PM               

quote:

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Originally posted by Matthewwave:
WAAAAAAAAAHHHH!!!

It's over!!! There ain't no more!!!

What am I gonna DO? It'll be, like, what -- a year or so til another volume comes out...

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From your lips to Holy Bob Greenberger's ears. This series just cannot be allowed to take up a holding pattern like The Atom and Hawkman have (coincidentally, these are probably my two other favorite Archive series). Still, I hope since Aquaman has had such good buzz and is a bit more of a spotlight character, that they'll pound out another one soon.

But I understand the disappointment of it being over. The book is still here on my nighttable, and I can't bring myself to put the dustjacket back on and stick it on the shelf.

posted January 25, 2003 11:28 PM               

But if there's a race for Silver Age # 2 issues (Flash, JLA, Legion and GL having already passed that happy mark), I would rank my faves in this order of preference:

1. Atom (I need more Atom, now, DC!!!)

2. Hawkman (Murphy Anderson ain't Kubert but he sure ain't chopped liver!)

3. Aquaman (Nick Cardy really started to ge good a little later but I would be jazzed for a number 2 volume, I must admit)

posted January 26, 2003 12:03 AM               

I'm no big fan of Aquaman, but you folks definitely make it sound like I'm missing a good thing!

Hmmmm...am ME with a birthday in February, huh?

posted January 26, 2003 05:22 AM            

quote:

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Originally posted by Bgztl:

2. Hawkman (Murphy Anderson ain't Kubert but he sure ain't chopped liver!)

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I am almost certainly in the minority here, but I'll take Anderson over Kubert any day.

posted January 26, 2003 12:43 PM            

"I am almost certainly in the minority here, but I'll take Anderson over Kubert any day."

Well, since Kubert's my absolute fave, I'm not part of your minority -- but that don't mean that Murphy Anderson ain't a wonderful artist! Myself, I'll get that Hawkman Archives one day yet, and then maybe even any successive volumes should they arrive.

I feel for you Hawk and Atom fans -- you've definitely been waiting longer than I have been waiting for my second DP and Aquaman tomes -- but, ooooo, it's hard to not be selfish and want more Aquaman (and DP) right away, instead of them!

Matthew

posted January 26, 2003 02:33 PM               

quote:

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Originally posted by jape:
Flash, GL and Hawkman were either still owned by All-American rather than DC when the migration from More Fun to Adventure was planned, or the buyout from MC Gaines had only just happened. The two companies were run completely separately for almost a year, which is why DC characters Starman and Sandman had been dropped from the JSA in All-Star. That probably influenced their replacement by the More Fun features, since they were getting less exposure anyway. Weisinger probably still viewed GL, Flash ad Hawkman as the competition when he was planning the Adventure line-up.

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True, but the decision that JQ, GA, Aquaman (and Vigilante, Shining Knight, and Robotman for that matter) would survive while Flash, GL, Hawkman, Black Canary, Wildcat, Dr. Mid-Nite and The Atom would expire with the titles they appeared in (or more properly with All-Star #57) wasn't made until much later, when they were all DC properties.

posted January 26, 2003 04:24 PM               

quote:

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Originally posted by James Friel:
True, but the decision that JQ, GA, Aquaman (and Vigilante, Shining Knight, and Robotman for that matter) would survive while Flash, GL, Hawkman, Black Canary, Wildcat, Dr. Mid-Nite and The Atom would expire with the titles they appeared in (or more properly with All-Star #57) wasn't made until much later, when they were all DC properties.

And why, speaking of Adventure Comics' inhabitants in particular, did Shining Knight, a wretchedly drawn feature in its early days, survive while Sandman, Starman, Hourman and Manhunter bit the dust? Was it the Seven Soldiers connection?

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Maybe it just has to do with reader feedback. DC Comics must have had some way of knowing which feature was popular or not at the time. Maybe Robotman, Shining Knight, and Green Arrow were just more popular than G.L., Flash, or Hawkman. Taste change.

posted January 26, 2003 05:01 PM               

A few observations:

Despite what Roy Thomas said in the introduction, Aquaman's green gloves did not suddenly appear in 1960. They popped in on occasion for some time before that. It was about 1960 that the tide changed, and the yellow gloves were seen less frequently, until they vanished entirely.

A story in Adv. #189, "The Nautical Treasure Hunt" used the same trick of replacing missing diamonds with Ice shards to slip up the bad guy in the end.

And back in the days when there were practically NO cross-overs between characters, the Green Arrow tale “The Case of the Vanishing Arrows” – mentions Batman at the beginning, when Speedy suggests Green Arrow needs a cool-looking symbol like Batman's.And at the end of the story, Superman actually appears in a few panels.

This was just the issue before #267 which had the Aquaman/G.A. land/sea switch. All in all, 267 was a monumental issue. The Superboy story was “Prisoner of the Super-Heroes, ”the long-awaited second appearance of The Legion.

posted January 26, 2003 07:40 PM            

"A story in Adv. #189, "The Nautical Treasure Hunt" used the same trick of replacing missing diamonds with Ice shards to slip up the bad guy in the end."

Thank god for stupid bad guys, huh?

"And back in the days when there were practically NO cross-overs between characters, the Green Arrow tale “The Case of the Vanishing Arrows” – mentions Batman at the beginning, when Speedy suggests Green Arrow needs a cool-looking symbol like Batman's.And at the end of the story, Superman actually appears in a few panels."

The Aquaman of this Archive is a pretty "well-connected" guy, given the era, then. There's the GA crossover, and he's practically obsessively protective of Superman! TWICE he eliminates a kryptonite threat for his fellow superfolk -- one time even allowing himself to be bested by a little boy, with the whole world watching, in the process!

Do you know the first time, the first published story in which, Arthur actually met another DC hero? Was it actually this GA crossover? When did he first meet Superman?

Matthew

posted January 27, 2003 02:08 AM               

quote:

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Originally posted by James Friel:
Far as I remember, the name Garth first appears (pretty late) in Teen Titans. He was just Aqualad for a loooong time.
I think Nick Cardy is responsible for the hair change.

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Correct on both counts.

Garth isn't referred to by his given name until Tales of the Teen Titans #45 (the first issue of the 'Operation Waterworks' storyline), 1984. This explains why Tula's pet nickname for him was 'Lover' -- I mean, can you *imagine*?

And when Aquaman got his own series, Garth's hair was colored brown, and was more wavy than curly (and still had a pronounced side part), but as issues progressed, the waves evolved into Nick's final look for him, the softer curls -- and the brown tones gradually were replaced by straight black.

I haven't gotten my copy yet -- I have to wait 'till this upcoming weekend (where we moved to, the 'local' shop is a good 20 minute drive away)...but our new shop earned my undying loyalty when, last Wednesday (and only a couple weeks after establishing a pull list for myself and my sons which included the phrase 'anything Aquaman'), the shop manager called me at work to specifically ask if I wanted a copy of the Archives. I hadn't specifically ordered one, and noting that I had said 'anything Aquaman', wanted to make sure I got one.

Yay, shop!