Wednesday, August 08, 2007

Ripples Through Time - 137

I'm reading every Aquaman solo adventure in publication order. After I read each story I will post the cover/splash page and a few thoughts on the story.

Adventure #214 Aquaman Splash Page
Adventure #214 (July 1955)- Station Neptune

A TV station starts broadcasting an underwater variety show from the entrance of a busy harbor, distracting Aquaman from a case of hijacked cargo.

Finny Friends Report: Aquaman receives a message about a hijacking from a signal fish. To audition for the show, he juggles shellfish. Then he gets eels to create an underwater trapeze. Then he pretends to be a cowboy riding a sea cow and lassoing another sea cow. He then captures the bad guys by lassoing THEM with an octopus.

Glove Color: Yellow.

Quotefile: TV Announcer, "Corny! Swim away, sea man -- your act is all wet!"

Aqua-Exclamations: "I'll be a sea cow's uncle!"

Great images of the Coast Guard captain tearing out his hair when he sees Aquaman apparently ignoring the ongoing hijacking case to audition for a bad variety show. But, of course, Aquaman already had the case solved and just was trying to make sure the bad guys were caught in the act.

Some fish came out to do tricks on the show without any prompting from Aquaman. You have to wonder how the TV guys contacted the fish, and what other programming they had.

The TV crew, when trying to escape, consists of four guys. One of them, the announcer, has underwater gear on. The other three are swimming underwater without any gear at all. True, they were racing to a midget sub to escape, but there's no indication that they left an airtight base.

Nice symmetry in this tale. The bad guys are using the TV show as an excuse to hang around at the mouth of the harbor. Aquaman uses efforts to get onto the TV show as an excuse to hang around the TV show. Heh.

Have you read this story? What do you think?

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