Adventure Comics #447 - Oct. 1976

Comics Weekend Aquaman faces more than one of his deadliest foes in this issue of Adventure Comics!

I've had such a fun time going back over this great Aquaman run in Adventure, I've decided to finish off the series over the next few weekends.

As usual, the artwork by Jim Aparo is top-notch--he really knew how to draw a punch, you know? I mean, look how bent over The Fisherman is--that looks massively painful, and yet he's still able to trash-talk the Sea King.

This particular issue is unusual in that it doesn't feature one of the hallmarks of the series, a dynamic, movie poster-ish splash page:

...I can't put my finger on it, but this first page looks like it was fiddled with in production. The title box looks a little thrown together (and not incorporated into the artwork, like the earlier ones), plus the credit box is much smaller than usual, as if the left hand panel has been shrunk down to fit in a smaller space.

Anyway, last issue ended with Aquaman discovering Black Manta is running guns to Atlantis, and picks up here with Manta explaining what happened to a mysterious accomplice.

Meanwhile, Mera and Arthur Jr. are attacked by two giant sharks and then dragged off...

Top-side, Aquaman and Aqualad hatch a plan, and they split up to put it into gear. Aquaman stays behind to investigate where the cache of laser rifles they found have been made. He tracks them to a factory:

...I like how spooky Aquaman looks in that first panel.

Anyway, Aquaman inadvertently trips an alarm, and a giant steel cage comes down and temporarily stops him, long enough to discover The Fisherman has returned, just days after Aquaman threw him in jail (in Adventure #443)!

Aquaman rears back and pastes The Fisherman one, only to have the villain implode!

Aquaman then wakes up, and finds himself in yet another super-villain death trap, dangling on a hook, as a series of laser rifles attempt to slice him into ribbons. But Aquaman manages to perform an escape worthy of Batman:

Aquaman quickly catches up to The Fisherman (turns out the first one was a decoy used to sucker Aquaman) and knocks him out.

Meanwhile, back in Atlantis, the two rogue sharks arrive with Mera and Arthur Jr., and we get to see who is the mastermind behind all these plots against the Sea King:

...the new King of Atlantis, Karshon! To be continued!

Another fine installment of the series, written by an ever-revolving writing team, this time consisting of Paul Levitz and Martin Pasko. Its sort of amazing, really, how well this series held together considering it had so many different hands working on it.

And, as ever, Jim Aparo brings his A game.
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In this week's Ambush Bug: Year None #2, Aquaman makes his second guest appearance with the Bug.

It's just this one panel, but of course I'm always happy to see Classic Aquaman show up in any DC book.