More Fun Comics 73

More Fun Comics #73
		Aquaman Splash Page from More Fun #73 by Paul Norris
Title:	Aquaman
GCD Title:	The Submarine Strikes
Cover Date:	November 1941
Anthology:	Seven Stories (Doctor Fate Cover), fourth story
Other Stories:	"Doctor Fate: Mr Who"; "Green Arrow: Case of the Namesake Murders"; "Radio Squad"; "Johnny Quick: The Black Knight"; "Clip Carson"; "Spectre"
Writer:	Mort Weisinger
Artist:	Paul Norris
Editor:	Whitney Ellsworth
Cover Price:	$0.10
Page Count:	8

Summary

Aquaman rescues some refugees, introduces himself, then attacks and defeats the Nazis who sank the refugee ship.

Synopsis

After a refugee ship is fired upon by a German U-Boat, the captain decides to kill the survivors in their lifeboat to cover his mistake. However, a strange swimmer prevents the destruction of the lifeboat and attacks the U-boat. The bad guys flee, and the strange man takes the lifeboat to shore with the help of some porpoises.

The captain of the sunken boat asks the swimmer who he is and what land he is from. The man replies "From no land. My name is Aquaman!" He then tells the captain of his father, a famous undersea explorer, who discovered Atlantis and taught his son to live under the ocean. Aquaman cuts off the tale abruptly and goes to find the U-Boat and settle accounts.

The U-Boat captain tells his superior about Aquaman, but is not believed until Aquaman himself arrives and sinks the U-Boat in its dock. He then attacks the bad guys directly, but is knocked out when they run into their arsenal and drop a sledgehammer on him. They bind him and dump him into the ocean.

Aquaman uses some plants to send a distress signal to the porpoises, who lift him up to where he can break his bonds. He attacks the bad guys again. The commander runs into the arsenal and throws a grenade at Aquaman, who throws it back. With the weapons and submarine destroyed, Aquaman goes back to the oceans.

Comments

In the original story, Aquaman's gloves are yellow, but they were recolored to green in the reprint.

The splash page is a classic image of Aquaman with a refugee woman (and her baby) in one arm, bouncing a U-Boat shell off his other arm, and leaping from the waves.

There is an abundance of neat images of Aquaman in this story, starting with his hand coming up out of the water to move the lifeboat to safety. Aquaman is all action: diving, swimming, leaping from the water to battle his foes. Every image of him is dynamic and interesting.

The story is a little outdated, but the Nazis make appropriate villains no matter the era. These are stereotypical Nazis, down to the monocles that both the Nazi leaders wear, and Aquaman defeats them very easily.

There is no indication that Aquaman can understand the porpoises that help him, but there isn't any indication to the contrary, either. He calls them in the second case using a plant that sends up a green fluid. In the case of bringing the lifeboat to shore, they just seem to understand him.

Overall, not a bad starting story. After this, Aquaman continues in More Fun until #107, then moves over to Adventure Comics with Superboy and Green Arrow. His Adventure Comics run was almost continuous from issue #103 until #280, when DC decided to try him out in Showcase.

This story has no title. The title used by the Grand Comics Database Project is The Submarine Strikes. This title was applied to this story by the indexer, and is in no way official.

Links

• More Fun Comics #73 on The Aquaman Website
• Ripples Through Time
• GCD Entry for this issue