Thursday, February 28, 2019

100-Page FAKES! presents: ADVENTURE COMICS # 447

100-Page FAKES! imagines mid-1970s DC 100-Page Super Spectaculars that never were...but should have been!



From 1976, Adventure Comics # 447 shows the mighty sea king Aquaman maintaining his spot as the book's lead feature, and The Creeper concluding his brief stint as Aquaman's back-up strip. That's all well and good (especially with a sublime cover and interior Aqua-art by the great Jim Aparo), but we need to add some stuff from the archives to expand this into another 100-Page FAKE!

Let's start with Captain Atom and Nightshade. "Showdown In Sunuria!" was planned for the 90th issue of Captain Atom's own title for Charlton Comics in 1967, but the book was cancelled before the artwork was completed. In the '70s, a bunch of Charlton fans (operating under the name The CPL Gang) began a Charlton fanzine called The Charlton Bullseye, and Charlton Comics' then-editor George Wildman arranged for The CPL Gang to use Steve Ditko's pencilled pages of "Sundown In Sunuria!" for The Charlton Bullseye # 1. John Byrne provided inks to embellish Ditko's original pencils, and this lost chapter of Captain Atom adventures was preserved for posterity. We're hijackin' it here for today's faux Super Spec.

What else? Lessee...another back-up strip from DC's short-lived 1970 Hot Wheels book, Golden Age exploits of Bulletman & Bulletgirl and the original Green Lantern, a 1956 Aquaman story, and Plastic Man.

For ol' Plas, we're not going with one of the many classic tales crafted by the character's creator Jack Cole in the '40s, but rather something from DC's universally-dismissed revival of Plas in the '60s. It's silly fun, scripted by Arnold Drake and drawn by Win Mortimer, and it certainly doesn't hold a candle to Cole's sheer genius as a cartoonist. BUT...! Mortimer's depiction of the evil Dr. Dome's whip-wieldin' daughter Lynx manages to come across as both indescribably cute and indescribably sexy at the same time.

I've written previously about the Silver Age Plastic Man, and while it's not anywhere near Jack Cole's league, I still wish DC would reprint the character's entire Silver Age and Bronze Age appearances in a trade. Honestly. Just take my money, man.

Aquaman in "Prelude To Armageddon," Adventure Comics # 447 (September-October 1976)
Captain Atom and Nightshade in "Showdown In Sunuria!," originally intended for the unpublished Captain Atom # 90 in late '67/early '68, eventually published in The Charlton Bullseye # 1 in 1980
Hot Wheels in "The Dangerous Days Of Mickey Barnes!," Hot Wheels # 5 (November-December 1970)
Aquaman in "Aquaman's Undersea Partner," Adventure Comics # 229 (October 1956)
Bulletman and Bulletgirl in "Terror In Toyland," Master Comics # 71 (August 1946)
Plastic Man in "The Three Faces Of Plastic Man," Plastic Man # 2 (January-February 1967)
The Golden Age Green Lantern in "Mystery Of The Emerald Necklace!," All-American Comics # 96 (April 1948)
The Creeper in "Death Walk!," Adventure Comics # 447 (September-October 1976)

Hot Wheels is copyright Mattel Inc., and all other characters are copyright DC Comics Inc. The Bulletman story is public domain, and the rest can only be suggested here in sample pages. If you're one of my subscribers, you get to see the whole thing. 100-Page FAKES! will continue to alternate between Adventure Comics and Detective Comics for a little while longer, or at least until the one remaining issue of Hot Wheels has been covered. These are fun to do, and I hope they're fun to read. Plus, y'know, Lynx! Ain't no other blog giving you Win Mortimer's Lynx, man.



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