The Sorcerer Of The Sea! Adventure Comics #245 Reprinted in The Greatest 1950s Stories Ever Told
At the end of the story Aquaman explains to the pirates how he defeated them. Well, that's helpful. Now you'll never be able to use this stunt ever again. The problem is that since Aquaman was in on it then he shouldn't have thought on page 3, panel 2, that something was taking possession of him. Also on page 5, panel 3, he thinks, "Must... bring... diamonds... to cove!" Now if he had said these things out loud then it could be said to be part of the ruse, but to think them says to the readers that Aquaman doesn't know what's going on.

The Charge Of The Sea Soldiers! Original publication not listed Reprinted in The Brave And The Bold #114
Page 7, Panel 3. Aquaman's face is green.
Bad reaction to Professor Snark's fresh water or coloring error?

Professor Snark has invented a desalinization station which has transformed all the salt water in a bay into fresh water so Aquaman can't get help from his fishy friends.
Problem is at one point we see octopi trying to climb a ship then fall weakly into the water (rather like Superman under an orange or red sun) & blue whales also become weak from the fresh water.
Octopi can survive for brief periods out of water (there have been cases of octopi escaping from aquariums & crossing land to get back to the ocean) & blue whales are mammals which breathe air, not salt water.

Also the blue whales look more like right whales.

Some coloring mistakes on 'rare' animals. The white cape buffalo is brown & the rainbow-striped zebra is black & white.

At the end Aquaman defeats Professor Snark by equipping his fishy friends with tanks of salt water hooked to their gills... even the whales.

The last time I saw Aquaman, he had a mustache & beard and a hook instead of a hand.

I guess there was an angry shark that wanted to get even

It was not a shark, it was a pool of hungry piranha.

Whatever. So much for Aquaman's aquatic telepathy.

I guess he said, "Your mama!" to the piranha...then it attacked him.

I think Post-Crisis they made Aquaman's telepathy less about controlling fish & more about deal-making.

BTW he's since had his hand replaced with some magic water.

Hey, that's what it says in The DC Comics Encyclopedia.

Aquaman has since shaved and had a haircut.

Oh, and it wasn't a hook actually, but rather a harpoon (Peter David, the one who made the change is insistant on that point, so I figured I'd mention it), and it is also now gone.

Aquaman now has some sort of magical water hand.
...
No, I don't quite get it either, and I read the comic he got it in.

Hmmm... Why didn't I see that post that already explained the magic water hand... Oh well... Sorry to repeat the info.

Aqualad
Some Call It Noise! Teen Titans #30 Reprinted in DC Super-Stars #7
The antagonist in the story is a guy who is going to die unless a new untested serum is used on him. His life is saved, but afterwards he goes berserk & has gained superstrength & hypersensitive hearing. The noise of a distant concert is driving him crazy so he rushes off to the concert to put a stop to it.
Wouldn't a better course of action be to run away from it? As he gets closer it's just going to get louder & louder.

Executive Action! Adventure Comics #462
Aquaman says, "If you don't stop scrapping the bottom of the barrel".
I think he means 'scraping'.

How Aquaman Got His Powers! Original publication not given Reprinted in Secret Origins Of Super-Heroes DC Special Series #19
To keep a test of atomic depth bombs from destroying Atlantis Aquaman tells his origin to the captain.
Frankly I agree with the captain that Aquaman's origin doesn't constitute stopping the tests. Why Aquaman just didn't tell the captain that Atlantis was below in the first place would seem to be the best course of action. But then we'd have short story syndrome.

There's some fishy business about Aquaman's origin. Now maybe the one hour time limit hadn't been established at the time of this origin story, but Atlanna & young Arthur (Aquaman) spend an awful lot of time out of the water. Atlanna doesn't even tell her husband & son about being from Atlantis until she's dying. Heck, at one point her husband comments that she spends hours sitting & staring at the sea. I would think that someone having to take a swim or a bath once an hour would be something you might notice. ("Honey, why are sleeping in a full bathtub?" "Look, it's just one of my quirks. Don't worry about it.")
Of course, since this is a story told by Aquaman, maybe it's not 100% accurate?

John, about your question about Aquaman.
Apparently Aquaman's telepathy was stolen by the villain Charybdis so he couldn't prevent the piranhas from chewing his hand off.

At least, that's how I interpret the info from The DC Comics Encyclopedia.

Death On Ice Adventure Comics #466
The opening caption says this story starts seconds after last issue, however it's later said that King Vulko was captured & replaced with a hologram months earlier, also a Mera replacement was ready. Probably would have been better to say some time had passed between these stories.

If the Nazis (yes, a 35-year old Nazi colony under Antarctic ice) had replaced Vulko months earlier then why did they need a hologram of Aquaman to convince King Vulko to make a deal with them last issue?

A hologram passing as Vulko for months seems problematic. Since the holograms are not solid surely someone would have noticed.

While a replacement might have been a good explanation for the Vulko we see in issues 461 & 462 we actually see him touch Aquaman in 464, so he couldn't have been a hologram then.

Mera was replaced after the attack at the beginning of this issue. What she was replaced with however, is never said. It could be a hologram, or a clone or a Nazi made up to look like her.
Funny how Aquaman never noticed anything different about her no matter which of these was true.

This issue Helga says the cloning program was highly successful, but last issue when Aquaman asked her if they had perfected cloning she said, no, but they were working on it.
NNAN, she is a villain after all & you can't expect honesty from them & what she did say was vague (depends I suppose on how you define "perfected cloning"). Still the jump from 'they're just working on it' to 'highly successful' did throw off this reader.

All stories reprinted in Showcase Presents Aquaman Volume 1
Aquaman Duels The Animal-Master! Adventure Comics #261
NNANJAO. Aquaman's memory is amazing. A year earlier he fought a crook named Gustave the Great, whom he thought had died. Now he encounters the man again & recognizes him almost immediately despite his now having a full beard & mustache.

Aquaman has some luminous fish form a spotlight & shine a beam.
Yeahhhhh..., riiiiiight... surrrrrrrrre...

Ooooooh... Aquaman is able to defeat Gustave because Gustave made the mistake of using a WATER buffalo.
On the one hand that's a ridiculous loophole, although on the other hand if Aquaman can mentally communicate with the wide variety of animals found under the sea there is no reason why he can't communicate with any number of other animals even land-based ones. The ridiculousness would seem to be making it animals that live under water or those with water or sea in their name.

Aquaman has Gustave carried away in a net carried by flying fish.
Flying fish don't really fly, they just leap really far out of the water.

The Undersea Hospital! Adventure Comics #262
Aquaman provides free health care to sea creatures.
[Insert Hillary Clinton joke here]

Aquaman notices his octopus Topo limping & deduces that it has sprained a tentacle.
Yeahhhhh... maybe it is possible for an octopus to sprain a tentacle, but I should think it would sound more likely if the author had written it had been bruised, bitten or cut.

Page 2, Panel 6. Caption calls it an "underworld ambulance".
I should think underwater was the intended word.

A dogfish chased a catfish into fresh water & got sick from the lack of salt, so Aquaman sticks him in a salt-saturated tank for a week's rest.
Is it even possible for a dogfish to chase a catfish? Don't catfish usually stick to freshwater regions?
I should think the dogfish would be getting better just by staying in ordinary salt water. The extra salt would probably be just as bad as too little salt.

A whale has a fever so high he's spouting live steam instead of water.
The fever would probably kill the whale before it started to spout steam.

Fortunately Aquaman had chipped some ice off of a passing glacier & he sticks the whale in the cold tank to bring down the fever.
Iceberg would have been a better word choice.
Whale's are air-breathers & would suffocate in the tank.
Bringing down a fever doesn't cure it Dr. Aquaman. You have to treat the sickness that's causing the fever.

A floating observatory.
Yeahhhhhh... the waves would probably make it difficult to focus on an object & the humidity would cut the seeing.

The Great Ocean Election! Adventure Comics #263
The splash panel for this story has governor Big Jim Mason saying that he's going to use poison pills against the fish, but in the actual story it's knockout pills.

Aquaman And His Sea Police! Adventure Comics #264
NNAN. Aquaman visits a city that was flooded by a sea-quake 6 months earlier, the town is called New Venice.
If this was the name of the town before the flood it's quite a coincidence, although it's possible this name could have been chosen afterwards.

Surprisingly the town has adapted to the notion of their city now having canals instead of streets. The actual depth of these canals isn't given, but since skin divers & sea creatures can swim around I should imagine that the first floor of every building is unusable. New doors would have to be constructed on second floors. Damage caused by all this water & waves would seem to cause potential problems as well, but none of that is addressed.

Page 2, Panel 1. The mayor mentions that the hot rod boaters are ignoring the "tragic signals".
*snicker*

Aquaman Meets Aquagirl! Adventure Comics #266
In Adventure Comics #260 Aquaman's mother only explained about Atlantis on her deathbed, here she explains things before that.

NANJAO. This may be the first story to establish the one hour time limit for Aquaman.

The Kid From Atlantis! Adventure Comics #269
Aquaman comes across a boy in a lifeboat ejected by Atlantis.
In Adventure 266 it was said Atlantis only does this when a ship is passing overhead. No ship is apparently around.

Aqualad is afraid of fish... including whales.
Whales ain't fish.

The Menace Of Aqualad! Adventure Comics #270
Page 2, Panel 1. Sign reads "Sea Aquamans whale".
Should be Aquaman's.

Aquaman orders a bunch of whales into 6 feet of water.
I should think they'd get stuck.

The Second Deluge! Adventure Comics #271
An airliner is losing altitude so Aquaman orders whales to form a runway for the plane to land.
Yeahhhhh, surrre... riiiight...

The Human Flying Fish! Adventure Comics #272
Page 6, Panel 2. Bragg's thought balloon has words that look like they should be spoken & Dr. Krill's dialogue almost sounds like a reaction to Bragg's thought.

Aqua-Queen! Adventure Comics #274
Aquaman is the judge at a swimming meet & Aqualad says, "it won't be easy to pick a winner" & Aquaman answers, "These girls are all pretty evenly matched!"
Problem is the girls in the pool are shown with clear differences in their positions.

Aquaman says, "Ordinary human beings can't control fish!"
Well, Green Arrow (Adventure #267) & Lois Lane (Lois Lane #12) did it.

The Underwater Olympics! Adventure Comics #277
Yeahhhhhhhhh... Aquaman & Aqualad have a series of games between Atlantic sea creatures (Aquaman's team) & Pacific sea creatures (Aqualad's team)... Uhhhhh huh.

To test salvage skill a lead crate is dropped to the bottom & Aqualad has some eels form themselves into ropes while crabs grab hold of the 'ropes' with one claw & grab the lead crate with the other.
1. How do the crab claws hold on to the lead?
2. Wouldn't the claws hooked on the eels cut the eels?
3. If it were possible for the crabs to hold the crate & not cut the eels, wouldn't the crabs be ripped apart by the heavy lead crate?

Aqualad Goes To School! Adventure Comics #278
Apparently Aqualad is registered for school as Aqualad.
Seems odd since he did spend most of his life in Atlantis & should have an Atlantean name.

Aquaman has several whales raise the Merrimac from the ocean bottom.
I can only assume he put it back since it's still on the bottom.
Still I should imagine trying to raise it would have been problematical since the underside is wood, not metal.

The Lost Ocean! Adventure Comics #280
The makers of a TV show called Sea Chase are filming an adventure in the actual ocean & the stars have spent too much time underwater & gotten the bends.
Riiiiiight... I just can't see any producers (or insurance companies or network executives) allowing their stars to actually go into deep water for this. Shallow water shoots maybe, but anything deeper & it's the job for stunt men.

The producer tells Aquaman & Aqualad that they can wear their regular outfits & the special effects man will retouch the films to make them look like the stars.
Doesn't that usually cost thousands of dollars to do? Clearly the writer had no understanding of the making of TV shows.

The Creatures From Atlantis Showcase #30
Aquaman uses some whales to transport some cargo & holds it on by having electric eels form themselves into a long rope & lash the cartons securely.
Yeahhhhhhh... riiiiiiight...

Origin here has some different wording than it did in Adventure Comics #260.

The writer chose to ignore how Atlanna & young Arthur could either survive out of water for more than an hour, or how Tom Curry ignored this curious trait of being in water every hour.

One Hour To Doom! Adventure Comics #282
Is it normal for the Coast Guard to be delivering mail? And even if they do, shouldn't they keep ahold of it until they can deliver it instead of pawning it off on Aquaman? ("Through rain, through sleet, through... ah heck with it! Just give it to the guy who talks to fish!")

A smuggler escapes Aquaman & he & Aqualad follow him. As they near an hour out of water the start looking for sources to replenish themselves.
In Adventure #273 Aquaman carried a container of oxygen, a container of hydrogen & used some waterproof matches to create water. Why not here?

Aquaman finds some snow that he rolls around in & rolls a snowball down to Aqualad who smears the snow all over his face.
Admittedly the rules for contact with water are very vague, sometimes immersion, sometimes drinking a glass of water, but rubbing frozen water on one's face seems to be stretching it.

Of course if they're really desperate, would urine work?
Then again, I don't think I really want to know the answer to that. Eeeeew!

Once again Aquaman has some whales form a runway at sea for a plane.
1. I should think the weight of the plane on the wheels would sink down into the whales' backs.
2. The way he has them lined up the wheels are almost certain to catch the whales' tails.

Aquaman has a swordfish puncture the gas tank of a speedboat that's speeding.
Yes, teach those speeders a lesson by polluting the ocean!

The Sea Beasts From One Billion B.C. Showcase #31
Grungy Nit. The cover says the story is "The Sea Creatures From One Billion, B.C.!"

Aquaman & Aqualad see a sea monster destroying a ship, but no mention is made of their trying to stop it telepathically.

Professor Richards (any relation to Reed? ;-)) has invented an evolution ray that "will turn back the evolutionary process of any fish it is shined on -- returning it to the original species from which it evolved, a billion years ago!" (It also has a device to control the affected fish.)
1. Individuals don't evolve so there is no evolutionary process to turn back.
2. If life existed 1 billion years ago it probably was as simple one-celled organisms, not giant sea monsters. (Not to mention that it would probably be used to much higher temperatures as I believe that that time is referred to as Hadean, after Hades.)
3. A control device??? How convenient for the bad guy, but how can anyone know it would work before testing & unless a device to control ordinary fish existed?

Page 5, Panel 4. Editor's Note reads, "After long exposure to underwater living, Aquaman and Aqualad, like the Atlanteans, have developed the ability to transmit and translate speech sounds in water."
Okayyyyyy... maybe they're assuming someone has bought the book without ever reading an Aquaman story before, but still what a clunky explanation.
Kind of sounds like the Golden Age's explanation for Aquaman, but the Silver Age had Aquaman as half-Atlantean & Aqualad himself grew up in Atlantis.
Since sound travels underwater I'm not sure how much translation would be needed & since both Aquaman & Aqualad breathe underwater transmitting speech shouldn't be the problem that a surface dweller would have.

Not only does the evolution ray work on fish it also works on turtles, mammals & mollusks.
Maybe the villain should have turned the ray on Aquaman to see what would happen?

The Creature King Of The Sea Showcase #32
Page 2, Panel 1. Editor's Note reads, "After long exposure to undersea living, Aquaman and Aqualad, like their Atlantean ancestors, developed the ability to transmit and translate speech sounds in water."
Slightly less clunky than last issues, although Aquaman's ancestor was his mom & Aqualad is an Atlantean.

Aquaman & Aqualad have been gathering rare coral specimens for a museum.
How ecologically minded of Aquaman. *rolls eyes*

To help a diver who's running out of oxygen Aquaman has a giant devil ray leap into the air & shape it's body like a bell so they can take a 20 foot pocket of air down to the diver.
Yeahhhhhhhh... surrrrrrrrrrre... riiiiiiiiiight...

If this ancient wizard wanted to protect his treasure chest then why did he bother to leave a map?

Prisoners Of The Aqua-Planet Showcase #33
Venus, the water world, where an underwater civilization thrives.

No attempt seems to be made about Aquaman & Aqualad attempting to communicate with the Venusian sea creatures.

Surprisingly some Venusian men & their animals can survive in Earth's oceans & several Earth creatures manage to survive in Venus's oceans.

The Curse Of The Sea Hermit Detective Comics #295
The pontoons of a sea plane rip off & Aquaman orders a whale to come up from below & carry it to land.
I should think those torn struts would stab into the whale's back.

The Invasion Of The Fire Trolls Aquaman #1
Ugh! Another editor's note like the ones I complained about in the Showcase stories.

Aqualad says he is assembling a dinosaur skeleton, but it looks more like a moasaur or short-necked plesiosaur.

The Aquaman From Atlantis Aquaman #3
Previous views of Atlantis (Adventure 260, 266, 269 & Showcase #30) have shown domed Atlantis on a plain region of the ocean floor. Here the dome is right against some mountains.

Aquaman an underground mountain belt.
UnderWATER, not ground.

Pomoxis says he planned for years to impersonate Aquaman to loot & then change back to Pomoxis.
1. While it's possible Atlantis knew of Aquaman for years, Aquaman wasn't welcomed to Atlantis until around a year & a half real time (probably less comic time).
2. People who tried to leave Atlantis were banished for it (like Aquaman's mother).
3. What loot would surface ships have that would be valuable to Atlantean? Yeah, I'm sure they'd be some stuff, but it seems odd that an Atlantean would go for 'pirate' lifestyle.

Aquaman sees a Persian galley & immediately knows he is 2500 years in the past.
I'd have assumed it was a present-day replica myself.

Aquaman thinks, "Poseidon is the Greek name for Neptune".
Since the Greek name came first it's the other way around.

The Persians think Aquaman is Poseidon & the captain thinks they will be beyond the god's powers on land.
Obviously the Persian is unaware that Poseidon is also known as Earthholder Earthshaker & is in charge of earthquakes. (The Greeks believed that the ocean surrounded all land & Poseidon, as god of the sea, could shake the land.)

The Haunted Sea Aquaman #5
A number of Aquaman stories featured a treasure map left by a wizard. Since the cover of this story shows Aquaman actually meeting a wizard I was hoping it would be the one who left all those maps. ;-)

Hundreds of years ago Merder & his followers were imprisoned in a drop of water by a good wizard. It took all that time to build a device capable of capturing regular sized people so they could get someone capable of finding the elixir to turn them back into air-breathers. At the end of the story Merder & his followers are reshrunk, but without the device that caused them to grow & Aquaman believes they will die of old age before they can build another.
They've already survived, apparently unaging, for hundreds of years. what makes you think they couldn't survive long enough to build another? (And having built a working device already it's just a matter of acquiring the materials & assembling the parts.)

The Menace Of The Alien Fish World's Finest Comics #129
NAN but it was amusing that in this story an alien was taking alien fish to Vulcan. (The story was published about 6 years before Star Trek.)

Too Many Quisps Aquaman #6
Some would say one was too many. ;-)

Quisp for those that don't know was a water sprite from a secret sea beneath the ocean who first appeared in Aquaman #1 & had some magical abilities. He wasn't a villain like Mr. Mxyzptlk, or a hero-worshipping accidental trouble causer like Bat-Mite. He was slightly mischievous, but too often his powers were a dues ex machina to help Aquaman.

Somehow Aqualad knows the sprite has created a mile-deep trench in the ocean despite not being in position to see.

Quink, Quisp's twin brother, has wanted to visit the ocean above since Quisp told him of his adventures & yet when Quink comes up he runs into the pirate Captain Slade who tells him Aquaman is a pirate.
Sooooooooo...Quisp has been telling his brother Quink about his adventures up top, but never once mentioned Aquaman's name???

I wonder if anyone can help me with this question. Apparently Aquaman was two distinct looks, the classic look, Pre-Crisis, which is the same as his current look. And then there is the way he looked in the late 90's and early 2000's, where he had long hair, a beard, white wrapping around his right arm and shoulder, and a harpoon in place of his left hand, which he lost when it was eaten by piranha while fighting one of his enemies who forced his hand into the pirahna-infested water. Why Aquaman was not able to tell those fish to not harm him, when ordinarily, I thought he could talk to undersea marine life and at times control them, I have not idea, I was not following DC Comics at the time.

So here is my question. Did the change in Aquaman's appearance have something to do with either the Zero Hour storyline or any of the Crisis-related storylines? Because the first comic I saw him in where he had his new look was in the non-canon DC/Dark Horse crossover comic "JLA Vs. Predator". Also, he had that look in the "JLA/Avengers" crossover DC did with Marvel. After reading those, that was when I decided to start buying DC comics as well as Marvel.

So, can someone help me with this, I'd certainly appreciate it!

According to the DC Encyclopedia the villain Charybdis had stolen Aquaman's telepathy before the piranha incident.

I don't believe any of his looks were changed because of Zero Hour or any of the Crisis crossovers.

For most of his career (1940s - 1990s IIRC) he mostly wore the orange & green number with a few minor alterations through the years. There was an attempt to give him a new costume in the '80s, but it only appeared in one miniseries IIRC.

Peter David's Aquaman series gave him the harpoon hand & took away his razor & desire to visit a barber. ;-)

IIRC in the JLA Obsidian Age storyline he had the harpoon replaced with a magical water hand.

I think he got the water hand replaced with a new hand in the last few years, but I'm not sure.

Since Aquaman is a king, Peter gave him a beard because he was trying to go for an Arthurian look. That, along with the harpoon, was his attempt to rehabilitate the character, which had come to be seen as a laughable, ineffectual character. Given that everyone and their goldfish seemed to want to take a crack at the character after Peter left the book, and he has been depicted as a fairly imposing figure since then, he may have succeeded.

Thanks for the info, guys. I actually like the long-haired and bearded Aquaman better than the way he appeared originally.

Now, in Brightest Day, Aquaman is once again feuding with Black Manta. Anyone else reading that series?