Desperately Seeking Sea King: Happy Aquaversary, Aquaman

When Aquaman debuted on this day in 1941 in More Fun Comics #73, in a story by Mort Weisinger and Paul Norris, he was not the first aquatic superhero—Marvel's Namor the Sub-Mariner had him beat by about two years—but thanks to nearly seventy-five years of more or less continual publication, a choice spot as a founder of the Justice League, and starring roles on Super Friends and The Superman/Aquaman Hour of Adventure, he is surely the best-known underwater adventurer in comics. This fame, however, has proven to be a double-edged sword (trident? harpoon?) for the king of the seven seas. Aquaman ran as a feature first in More Fun Comics, then Adventure Comics and World's Finest Comics before finally landing his own title in 1962. Not many superheroes survived the post-Wertham interregnum between the Golden and Silver Ages—Superman, Batman, and Wonder Woman being notable exceptions—but Aquaman (and his long-time co-feature Green Arrow) survived the superhero drought unscathed, perhaps because he was a pet creation of editor Mort Weisinger, or perhaps because he kept his head down as a modest supporting feature in a string of anthology titles who didn't even appear on a cover until nineteen years after his first appearance (not even in his own title, but in the first appearance of the Justice League in Brave and the Bold). Continue reading…