AQUAMAN always seemed an intensely personal strip for writer Steve Skeates.

Unlike much of his work for other DC Comics series' of the day, Skeates' Sea King sagas were audacious and ambitious affairs. Multi-issue story arcs (a comparative rarity for DC at the time) were not uncommon; nor were issues (such as the one we'll be examining here) where the series' putative protagonist was scarcely the "lead" character at all.

If Skeates' storytelling "reach," in the course of telling some of these tales, occasionally exceeded the grasp of his talents... the efforts were often vastly entertaining ones, nonetheless.

"The Creature That Devoured Detroit" (AQUAMAN #56; April, 1971; Jim Aparo, penciler) -- an unfortunate title, that -- opens with a suburban Michigan couple watching a special news bulletin ("Why do they always have to interrupt the good programs," the husband grouses) concerning events in nearby Detroit.

"For the past seven days," the announcer solemnly intones, "although the sun has set, here in Detroit... there has been daylight, twenty-four hours a day! And the heat generated by this light has caused this wild upsurge in the growth of microscopic plants [in Lake Erie]!"

What this means, in layman's terms, is: Detroit is (literally) all but drowning in great, slimy mountains of disgusting green goop. (That, and the fact that the resident "Century 21" realtors are all signing up for mass suicide pacts, I mean.)

Upon hearing the news of this incredible development, Aquaman races towards Detroit, just as fast as his little green legs can kick him there. "If that growth spreads to the ocean," he bleakly observes, "this could mean the end of Atlantis!"

In the meantime, however: the Motor City has its own especial guardian looking out for its continued welfare, as well -- the gaunt and unsmiling vigilante known as Crusader.

(For those of you long-time DC Devotees out there who may be scratching your heads and wondering why you've never even heard of this "Crusader" guy before now... don't worry. Your back issue collections are as complete and unexpurgated as they've always been. Keep reading; it all actually makes some sort of sense, by the time we reach the final page.)

We are quick to observe that the self-styled "Crusader" is anything but a super-hero in the classic, clean-cut Silver Age mold. His methods are both brutal and uncompromising.

(A lead pipe to some gunsel's unprotected face, here; a crowbar applied to a hapless cranium, there: this guy's either the first comics precursor to Marvel's Wolverine [whom he actually kinda sorta resembles, come to think]... or else noted comics curmudgeon Steve Ditko, out for a night on the town.)

But: the title of the comic book in question is AQUAMAN, after all... and so we return you to your regularly scheduled Atlantean Monarch.

Upon arriving in Detroit, Aquaman seeks out an old friend of his: police scientist Don Powers.

As it so happens, that should read: "... former police scientist, Don Powers." The one-time laboratory shamus now owns and operates his own private, high-tech research facility...

... the very same technological testing ground, in fact, which (to Aquaman's nearly palpable horror) is responsible for Detroit's little problem with non-stop photosynthesis in the first place!

"This is a secret crime- fighting project!" Powers explains to the wholly flabbergasted Sea King. His company launched a special satellite which now keeps Detroit bathed in perpetual daylight. "We've simply taken away the criminals' biggest ally -- darkness!"

When Aquaman attempts to warn his long-time friend of the catastrophic ecological ramifications of his outfit's project, Powers snaps: "C'mon! Knock it off, pal! You're starting to sound like one of those left-wing conservationists! We're helping the police! And they're not the only ones! The Crusader is being helped, too! You've heard of him --?"

"Oh, sure!" Aquaman retorts. "A two-bit super-hero whose home base is here, in Detroit! He tried to join the Justice League, once... we turned him down, because we found his method of crime-fighting too violent!"

Well: the conversational train wreck careens its way downhill from there, and -- after slugging the Sea King unconscious (from behind, no less) -- the fanatical Powers orders several of his lab assistants to "take him to the park and dump him on a bench!"

This is (as it turns out) an uncharacteristically generous move on Powers' part, given that -- had he been gussied up in his Crusader costume, at the time -- he most likely would have beaten the unmoving Aquaman to death with a microscope, or something.

Yes... that's right: Don Powers is none other than the vicious, quasi-fascistic Crusader, his own bad self.

It seems that Powers' motivations for launching the satellite in question were not entirely unselfish ones, after all. "The fact is," he muses to himself, whilst donning his battle garb, "... my eyesight is getting bad -- very bad! In fact, it looks like I'm about to go blind!"

"I thought I'd have to give up crime-fighting!" (Powers' mental soliloquy continues). "My eyes made me ineffective at night... and that's when most of the crimes occur! Then... I came up with the idea for the satellite!"

Meanwhile -- while Powers is taking his one-man "Batman Lite" show out on the road yet again -- Aquaman regains consciousness on a park bench, somewhere near the shoreline of Lake Erie. An eerily semi- sentient tsunami of the exponentially growing green glop attacks and engulfs a young girl, and the still-groggy Sea King only just manages to rescue her from a moist, terrible asphyxiation.

A grim and determined Aquaman makes his unsteady way back to Power's research facility, resolved to confront his old friend once again and (if necessary) force him to deactivate his artificial daystar...

... only to be stunned, in turn, by the sight of a morbid crowd of curious passers-by, gawking at the now-lifeless form of the Crusader, sprawled out like some horrible mannequin on the grimy asphalt.

"Well... I saw it," one onlooker explains to the startled Sea King, "... but I still hardly believe it! He was running across the roof up there, when suddenly he tripped over those wires and fell! It was almost as though he didn't see the wires! But they were right there -- in plain sight!"

(This is, really, a marvelous storytelling "touch," all told. As a scientist, Don Powers was (willfully) blind to the ecological realities of the havoc his satellite had created; as the Crusader, he was (literally) blind to the world around him, as well. To his eternal credit, Skeates never hammers us over the head with the realization; he simply allows it to happen, just below the threshold of the reader's awareness. As I said: nice touch.)

P.S.: The satellite is destroyed, of course.

Steve Skeates' manifest concern over many of the issues of the day (campus unrest; the ecological movement; the totalitarian nature of authority; the two-headed coin of Violence and Pacifism) was not an unmixed blessing, story-wise. The man could -- and, on occasion, did -- pontificate (through his characters) as tiresomely and unblinkingly as any television evangelist you can think of... and then some. When he gave in to the urge to do so... his stories (such as the TEEN TITANS example, provided on the previous page), inevitably, suffered as a result.

Still: when he was on the money -- and the man did, of a certainty, understand the essentials of his chosen craft -- Skeates' voice was a unique and oddly compelling one in the comics choir.

I have no idea what's become of the gentleman, anent his gradual withdrawing from the mainstream comics industry as the '70's progressed... but: his was a talent -- imperfect though it may well have been -- which is sorely missed, in these increasingly empty and "event-

driven" days of the medium.

We'll be taking a closer look at his nearest ideological "soul mate" of the period -- former comics scripter (now turned comics agent) Mike Friedrich -- on Page Four of POLITICAL DISSENT IN THE COMICS OF THE SILVER AGE...

... Next Week.

Political Dissent In the Comics of the Silver Age: PAGE TWO

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