WORLD'S FINEST COMICS 262 PAGE 9 by Don Newton and Dan Adkins

Here is the following page to the one I posted last week from a little Aquaman 10 pages short story featured in the anthological World Finest 262 (which offered TWO Don Newton strips, mind you!).

In the first panel, we get a sense how strong those swirling vortex currents are in that Aquaman needs to anchor his leg on the chain.

Then we get a very nice and sexy shot of Mera (look at that lush hair) as Aquaman reinters our world. Notice how she breaks the panel border to lead the reader’s eye to the next…

…in which Newton aptly reverses the camera angle to highlight her using her aquatic powers and gives us a powerful image of our swimming hero’s strong back.

The fourth panel, gives us a destabilized shot of our hero as the structure that Mera has created to keep the vortex open is cracking under the pressure.

The fifth panel is my favourite with both the boat crew and Aquaman boxed in both by the boat’s structure and the black inks within a page that does not offer a lot of shadows. It really stands out as the hero and the victims of the story are facing an urgent choice and more tragedy.

The last panel has Aquaman witnessing the human condition at work as everyone in the boat’s crew is fighting to save his own neck.

I will again underline how great Adkin’s inks look in this story. They are lush but never get in the way of Newton’s beautiful, organic line.

Lastly, Newton used the chain of the boat as a constant in every panel to lead the read’s eye by reverse mirroring it again and again between panels, creating triangle and V shapes all around. A neat little trick.