Fire & Water #243 – Aquaman 100-Page Giants

New AQUAMAN 100-PAGE GIANTS are now available at Wal-Mart and your local comic shop! Shag and Rob discuss the first two issues of these massive tomes from DC Comics, featuring some all-new adventures of the Sea King!

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Opening theme by Michael Kohler. Closing theme by The Bad Mamma Jammas.

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13 responses to “Fire & Water #243 – Aquaman 100-Page Giants

  1. I champion the idea of getting these into stores. I know this ruffled some comics retailer feathers, but it’s a small price to pay to keep comics in the hands of the gen pop (that’s a Shagg/prison term for general populace).

    You know what would be cool to see in these? Either classic stories with characters we don’t see much of anymore or new stories with those characters. I’m talking characters like Rima the Jungle Girl.

    And speaking of Rima, a photo cover with Laura Gemser as Rima would move a ton of product! Consider this my seconding or thirding the idea of a Gemsercast.

  2. You guys really should dive into the Young Justice cartoon series. It’s one of the best animated dramas I’ve watched. It’s the modern DCU that I’d like to see in the comics. If you don’t have DC Universe, its original programming is available on DVD.

  3. My local Wal-Mart was slow at stocking these, but now they have two or three of the cardboard displays, and a few stacks of them to boot. Unfortunately, I can’t find the second issue of the Crisis comic that ties into the CW TV event. My kids got the first for Christmas in their stockings, but repeated trips to the Walmarts have come up with doodly-squat for me!

    Speaking of cardboard displays, I still have a few items from my comic book days, including the hanging mobile from Superman Forever featuring Alex Ross’ wonderful depiction of Clark Kent changing to Superman, and one of my favorite pieces, the full sized Superman standee by Ross from the treasury books. He’s standing right next to my Super Powers display case!

    Back to the giants, I love seeing them, but honestly the modern content puts me off a bit. Maybe I should give them more of a try, as I have enjoyed the handful I’ve picked up.

    Chris

  4. My daughter and I are into the Pokemon Trading Card Game, and I happened to see some of the Aquaman Giants on the shelf (still safely in their display box) at our local Walmart, on one of our trips to pick up booster packs. I didn’t buy it at the time, but think I might go back and give them a try, assuming I can still find them. If nothing else, I want to support DCs efforts to get these comics out in front of the general public.

    Thank you for the swift kick in the pants.

  5. Great episode as always Rob and Shag! If I run across these 100 page Giants, I’ll have to pick them up. My Walmart in Poulsbo, Washington takes no care in displaying these books. They are always such a ramshackle free for all pile dive, I’d be surprised if they sell any of these there. I’ve never seen this display you two spoke of.

    Thanks Shag for saying even something about Doomsday Clock. I hadn’t heard form any other Firestorm Fans about their perspective on the series. Seems, I am not alone in being angry about how that story treated Firestorm and especially where they left the character at the end of the series. It’s really too bad. I’m hoping and crossing my fingers for a 19th Firestorm Rebirth in this 5G thing DC has upcoming. Here’s to hoping!

  6. Funny you should mention the theft of cardboard displays.

    In 2012, there was a rash of convenience store thefts in three states, where people were absconding with a particular David Hasslehoff cardboard display advertising iced coffee. According to the article below, over 500 of them were stolen in all.

    I remember seeing a video, where one was, indeed, being chained down.

    https://newyork.cbslocal.com/2012/07/19/more-than-500-giant-photo-cutouts-of-david-hasselhoff-stolen-from-cumberland-farms-stores/

  7. Thanks for a splendid day upside, it’s always good to hear new stuff talked about. I don’t miss you talking about current Aquaman because it’s not my cup of tea.

    Re: your chat about the title of the book, in the Seventies, apart from nine issues, wasn’t ‘Super-Spectacular’ always the descriptor rather than part of the official title? Here are the issues in the named SS series https://www.comics.org/series/2089/covers Once the format was rolled out across the line with several a month, they were in the regular numbering so the series title never changed. The new Aquaman giants fit that pattern.

    That Josh Middleton cover was a variant of Rebirth issue 2.

    Shagg, did you stay with Teen Titans for the Adam Glasd and Bernard Chang issues? The stories get even better and the art just glows under colourist Marcelo Maiolo.

    Steve Orlando also used the Museum of Unnatural History in his JLA series

    It’s nice that Shazam TV star Michael Gray has found a gig writing comics.

    I hate the current DC trend for superheroes to swear, Tynion does it all the time.

    And Firestorm in Doomsday Clock? File it away with ‘nothing bad ever happened to Ralph Dibny’.

  8. The first step to dealing with a problem is admitting you have one. So here goes.

    Y’all, I might be addicted to these 100 Page Giants.

    Since I finally walked away from modern comics (which Shag was all to eager to poke fun at the last time we saw each other and apparently having emotions is bad but whatever) I needed something to get me excited. And these 100 pagers do that. One or two new stories and reprints for $5 is a recipe for finding my joy. It really takes me back to the dawn of me collecting comics with the added bonus/frustration of either finding a new issue or missing it. I’m rather lucky because I have two Walmart’s that are about equidistant from each other and the one in Fayetteville (which is normally terrible) has suddenly become good about getting them.

    Last Friday my wife and I were shopping and I bought new comics at the store. It was glorious.

    Based on your descriptions of these two issues I tracked them down and bought the third. I’ve also started getting the Flash, Titans and Batman giants in addition to the Superman one and the occasional special.

    These books make me happy. Now that I’ve tracked down the back issues I want the monthly hunt is on.

  9. To answer a question about the variant covers for these: when DC started doing these 100 page giants about a year and a half ago they were exclusive to Wal-Mart, as mentioned above. But now that comic shops can get them too, the deal is that Wal-Mart gets them first, but the “Mass Market Edition” has a cover from repurposed art, thus the Joshua Middleton cover from a prior issue of Aquaman. When comics shops get the “Direct Market Edition” a month or two later, it has a new cover.

    Now that that’s cleared up, I have to say that I love these giants. Although I now buy them from the comic shop to support them, I love the idea of getting this stuff out to the general public as much as possible. One criticism has been that the reprints are all relatively new stuff but they may be starting to use Bronze Age material. The example of that is the very recent From Beyond The Unknown Giant which has new GL, Kamandi, and classic Legion (!) stories plus a DC Comics Presents and Brave & The Bold. This is a great book – probably my favorite so far.

    I do like this format and price point for the value.

  10. Thank you so much for this great episode. It was a joy to listen to. I came across these 100 pagers last summer. My wife and I were in Cape May and we went to a Walmart for supplies and I was annoyed then overjoyed when I got a stack of these comics. I think I got 4 of them which last me a day while lounging at the pool. So they became my Cape May Comics.

    Please continue with future issues. Btw the display boxes on eBay go between $30-$100 Each

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