"The End" Week: Aquaman #13!

Huh, I wonder if I've seen the Aquaman movie yet? I'm writing this one just after Thanksgiving, but here's our second Aquaman last issue for this year! From 1992, Aquaman #13, "My Hero" Written by Shaun McLaughlin, pencils by Chris Schenck, inks by Bob Dvorak.

This one isn't quite "The Kid Who Collects Aquaman," but close: a terminally ill young boy, instead of writing a letter or getting those Make-a-Wish guys, takes off in search of his hero, Aquaman. As he hitchhikes from Erie, PA. he gets to hear several stories about Aquaman: a trucker claims he, and the rest of the JLA, are carnival fakes. A WASP-ish older woman describes Aquaman's war on whale-hunters, in a story so full of holes the boy can see right through it. Finally, he meets a surprisingly trustworthy source: longtime Aquaman villain the Scavenger!

After a ship carrying medical supplies to Toronto went down, the Scavenger was picking over the shipwreck for goodies, when Aquaman came to stop him. The usual fight is cut short when Aquaman explains it's for a measles epidemic, and Scavenger relents, helping him get the supplies delivered. Aquaman then introduces Scavenger as a partner, starting him on the road to rehabilitation; and Scavenger introduces Aquaman to the boy in the end. Yay, what an uplifting story! Except that kid is still going to die, and a later story made Scavenger a pedophile, who would be killed by Hawkman in 1994. That doesn't make a ton of sense in the context of this issue, but this issue doesn't line up with him becoming a mystic "Scavenger of Souls" in 1987's Warlord #124. I don't think any writers that used Scavenger were real concerned with his last appearance.


This series of Aquaman was wrapped pretty quickly: next in 1993 would be Peter David's Time and Tide miniseries, basically Aquaman: Year One. The next Aquaman series would begin in 1994, starting the hook-hand era with the second issue or so.