If you missed the last one…
The Underwater City in the Silver Age took on the domed city look most often. DC Comics don’t dominate like they did in the Golden Age but certainly are here. Marvel shows up more. That being said the first comic here, and Ed Hamilton’s “Timearama”, cheat and use time travel to take us back to the sinking of the great civilization. We even get a comic book based on a sunken city movie in 1962. And its not from Irwin Allen!
“Time Travelers” (Operation: Peril #6, August-September 1951) was written by Richard Hughes. As the name implies, they go back in time to see Atlantis sink.
“Who Lurks Down There?” (World of Suspense #2, June 1956) was written by Carl Wessler. Jamie finds the underwater world (sans dome) and an elixir of immortality. Too bad he comes back an old, old man.
“Long Live the King” (Peter Panda #20, October-November 1956) was written by an unknown author. Peter and his friends find an underwater city with a Neptune king but no dome.
“This is Timearama” (Strange Adventures #75, December 1956) was written by Edmond Hamilton. Again, time travel allows us to see the destruction of Atlantis. What ratings!
“The Liquid of Life” (Strange Tales of Suspense #15, June 1957) was written by Carl Wessler. This one is re-run of “Who Lurks Down There?” by the same author. This time Wessler has his diver develop lungs and die on land.
“The Underwater City” (Detective Comics #252, February 1958) was written by an unknown author. A rich man perpetrates a fake underwater city to gain fame. In the end the fishmen prove to be fake but the uranium is real.
“I Was Trapped in a Tunnel to Nowhere!” (Tales of Suspense #5, September 1959) was written by an unknown author. Finally! A dome city! Underwater drillers threaten a city inhabited by sea crocodile men. Forte’s version of the aliens reminds me of Wesso’s crocodile men from Edmond Hamilton’s “Monsters of Mars” (Astounding Stories, April 1931). Forte was fourteen when that story appeared. I wonder if he read it? He certainly did illos for the SF Pulps later. He was a fan!
“Captives of the Mermen” (Blackhawk #145, February 1960) was written by an unknown author. Blackhawk and his crew trade their spitfires for submarines in this one. The mermen don’t have a domed city, and if they did, they’d fill it with water. They wear helmets filled with water because they have gills.
“The City of Golden Men” (The House of Mystery #101, August 1960) has a diver taken to an underwater city inside a dome by the Golden Men. His presence causes problems so he leaves the city before it re-submerges beneath the sea’s bed.
“The Underwater City” (Four Color #1328, March-May 1962) was adapted by Alex Gordon. Humans flee nuclear war by building underwater. Too bad they didn’t get it inspected.
“Atlantis” (Four Color #1328, March-May 1962) was a text feature by an unknown author to fill out the back pages of the movie adaptation. Atlantis isn’t really part of the film.
“H20 World” (Creepy #1, 1964) was written by Larry Ivie. Human divers find an underwater city (no dome!) with mutated fishmen who do not wage war. We should learn from them.
“Vanishing Oceans” (Doctor Solar #7, March 1964) was written by Otto Binder. Good man, Otto! A proper domed city. Doc looks into something destroying ships. It’s not Jules Verne’s Captain Nemo but goggled-eyed watermen.
“Attack of the Fishmen” (The Mighty Samson #20, November 1969) was written by Otto Binder. Otto, again, with underwater mutants flooding N’Yak to take it over.
One More…From the Bronze Age
This last one is a Bronze Age comic. “Song of the Dolphin” (Tarzan Family #63, May-June 1976) was written by Robert Kanigher. This was the comic that got me thinking about Atlantis and domed underwater cities in the first place. Old Korak in his wanderings, looking for his lost love, goes to the bottom of the sea and finds Atlantis. Of course, he convinces Andra to come to our surface world where she does a Lost Horizons. Shrangra-la-tee-da. Immortality is a drag when you live on the bottom of the sea and the best excitement you can get is a Harryhausen moment with giant crab…
Well, that’s certainly not every comic book with Atlantis, domed cities or even giant crabs. I chose to ignore two characters in particular, Namor the Submariner and Aquaman. These dudes live in sunken cities in the sea (one in the MCU the other in the DCU) and do it every issue. I kind of wanted to see what else was out there. Namor showed up October 1939 (created by Bill Everett) and Aquaman in November 1941 (created by Pulpster, Mort Weisnger). That means only Brad Hardy predates Namor. So most of these comics from the last post and all of these in this post are post-Namor and Aquaman.
Conclusion
Even with the Underwater City in the Silver Age, the idea has become a cliche (call it a trope, if you prefer– what is the difference?) from the Pulps and comics. Most stories don’t take much time to actually think all this underwater dome business out in detail. C. L. Moore and Henry Kuttner did in “Clash By Night” (Astounding Science-Fiction, March 1943) and Fury (Astounding Science Fiction, May June July 1947). This married duo placed their domes under the sea of Venus. David Drake wrote sea-quels (get it?) with “Surface Action” (1990) and “The Jungle” (1991). I am sure readers back in the 1940s (and again in the 1990s) thought there was nothing you could do with underwater domed cities. A good writer can breathe new life into an old idea…
