Adventure Comics # 171, December, 1951

Another good, solid issue with proto-Silver Age style stories. 

This back cover ad is interesting as it's hard for us to imagine now a time when the average person would have any need whatsoever for this pseudo-ink writing fluid and yet even when I was a kid the school desks still had inkwells. We used them for old gum. 

Adventure Comics # 170, November, 1951

The cover's colorist may have given Lana what appears to be messy lipstick but on the inside he or she (or perhaps a different one) gave poor Ms. Lang blonde hair throughout rather than her trademark red locks.

Adventure Comics # 169, October, 1951

Some nice looking art on this issue's SUPERBOY from Curt Swan. Oddly, AQUAMAN is missing, making it look as though they're going back to alteranting. But next month, all of the regular strips are back. Guess maybe Ramona was running late that month or perhaps the company needed the extra advertising revenue.

Adventure Comics # 168, September, 1951

Every once in a while you'll hear someone lament that comics stayed the same price for 30 years and then started jumping up every couple of years. The reason for that was that while they remained one thin dine, they kept losing pages. Nearly 100 in the beginning, now we're proudly touting (as other titles cut theirs ever lower) "52 BIG PAGES!"

This issue is more of the same. JOHNNY QUICK is still with us for a short time longer but nit here as the scan I was using is missing half of the JQ story including the splash.

Adventure Comics # 167, August, 1951

Another Win Mortimer cover, this one illustrating a scene from this issue's story, one of a zillion variations on the "Clark's GF gets super powers" theme. This may be the first time the name "Super-Girl" is used. The story itself is fun, drawn by Curt Swan.

As seen in the ad below, DC could still promote their super hero line when they wanted to. The problem was that, with the exception of DETECTIVE and WORLD'S FINEST, what you see here was pretty much it!

With THE SHINING KNIGHT feature finishing up for good after the previous issue, new artist Ramona Fradon now steps in to take over AQUAMAN where she will be the feature's guiding hand for the next decade when Nick Cardy takes it over!

Adventure Comics # 166, July, 1951

More of the same this ish, the only surprise being two months in a row of THE SHINING KNIGHT and no Aquaman. A nice ad for MYSTERY IN SPACE at the back, one of the several DC sci-fi titles that chose to continue the pulp-style space opera rather than the more cerebral science-fiction that was becoming popular in books and on radio in that period. 

Adventure Comics # 165, June, 1951

Another Win Mortimer cover. Kind of a dull issue this time out. We even lost Frazetta. Replacing him on THE SHINING KNIGHT, however, is the great Ramona Fradon in what is believed to be her first DC work.