With a heat-wave gripping most of the US, we thought we'd pop into inner space...
...rather than the usual outer space, with a spy-oriented tale from Dell Comics' FrogMen #9 (1964)!
FrogMen was one of numerous concepts created and produced by Dell Comics after most of their licensing arrangements with entertainment companies (including tv & movie studios and newspaper syndicates) were turned over to the newly-formed Gold Key Comics in 1962.
Dell hoped to license their new properties to media and toy companies.
Unfortunately, none of the new titles spawned hoped-for tv series or movies (or even toys and lunchboxes) and most lasted less than a year.
FrogMen, detailing the adventures of a pair of scuba divers-for-hire, lasted 11 quarterly issues in which the characters faced sea monsters and spies, along with the usual sea-going criminals and pirates (Yes, pirates).
The series did contain elements of both TV's more prosaic Sea Hunt and DC Comics' more exotic Sea Devils, but was not as successful as either of them.
(Curiously, there was never a crossover with Dell's other sea-going sci-fi series Voyage to the Deep.)
This particular never-reprinted tale by writer Don Segall, penciler Mike Sekowsky and inker Mike Peppe, featured a change in the series' format, introducing an ongoing nemesis, the evil Dr Vogar, who would appear in both of the remaining issues of the run.
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