As death traps go, being dropped into a shark tank has got to rank right up there.
I wonder how many heroes have been ambushed in this fiendish fashion? Offhand, James Bond, Batman and Captain America spring to mind. Tarzan, too, took a shark attack in stride in Tarzan and the Forbidden City, a 1938 novel by Edgar Rice Burroughs.
Agent 007 was able to escape through a tunnel into a second, uncovered pool using his pocket rebreather in the 1965 film Thunderball. A chained Masked Manhunter repurposed his chain to break a shark’s jaws in 1973’s Batman 251.
And in The Terror That Was Devil’s Island (Captain America 5, Aug. 1941), the Star-Spangled Avenger disposed of two of the cartilaginous killers, tearing one of the steel wings off his mask to use as a knife, then using his shield to chisel an escape ladder up the side of the pit into which he’s been dropped. The story is buoyed up by the dynamic art of Jack Kirby and Joe Simon.
Escaping from the water just ahead of a hungry shark, both 007 and Cap mockingly wished it “better luck next time” — sangfroid being part of any great hero’s arsenal.
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