Aquaman Fillet

Conversing with a good friend, Jon, we were rehashing an argument as old as time itself (and by that I mean 1941, because I can't picture anything older than that,) how useful/useless is Aquaman as a superhero. We have all heard the jokes, (Joke 1: Q: Who has the power to breath underwater and talk to fish? A: Spongebob Squarepants.) Over the years Arthur Curry has gotten a bum rap and a lot of ribbing, some of which has been rightfully deserved, but some of it not. So I want to take a real look at everyone's favorite (and favorite to ridicule) underwater hero.

Right off the bat(man), Aquaman has some pretty big stumbling blocks set in his path. Chief among them are his powers and his playground. In a world where most superheroes live and work in massive cities, and (more importantly) in a world where most comic book readers live on dry land, the ocean -as a setting- tends to not have the wide spread appeal of Gotham City or Metropolis. Adventures in the sea only tend to appeal to a select group of people: sailors, sea divers, and Michael Phelps, (and most of the time even sailors would rather be on dry land.)

Unfortunately, for Aquaman he was created in 1941 by a man named Paul Norris. Back in the 40's the ocean was big business. This is when the Navy was still the Navy, and most of Aquaman's first forays into heroics pitted the orange and green guardian against German U-Boats. With World War II in full swing the sea was a happening place of human activity, ripe for a man of Arthur Curry's talents to flourish and thrive. Then the war ended and our hero was (excuse the pun) left floundering. Nowadays, the sea is hardly relevant to most land dwellers, except for the small lingering guilt we have over polluting the hell out of it. Thus, there was a point in his career where Aquaman became a watery version of Captain Planet, minus the rainbow cast of children and Cap's legendary hunger for human flesh. That's a great little niche and all but there were not many readers who were overly eager to indulge in a comic book and a side of Mother-Earth Guilt. In the the 90's (when edgy anti-heroes ruled), Aquaman was again transformed. This time he went with the no-shirt option, grew a beard, lost a hand, and became a surly arrogant bastard. That worked for a very quick second, but ultimately it did no good to boost the underwater hero's reputation, and it drove away a lot of the more loyal fans who were angry over the change in look and attitude. So by the 21st century Aquaman again donned the orange, chopped off the beard and got a cool magic-water hand. (It was a lot less threatening than his harpoon hand, and a lot less likely to be responsible for massive blood loss from bathroom-related self-inflicted wounds.) His adventures for this period became more sword and sorcery in tone, though he still interacted with his fellow heroes from time to time. So, much like a twenty-something year old kid who just graduated from college, Arthur Curry has had a lot of problems finding his place in the world, over these past seventy years. (Joke 2: Finding Newt Gingrich at the head of the presidential pack is like turning on ‘Super Friends’ and finding Aquaman in charge.)

Let's come back to that later. I want to talk about Aquaman's powers, since they tend to be the crux of any argument made against him. Let's start with the obvious one:

(1) He can communicate telepathically with marine life. Granted that, unless there is an Aquarium robbery, this isn't going to do much to help the King of Atlantis on dry land. However, it is worth noting that under the water this is a fairly powerful ability. Commanding sea-life is tremendously useful (in the water) for things like attacking, defending, and staging an elaborate musical number about how great life is Under the Sea. The power gets used a lot to summon convenient great whites, octopi, whales, dolphins, etc, but what tends to be neglected is some of the more subtle uses of the power, such as being able to command plankton to invade and attack the body of an enemy. Aquaman has used that trick at least once. It's also worth noting that the power is not limited by line of sight or by any range. With enough concentration, Aquaman can sense the emotions of sea-life on the other side of the world, giving him a kind of advanced warning for any big trouble that might be coming. This must also kind of suck, because I wonder if you truly understand how much large scale death there is on a daily basis in the ocean. Can you imagine having to learn to block out the continual dying screams of sea-life from all over the world.

(2) He can breathe underwater. It seems like a simple enough power, but that's not true at all. To explain the full extent of what this power requires I will let Southern Friend Scientist explain: Aquaman is, for all intents and purposes, a marine mammal. And, with the exception of a healthy mane in later incarnations, he is effectively hairless. As a human, we would expect his internal body temperature to hover around 99°F, or about 37°C.... At the poles ocean temperature can actually drop a few degrees below freezing. In the deep sea, ambient temperature levels out around 2 – 4°C. Warm blooded species have evolved many different systems to manage these gradients, including countercurrent heat exchangers, insulating fur, and heavy layers of blubber. Aquaman is noticeably missing any special evolutionary system that would help him combat the cold. Combine that with the fact that he must be able to withstand tremendous pressure (down to at least 20,000 feet below the surface), that he has not once been overcome by decompression sickness, and he can breathe in not just fresh water, but salt-water. There are more molecules in seawater than in our cells. Assuming Aquaman is drawing seawater into his lungs, sinuses, and other air chambers... The kidneys, likely, will be the first to go, but most of his internal organs, especially those in the respiratory and circulatory system will fail. If he hasn’t frozen to death, he will dehydrate, ending his Justice League tenure as shriveled human jerky.

(2a) This ability to overcome all the difficulties of sea life may seem trivial, but it has other benefits. For instance, on dry land, Aquaman is stronger, more durable, and faster than most of his fellow heroes. Without the resistance of the water around him the orange avenger is free to show off his true superhuman nature. Arthur Curry can lift and throw at least 25 tons of weight, he can jump over 4 stories (both on land and from the water), his reflexes and land speed are 12-15 time faster than that of a normal human, and because of his dense body structure he can withstand small arms fire, but it has been shows that larger weaponry can damage or harm him. He also possesses elevated levels of stamina that allow him to swim at high speeds for up to 4 hours. (In a swimming contest Aquaman has proven that he can keep pace with Superman.) Lastly, his eyesight, hearing, and smell are more acute than normal humans, the former also allowing him to see with very little difficulty in the dark depths of the ocean.

(3) It is worth looking at Aquaman's skills and expertise, as well. As king of the underwater kingdom, Atlantis, Aquaman is considered an accomplished diplomat, an expert in hand-to-hand and weaponry-based combat, and he has developed a natural ability for leadership and strategy.

Aquaman during his 90's grunge phase

Of course, if we are going to examine powers we also need to look at weaknesses, and Aquaman has a pretty big one. He cannot be out of water for too long or he will weaken and possibly die (which admittedly is a pretty big flaw for extended land adventures.) The period of time usually varies by writer, from anywhere to a few days to a few weeks. It, also, has the very daunting side effect of ensuring that all of Aquaman's adventure take place in or around water. When making the case of Aquaman this stands out as a pretty big flaw, but really it should not.

We live on the planet Earth (which means dirt), but really our planet should probably be called Sea, because 71% of it is covered in oceans that contain 97% of our planet's water. That is a very large area for one man to cover. Compare that to Metropolis which is only 125 square miles or even Gotham City which is 327 square miles spread among six different islands. Granted Metropolis has a population of about 11 million people, which makes for more interesting human related problems for Superman to solve. However, according to the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, the ocean contains 50% of all species on the planet. 1 out of every 6 jobs in the US is marine related. One-third of the US Gross National Product originates in coastal areas. In 2008, almost 8.5 billion tons of goods were transported by sea equaling approximately 380 billion US dollars in value. This of course does not even take into account Aquaman's own home of Atlantis. The sunken continent has roughly five or six city-states that are often known to go to war with one another and sometimes with the surface world. Really, the point I am trying to make is that the sea is kind of a happening place with more than enough material to keep Arthur Curry and his writers busy.

It's worth mentioning that the writers (obviously) have had a big impact on Aquaman over the years. His writers have tended to fall into two extreme categories, those that accept the joke of Aquaman as truth, and those that reject it outright. Those that accept the joke often try to alter him, give him new powers, or completely revamp him to be something he was never meant to be. Over the years Aquaman has developed and lost more powers than I can name, including a command of sorcery, a cybernetic hand, and control over undead fish. The writers that outright reject the joke tend to go way over the top in the other direction as if to prove that he is not a useless hero. Thus, for the past decade or so every time Aquaman has shown up on the scene he is portrayed as an uber-badass. It has become like a reverse-Aquaism. Writers feel obligated to make Aquaman seem ridiculously overpowered in every fight he participates in. Thus, we get scenes where hundreds of sharks leap from the water or where a fleet of whales swims up the Metropolis river to hand out a blowhole full of baddy-stomping. Both ways of approaching Aquaman have sometimes worked and sometimes missed the mark.

So where does this all leave the orange and green guardian of the deep? In a realistic look at our hero, he has some weird aquatic related powers, which make him a hard hero to relate to, (ironically harder than a near-invulnerable, super strong, x-ray vision, alien orphan, or a mega-rich, brooding, mensa-level intelligent detective with mommy and daddy issues.) But, I would argue he is not useless on land. In fact, he is super strong, super quick, semi-invulnerable, and has the martial and tactical expertise to make a difference in any fight he engages in. That is a lot more than what some of the other heroes in the DC universe have to work with. So why the jokes? I think the short answer is, because they are funny. (Joke 3: Black Lightning? Maybe we should call you White Fish.) We all need someone to rag on from time to time, even in the superhero community. Aquaman has become that someone, but that's a not a bad thing. The very reason he is such obvious prey is because he's always been -and remains- a popular and well-recognized character. I think that once you’re in on the joke and understand what he deals with — after all, he’s the easiest target in the world, but he’s a bad-ass and he can take it — you’re almost more justified in liking the character, explains Geoff Johns, (one of the greats), who took over the run of Aquaman with the launch of DC's New 52 comic line.

 I am not always the biggest fan of some of the changes that were made with the New 52 series, but Aquaman has been one of the most positive ones. The aquatic hero has been taken back to his roots as a hero and a leader, but what really makes the new book stand out is that the Aquaman jokes are now in-universe canon. Where in the past Aquaman was only a joke in our world, now he must confront the negative press in his own world, and face being underestimated by the populace, the heroes, and even the villains. The joke has become so much a part of the mythos of the character it is about time it became part of the canon. After all, people can make fun of Elongated Man, but really who (other than me) even really knows who he is? Aquaman is iconic not only despite the jokes, but also because of them. You know what, that's fine by me. I will still argue with my friend, Jon, over his rightful place in the Justice League and his usefulness as a hero, but I will never forget to chuckle at the occasional Aquaman joke, because I know he can take it.