10 Things Everyone Always Gets Wrong About Aquaman
9. His Stories Are Campy
One look at Golden Age Arthur Curry riding a seahorse can be all it takes to assume his stories are as campy as his outward appearance is. Does Aquaman have his share of silly stories? Of course, but so does Batman, Superman and almost every hero you could think of.
What makes Aquaman stories fascinating is his constant battle of identity between surface dweller and underwater royalty. Walking that fine line proves to be a never ending struggle for the character, and many villains have tried to exploit this as weakness, usually with devasting results.
In Death of a Prince, the unrelenting Black Manta captures, and murders Aquaman's infant son. There's nothing silly about that. In Aquaman #2, written in 1994, Arthur's ability to command fish is stolen by the villain Charybdis, and used against him. Charybdis plunges Aquaman's hand in piranha infested waters, and with no ability to call the fish off, they rip meat from tendon, and completely chew his hand off. This hand is later replaced with a harpoon. How's that for hardcore?
In Throne of Atlantis, Arthur's brother Oceanmaster tries to drown the surface world, and succeeds in flooding Gotham City, killing thousands of its citizens. And how can we forget his role in Flashpoint, which saw a more militaristic Arthur Curry wage war against the fearsome Amazons after their Queen, Wonder Woman, beheads his wife? These tales are definitely nothing like those Saturday morning cartoons you remember.