Sympathy for the Sea King

A very good friend of mine, upon finding out that I was doing this whole blog thing, jokingly said to me: "Make sure you write about your favorite superhero since you have such strong, almost improper feelings for him."

If you haven't figured by now — what with the title and the picture of the blond guy with the trident — she's talking about Aquaman, one of the most maligned superheroes to ever walk (or swim) the face of comicdom. And coincidentally, seeing as it was seventy years ago yesterday, September 25, 1941 that he made his first comic appearance, it seemed like a good time to show the fish man a little love.

Before I go any further though I need to make one thing clear, Aquaman's not my favorite hero and I have no improper feelings for him as my friend would have you believe. I've always been more into Batman myself. (Not exactly helping my cause by phrasing it like that.) Just that those who know me have heard me speak up for the A-man whenever others are piling on, calling him a lame character and all. For this reason, I have been falsely branded an Aqua-Fan. Well that and quite possibly the Aquaman T-shirt that I used to own. (It was a gift!)

Now without going into a whole lot of geek speak (which I could do for hours, it's like a sickness) let me just lay out a few facts about why the King of the Seven Seas isn't as sorry a super hero as 95% of the world might think.

FACT: His dense musculature makes him bulletproof. He also has enhanced strength, reflexes, speed and vision, making him a pretty tough customer on dry land. As long as he stays hydrated that is.

FACT: There's the whole aquatic telepathy thing which is pretty cool… good for when terrorists attack a yacht club or the maritime center.

FACT: Um…for a brief time he had a hook where his left hand used to be. That was kind of badass. But he was rebooted back to having two normal hands so that ended that.

FACT: There's the orange and green suit… which doesn't help the guy's case at all so I probably shouldn't have even brought it up in the first place.

FACT: Look, the guy can breathe underwater and talk to fish. Can you do that? No, I didn't think so. That means that at the very least he's not as crappy a superhero as you would be.

Besides, there are other heroes out there that are even worse. There's the Atom for instance, that guy gets small for a living. That's it, goes from normal sized man to tiny man. Other than giving the most thorough colonoscopy humanly possible, what good is he? But Aquaman's the one who gets ridiculed instead of Super Tiny Ass-Doctor?

Whatever… Happy 70th Aquaman!