Imagine a useless Superhero, that hero who shows up at the moment of crisis and you think, “Uh, not what I had in mind.” Yep, you just imagined Aquaman. The guy who can breathe under water and…talk to fish.
Quick, try to think of the crisis when you want Aquaman to come to the rescues. You fell off a boat into shark-infested waters? That is so low grade a crises, any superhero can get you out of that.
Aquaman has a reputation problem. He is, oddly enough, one of the Giants in the DC Universe. Part of the Justice League, no less. Yet, contriving plots where he has something to do means adding on an unnecessary underwater bomb or something.
He didn’t even have a particularly great beginning. The Submariner showed up in 1939 over at Marvel as the king of the seas. So, DC needed a King of the Seas, too, and Aquaman was born. But, while the Submariner was a gritty character, originally a villain who quickly became good, Aquaman was a guy in green pants and an orange shirt who called upon his “finny friends” to help rescue people from boats being sunk by Nazi submarines. It’s cute, like many a 1940s comic book. He even goes to college and reluctantly joins the swim team to help save the college from a mean alumnus who threatens to cut off funding if the school doesn’t win the next swimming meet! (Take note, you college graduates.)
But, once all the other superheroes started growing up and finding interesting things to do, Aquaman…well, there still was nothing for a guy whose biggest power is talking to fish can do. So, introduce Aquagirl and Aqualad and Aquababy! (No Joke. Aquaman has a son who is named Aquababy.)
Then you can feel the increasing desperation of the writers as Aquababy is killed off and Aquaman breaks with Aqualad and even Aquaman’s wife starts vanishing and turning against him. Ah, but he can still talk to fish!
You don’t have to take my word for it. In 1980, while fighting the bad guy of the day, Aquaman actually says this, spread out over a whole page:
Beaten? I know there are certain benighted souls who think I’m some kind of Third-Rate hero, scavenger—but I’d think that you—of all people—would know better!
But since you seem a bit confused—let me make this perfectly clear…
…I was in the world-saving game when people like Firestorm and Black Lightning were still in their Diapers…
I’ve worked Hard to earn the Respect and Trust of every living creature beneath the waves—and I take my job very seriously…
So get this through your head, punk…
I’m Aquaman, King of the Seven Seas…
…And I’m the Best!
Insert Cringe. I thought about analyzing all the ways that passage is cringe-inducing, but, well, it is just too depressing.
Alas, that was Aquaman’s high point. Soon thereafter he got a makeover to look more rugged…kind of like Jason Momoa. Then he lost his hand and started wearing a hook. Then he got a water hand instead of a hook. Then nobody was paying any attention to the fact that the issues just turned into lots of pretty underwater pictures.
So, what do we make of Aquaman? Well, despite the fact that we are the benighted souls who think about him as a third-rate hero, he has been continuously in print for 75 years and is still a part of the Justice League and recently got a high-budget feature length film. He even has a book praising his longevity: Aquaman: A Celebration of 75 Years. So, how does a guy like Aquaman do this?
Curiously, Aquaman is the Superhero who is most like the rest of us, the not-so-super types. Sure he has powers you don’t have—he can talk to fish!—but then you can do lots of things Aquaman can’t do. Imagine, for a second, that you are a unique individual who can so some things really well, but other things you can’t do at all. How should you live your life? Be like Aquaman!
What does Aquaman do? He sees things in the world which he can fix, and he does his best to fix them. He doesn’t spend time lamenting all the things he can’t do or all the problems he would be useless in solving. He just doggedly, unrelentingly, and unhesitatingly looks for things that need to be done and does them. Issue by issue of the comic book, you can laugh at the silliness of Aquaman, but issue by issue, you can’t help but admire the guy. Sure he is a third-rate hero, the scavenger of the Super-Hero World, but he is exactly what you would be like if you were in the Justice League.
The moral: imagine you live in a time when everything around you seems like chaos and there is absolutely noting you can do to fix all that chaos. (Really, try to imagine living in a time like that.) Now channel your inner Aquaman and ask what small thing you can do today to make the little corner of the world in which you swim just a bit better. You can do that. You can do that today.
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