Aquaman first debuted in November 1941 as a hero who could breath underwater and control aquatic life around him. Most of his foes were Axis villains, primarily Nazi U-Boat commanders. After that, he dealt with mostly sea-based criminals such as The Fisherman, who’s weapon of choice is fishing reels, and Black Manta, who model himself after, you guessed it, the pancake of the sea. He’s not a bad hero, don’t get me wrong. He’s the King of Atlantis and an original member of the Justice League, but that doesn’t make up for his comical history in pop culture. It all really stems back to his portrayal on Super Friends. Honestly, with a name like that, it’s a miracle any of the characters came out unscathed. But hey, it was the seventies. He was made to look like a friend to all the sea life and, on more than one occurrence, be seen swimming with them.
Not only swim with them, but also ride them with such skill that would put any surfer to shame.
But if there aren’t any large aquatic mammals around, he could always use his trusty jet ski, that was apparently, faster than Superman.
Batman: The Brave and the Bold just made it even worse by making him a look like a buffoon that enjoyed singing.
Seriously. They even gave him a few musical numbers like “Aquaman’s Rousing Song of Heroism.”
Even without his scarring television career, his image started to go south before that with the introduction of his octopus sidekick, Topo. This was an octopus who could shoot a bow and arrow, supposedly taught by Green Arrow, and bragged about being a one-man band since he could play several instruments at once. DC tried to recover by making him a sea monster, but there no coming back from that.
Over the years, Aquaman has gone through several redesign processes and they haven’t quite been successful. He started off in an orange and green suit with some oddly-placed yellow fins along his calves and forearms.
His costume varied slightly in the following decades before DC decided to give him a new suit along with much longer luscious locks. To be fair, it was the eighties.
In an attempt to make up for the eighties fiasco, Aquaman, once again, went through another redesign that did away with his happy face, added a beard to his luscious locks, replaced his shirt with an incomplete set of armor that only covered one arm, and gave him a massive hook for a hand.
With the New 52 reboot, Aquaman’s design revert back to the good ol’ days of his orange and green suit, but this time, he wields a glorified pitch fork.
Now, with his upcoming movie, DC introduced Aquaman to eyeliner and it just spun out of control from there. His orange shirt was traded in for a sleeve of black armor and black tattoos that look like armor, his green pants were exchanged for black ones, and his blonde luxurious man was replace with, you guessed it, black. It’s as if Aquaman is going through a Goth phase.
DC has tried so
many times to change Aquaman’s image, but each attempt just seems to make it
work. Maybe his new movie will be phenomenal and DC will have finally succeeded
in changing him for a new generation, but for me, I don’t think I ever can.
Will just become this...
