Aquaman (1968)
"To Catch a Fisherman"
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| "Hey, Robin never got his own PONY! Now STFU, undie boy!" |
"Aquaman" jokes are a dime a dozen. The poor guy spent almost 15 years as the worthless
punchline on "SuperFriends" and "Super Powers". But in the late 60's, DC
ran with Aquaman in his own show. Back then, Aquaman was the second half of the "Superman/Aquaman
Adventure Hour". Unlike his embarassing usage in SuperFriends, Aquaman was closer to
a fantasy hero...sorta' like..He-Man.
With a few exceptions, the Aquaman cartoons
kept the character under the sea. WAY under the sea, where Aquaman's
completely removed from other heroes, and all sorts of WEIRD SHIT
is going on. Down there, Aquaman hung out with his sidekick Aqualad-- who you can always
distinguish by his lack of long pants. It must be an old superhero rite of passage-
when you graduate from sidekick status, you get long pants, but until then you're
stuck with little Peter Pan undies (see also: Robin). Aquaman also built a rather coloful
rogues gallery and even had his own main squeeze, Mera.
An amusing sidenote to the series is the narrator. Aquaman is pronounced as
"AK-wuh-man", not "OCK-wuh-Man". When I first discovered these cartoons in
fourth grade, I began to doubt my pronunciation and for a short time pronounced
"aqua" as "AK-wuh".
So let's dive (yuk yuk) into "To Catch a Fisherman". One day, Imp (Aqualad's sea pony
steed) and Tusky the Walrus Who Never Needs Air are playing, when suddenly Tusky is
abducted by a strange beam. Imp makes like Lassie and runs off to tell Aquaman and
Aqualad. The two hop on their sea horses (for the record, Aquaman's is named Storm) and
head off to ask Oceanus the Old Man of the Sea about Tusky's whereabouts.
Oceanus is your typical Dalai Lama/hermit/Yoda figure. He lives, bent-over
in a giant clam shell, only opening the shell when someone comes by to ask for directions,
a trivia question, how to poach an egg, or to settle a bet. This time, the Old Man
tells the Aqua duo that Tusky has been taken to "where the sea burns". The two take
off to an underwater volcano, where yup... the water burns. I dunno', it's
Logic in Comics!
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| The old Mascot Encased in Jell-o Jigglers Trick |
They see Tusky trapped in a giant translucent lava flow and try to bust him out.
Only, it's NOT Tusky..it's a crafty dummy. In the words of Admiral Ackbar-
"It's a Trap!" as the Fisherman zooms in with his "deadly" umm... FishermanMobile.
Fisherman's ship shoots a series of harpoons at the heroes. Harpoons that apparently
have the power to grab a lava flow, drag it around the Aqua duo and instantly
harden it into a makeshift cage. Um, okay. I don't want to over-use that
logic line, again. They're trapped in a lava cage, but Aquaman sees a tiny hole at the top.
Aquaman orders Aqualad to "break out, sardine", so the youngster swims away.
Aqualad hops on Imp and zips back to the Old Man's giant clamshell. Only the Old Man is
missing. Aqualad hears noises nearby and soon finds the Old Man and Tusky chained to
rocks. Ugh. Forgot about the obligatory Male Bondage Plot Device in old cartoons (now
watch the hits on my Crappy Website skyrocket, since I've just used the word "Bondage". Twice.
Ugh.) Aqualad frees Tusky, but the Old Man LIKES being chained up, and tells Aqualad
to hightail it bakc to Aquaman. But here's some advice: "To catch a two legged fish, you
need two-legged bait".
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| Umm.... |
Back at the volcano zone, Aquaman and the Fisherman are going at it. Aquaman
uses his fish telepathy to call in his "troops". Now, I can understand
why he called three big ass whales..but WHY did he call in tiny angel fish and groupers?!
Damn...I ALMOST made it through this article without slamming Aquaman's "fish talk" powers!
Aqualad acts as "two-legged bait" for all of five seconds. Fisherman follows him, but
then stops to reveal that he has a bomb! Appears to be a stalemate, but Tusky swims above
and drops the Tusky Dummy onto Fisherman. Oh no, not the dummy! Just like a Scooby Doo
villain, Fisherman falls to the old Giant Stuffed Animal Getting Dropped on Head Trick.
Next time, just bring a giant NET or BLANKET when figthing your villains, Aqua crew.
Aquaman and his fishy friends apprehend Fisherman and take him to.... umm, WHERE?
I dunno..did Aquaman have an Atlantean Jail or special underwater prison? Fisherman
probably ended up
back in South Carolina, on his pontoon boat, sipping beer, talking about NASCAR and
helicopter lures. Heyyyyy...there's a "modern update on a classic character". Someone alert
the Writer Who Does JSA!
They also
swing by the Old Man's shell, where the geezer has managed to free himself from his chains.
The Old Man reveals that it was originally the Fisherman who was imperonsating him
and gave the team faulty advice. Aquaman and Aqualad ride off on their seahorses, while
Tusky the Walrus Who Never Goes Up For Air follows.
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| "He's no good to me dead" |
Just a straight-up revenge plot and good guy vs. bad guy fight. Fisherman was probably
one of the cooler Aquaman villains (with the other being Black Manta, naturally). His eyes
glow as he talks, and he looks sorta' like Wonder Woman's Ares. Some fanboys have even
eqauted him to Boba Fett, with his nifty helmet. But, unlike Boba, he can actually DO
stuff besides standing around. He gets taken out by a Giant Stuffed Animal, which is
almost as humiliating as getting killed by a blind guy (Sorry, around town today, I ran into
Star Wars advertising at Burger King, the grocery store, online, TV, etc...I'm sure if I wrote
this column in August I'd make my usual shitty baseball or Cinemax softcore porn analogies).
Score card: you've got your Male Bondage, a Walrus Who Doesn't Need Air,
the FishermanMobile and an old guy in a clam shell. Several animation shots are
re-used consistently, but I generally like the Aquaman cartoons. Sure, they're goofy, but
they're also more "fantasy" than "superheroic". Some parts are fun, but some parts
are absurd. Just like the local community swimming pool,
the Aquaman cartoons are heated in certain spots.
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