December 4, 2018 • 57 mins
Ahoy, Nerds! Grab your trident and dive deep into this week's episode about the one and only, Aquaman. Dani and Ify are joined by fellow nerd and Arthur Curry expert, Markeia McCarty to begin their discussion on this aquatic cape. From the Silver age to the silver screen, the gang gives a precursor to this DC hero in anticipation of the new Jason Momoa starring film. Grab your flippers and join us for the beginning of an ongoing discussion about Aquaman on Nerdificent!
FOOTNOTES:
Aquaman CW Trailer
IGN: Geoff Johns interview about "The New 52"
Official DC Aquaman Wiki
Aquaman 2018: What Do We Know?
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:09):
Welcome to Nerdificent I am would have of your host
and Fernandez, and sitting across from me is my co
host who is currently eating. So I can say your
name if you Watty Way. Oh no, you know, I
was just going to show him down, your boy chomping
down on a choice to choice to choice to a
toaster Strudle world that I'm trying to say toaster strufuse
(00:32):
the words together, but you know, hey, where my t
Strudal said at. Oh no, you're it's pop tarts, man.
I mean, I guess there's that great debate. It's the
Great debate. It's a marvel deep c It's toaster Struddle's
pop tarts. It's looks like those um was it those
(00:55):
pastry Ravuli Yeah, Pastry raul. Look, I'm weird, Like I remember,
I forgot what it was, but I think it was
Carl's Jr. Had a pop Tart ice cream sandwich and
it was like two pieces of pop tart and an
ice cream in the middle. Anyways, we are joined up
top by a host of fangirling on nerd as she
is also we asked her because she is one of
(01:15):
the hosts of d C Daily. It is our girl,
Marquisa McCarty, Hey, yeah, thanks so much for having me,
and uh for people that do that pop tart versus
revul thing, which is a real thing. Damn on Twitter.
Um yeah, look at the pop Tarts Twitter and you'll
see people sending them pictures of revel. Oh the shade, Yeah,
(01:37):
the shade, poor pop You know they're doing fine. College kids, parents,
busy parents, they're hanging in. I mean the edge pop
Tarts has over Toast Shroudles is that you can have
them at any temperature. You know, there's there's too much
prep for toast of Shrewdle, but I think you know,
both heated and completed. I'm gonna have to give it
(01:59):
to the Toasta's trude. But you know, if you're running
out the door, you're busy. You know, you're like, I
gotta get out of here. You can pop a pop tark.
You can't do that with tous. True, you got an
ice cold brick. You could suck on it in the
like pop like a popsicle in the summertime. Marcia, we
brought you on because we're talking about Aquama. Excellent Aquaman,
(02:19):
who is a known DC character and also has a
film dropping December fourteen, starring Jason Momoa. Yeah, already a
few good reviews out. I know, I don't want to
say better the best DC like Universe movie, and I
was like, no, there's no way. Yeah, mar knows what
(02:39):
I'm talking about. I'm like, there's no way, but you know,
we'll see. Yeah, I'm I'm super excited for the direction
that a DC is going, especially with A with Aquaman,
with Wonder Woman, Wonder Woman and so on and so forth,
because they're I don't want to say taking the note,
but you kind of get what I mean where it's
not we don't just want ready, we want to have
(03:01):
like that cross genre when it comes to Superhero and
they've they've given Arthur the nuance that I enjoy him
having in the comics. You know. Um. One of the
things I mean in like being off the top with
like with Aquaman, I think it was basically because of
Super Friends, he turned into like this joke where it's like, oh,
the dude the tugs of fish and he looks like Goadfish.
(03:24):
It's like what you know, um, And then he had
a partner, Aqualat that would say things like great guppies. Well,
you know, they all got a you know, Robin, Robin
was hidden, but that that was funny because because people
were wondering if it was his power that made him lame.
But then you have someone like nay More in the
(03:45):
Marvel universe who has always been dope, like he's always
been cool, this dude who's like and because and I
think it goes back to that word you said, which
is nuance. Where you have someone who is this king
or in some cases fallen king, or some case forgotten
king or some case lost king. All the variations of
someone who is belongs to royalty and is for some
(04:07):
reason either away from it or stepping away from it.
There's there's a lot of baggage there, and when you
make him guy who talks to fish, you don't explore
any of that interesting, fun baggage. But I guess we
should start, you know, start with the top of the
deep dive, and then we'll get into our thoughts and
and and and feelings about Aquaman a k. A. Arthur Curry. Yeah,
(04:33):
because I don't think a lot of people realize how
far deep the you know, the rabbit hole goes with him.
I meant, oh, yeah, yeah, he's uh he debuted in
More Fun Comics number seventy three and nineteen forty one
November of one, so hey just hit that anniversary, uh uh,
And he was like a backup feature in DC's anthology titles,
(04:55):
and he later ended up starring in several volumes of
the his own comic book series, and then during the
fifties and sixties superhero revival period, which you know is
known as the Silver Age, he was a founding member
of the Justice League. Which is interesting because I think
that the iterations that I think of, because I was
going to try and make a definitive statement, but I'm
(05:16):
gonna walk it back and make a statement that goes
from my mind is I know, he started one version
and then the other version, the newer reboot, it was
more like the Flash was getting everyone together in the like,
uh what was it? D C was New fifty two,
and the New fifty two was kind of the Flash
who was kind of the leading one. But in a
(05:38):
lot of iterations, I think it is Batman who's like
I think, especially in the DC Cinematic universe, it's Batman
who's wrang letting everyone. So it's interesting because you know,
you do kind of get a vibe. We're gonna explore this,
but you do get a interesting vibe based on who
is starting the Justice League. Like when the Flash was
(05:59):
doing it in the comics, he was kind of the
the goofy one who was kind of just being like,
come on, guys, let's just be friends. Let's you know,
you know, we need to work together to save the world.
And he was the heart of the Justice League, whereas
like in the cinematic universe, it feels like Batman is,
you know, doing the tactician version of like, this is
the most efficient way to handle this. This is why
(06:20):
we gotta do it, Martha. You know, yeah, it's pretty grim. Yeah.
So so you know, getting into you know, uh, this
version of the Justice League, which was a little a
little hokey at first, it is interesting that Aquaman, who
is like the do good or do goody guy. Yeah,
(06:41):
so he was created by Paul Norris and more. Uh
White singer by saying that, right, Um, I read a
lot of words and a lot of people's names, and
I think of how it sounds in my head, and
I just say it that way until somebody else corrects me. Perfect.
So that's how So apologies to the people that are
listening to this for the pronunciations that I'm going to
(07:01):
be doing. Yeah. And so during the late nineteen fifties
and nineteen sixties, the superhero revival period known as a
Silver Age, which we went over I think yeah in
our flash episode. Um, he was a founding member of
the Justice League. And then in the nineteen nineties, Modern
Age writers interpreted Aquaman's character more seriously, with storylines depicting
the weight of his role as a King of Atlantis. Yeah.
(07:24):
And in his nineteen sixty original animated appearance, Uh, it
ended up leaving a lasting impression which made him widely recognized,
which I think it makes sense. Oh, nineties Aquaman nineteen No,
I heard nineties, but yeah, yeah, no, I like the
(07:45):
nineteen sixties one. Um uh for Aquaman. Well, to know
where the base came from with it, where you have,
um Atlanta and Tom Curry. You know Tom Curry's uh
you know, worked in a light house and um, well,
in the original nineteen sixties one, there was a woman
that was lost in a hurricane on a raft and
Tom Curry's the one that saves her. They flipped that
(08:08):
and you know, um in the latest one in two
thousand eleven, Jeff John's did that one, Jeff Johnson, I'm
gonna say ivan rece r e I S and and that.
Then they fall in love, and you know, like I
think a year or two years go by and she
gets she becomes pregnant, and it's like, oh, but there's
still something about her. Baby. Uh, there's still something about her.
(08:32):
You know, she keeps on staring at the sea. What's
going on? And then you know, baby comes along. And
then when they're playing one day he finds out, oh,
Arthur can breathe underwater. What the crap? What's going on
in Atlanta? Whoa? Whoa? What's happened? You know, because in
his early Golden age appearances like you said, I'll come in,
(08:53):
can breathe underwater, control fish and other underwater life for
up to a minute. I like that. There's a time
you only got it for him. That. Yeah. After that,
the fish like, get off my neck. That's how all
fish talk, by the way, if you didn't know, uh,
that's why we eat them. Yeah. Nope. But initially he
(09:16):
was depicted as speaking to see creatures in their own
language rather than telepathically, and only when they were close
enough to hear him, which was generally around twenty meters
and the Knockleman's adventures took place all across the world,
and his base was a wrecked fishing boat kept underwater.
Kind of an upgrade now in the movie where he's
(09:38):
he was staying now in like a kingdom as opposed
to a wrecked fishing boat. He was originally a dude
who talked to fish and lived on a boat. Prime
dating material right there. Yeah, I mean super Friends alone.
When he's the noise that he would make when he's
communicating with fish, you just see the wavy lines going
out into the ocean. Yeah. So during his wartime adventures,
(10:01):
most of Aquaman's foes were nazi U boat commanders and
various access villains where he once worked with the All
Stars Squadron. The rest of his adventures in the nineteen
forties and nineteen fifties had him dealing with various sea
based criminals. I like that sea based criminals Arial's father
King Triton, including modern day pirates such as long time
(10:23):
arch enemy black Jack, as well as various threats to
aquatic life, shipping lanes and sailors. You know what they
need to bring that back. I haven't seen the film.
Have you gotten to see Aquaman yet? I have not? Okay,
that I would love because you know, I want to
see him battling like plastic water bottles, plastic straws, plastic bags,
about that plastic islands, plastics. I believe it's the Pacific,
(10:46):
the Pacific or the Atlantic and it's this giant as
we need Aquaman more now than ever. Well, they did
have like a little stint during the BP oil spill
where he like was kind of mad about and he
was like, see humans always messing up the shoot and stuff,
and that was Matt Corny, uh but necessary. Yeah, but
(11:07):
you have black Jack, which is his first you know,
black arch Nemesis because you know black manch this is
the man who who is like arch Nemesis with Now
black Jack was Captain Blackjack was a modern day pirate.
But like everyone when we first said it kind of
was thinking of like look at me and the captain now,
(11:28):
you know, but this was this was back in the
day and to them, modern day pirates were just people
who dressed like pirates, but exists now because Captain Blackjack
these like he has like a straight up what is
the name of the the that pirates sword that you
always see cutlass, cutlass. Okay, you know, but that's also
(11:49):
what I'm whipping in. Wasn't there also a female black Jack? Yeah?
The black Jack was the name used by several characters
in the in the d C universe. I mean that
happens like with superheroes, like across the board, like yeah, yeah,
I mean just think how many green lanterns we have. Well, also,
(12:12):
what I like about looking through his powers and the
building abilities. This is what I love about all the
early like silver Golden Age villains is this is usually
they're they're so corny. Here's Blackjack's power skilled combatant, seamanship, swordsman, leadership,
a word, that's that's that's your Yeah, that's your power
(12:34):
set right there. You you are what what is it?
You went to Toastmasters. That's yours and that's where you
got you. So it started off. I was in a
radioactive spill that I narrowly avoided and walked into a Toastmasters.
I like the seamanship though, because it's like, is this
like etiquette class or you know, are you like high
(12:55):
class etiquette with that seamanship? You know all the laws
of the sea even unwritten, well, like, so you can
break them all. I mean straight up, because in Blackjack's
first appearance, his gang stole a yacht full of passengers
and through the ship's captain at sea. And I feel
like nowadays that you'd be a hero for that. That
shows you have times to change back and they eat
(13:17):
the rich. All right, let's keep this ball rolling, yes, So,
starting in the late nineteen fifties, new elements to Aquaman's
backstory were introduced, with various new supporting characters added and
several adjustments made to the character, his origins, his powers,
and persona. So the first of these elements was the
story Aquaman's Undersea Partner and Adventure Comics number two to
(13:41):
October nineteen fifty six, where his octopus sidekick Topo was
first introduced. They need to bring Topo back, seriously, this
and subsequent I'm going to say that throughout the thing
they need to bring this back is Subsequent elements were
later after the establishment of DC's multiverse in the nineteen
sixty attributed to the Aquaman of Earth one, I did
(14:03):
want to say, I don't know if you remember, if
you When they first tweeted out the poster for the
current Aquaman film, and um, somebody had photoshopped it to
look like Lisa Frank, which listener, if you don't remember,
Lisa Frank was a very big thing in the eighties
and nineties of like those psychedelic looking like bear leopards
(14:26):
and yeah, leopard print, pink glitter, and so someone made
a bunch of dolphins and it just looked like Lisa
Frank and I, honest to God, thought that that was
the poster, and I retweeted it and was also sad
that it was not, in fact going to be him
writing pink dolphins. I was like, going for you were
(14:48):
like genuinely hyped because I was like, whoa, that's such
a risk. I love it, you know, like I want
to see Jason Momoa writing rainbows. This is cool. I
actually enjoyed that because you know, yeah, that all command
love is there, like that fan art love is there.
And when you think about it, um, having Aquaman do
something in a Lisa Frank way in any way shape
(15:08):
or formed like something as a as a web video
would be like Thor doing Thor and Darryl, his roommate Darryl.
It would be like that. So if they went that
route some plus She's alone a literal fish out of water. Yeah.
Then we had the Silver Age Aquaman who made his
appearance and adventure comics number to sixty on May nineteen
(15:29):
fifty nine. And you know what happened in May nineteen
fifty nine, right, that was oh um got his powers? No, no, no,
that was I like to give little anecdotes about the
time when we say them and uh. And May nineteen
fifty nine was after the release of Some Like Some
(15:50):
Like It Hot. It dropped that March also twenty nine
years before me and Danny were born. And I gotta
say it was a great year because Aquaman he was
better than ever. And it was revealed that Aquaman was
Arthur Curry, son of Tom Curry, grandfather of Tim Curry. Uh.
(16:11):
Which is a lighthouse keeper in Atlanta, a water breathing
outcast from the lost underwater city of Atlantis. That sounds
too much like Atlanta. Now I'm thinking of the Atlanta
Aquaman cross. You can you can call her Atlanta Atlanta.
That might help to distinguish shot between that in Atlantis. Yeah, like, yeah,
(16:31):
that's see. This is that early age comics where we
got real lazy with names like Atlanta from Atlantis? Uh?
Do we all? Does everyone in here? No? Black Bolt's
real name black Bolt from Marvel Comics. Real name is
black Agar Bolt. You know that. Scooby Doo's real name
(16:52):
is Scubert. No, Scubert Scobert. I don't want to believe. No.
I was going to tweet to Maybe I'll do it later.
Scooby Doo's full name. I made up the second part,
but it should be Scubert Dubington. Subert, you always This
isn't the first time you told me that, and it
still makes me laugh because the last time he said
Scubert Dubert Scubert Dubington. Archer decided to use his talents
(17:18):
to become the defender of the Earth's oceans. It's a
noble cause. It was later revealed that he had, in
his youth adventured as Aqua Boy and on occasion met
super Boy, or only other publicly active superpowered hero at
the time. When Arthur grew up, he called himself aqua Man. Yeah,
(17:41):
this seems like mixed up, because I mean, is this
a This is where we lean to Marcia, who is
an expert in d C. So is this Superboy, the
super Boy that we know today, or is this an
like the teen Titans Superboy where he's a Superman for
this silver Age Superboy, I don't believe that it is. Yeah,
(18:04):
it's from this. Is it the same? Is it the
same one with a clone background for Superman? Because I
know that for later on I believe this is different.
I think you're right, Okay, it's just Superman and yeah, exactly,
yeah he was super Boy. Okay, so yeah, I mean
you have to think back. It was a simpler time
(18:25):
in the Silver Age comics. So it's like somebody is younger,
they'll be called super Boy and then they'll if you
go into yeah, this is a different one. He does
not look like a boy. Look at this Markia. Look
it's a sixteen birthday. That man is hardcore twenty five
years Is he is Lizzie McGuire sixteen? Yeah? Is Channing Tatum?
(18:45):
And um what was the one? She's the man? Yeah?
Channing Tatum in that. Yeah, you know, one well grown man.
One would think that with that kind of mentality, that
if Bruce Wayne had taken on the cowl, you know,
at an earlier age as opposed to like training to
get ready for to take on Gotham. He might have
been bad Boy eventually been Batman. Yeah, because that's close
(19:10):
to what I call Superman. Whenever he walks out the
house wearing something weird, I'm like super Boy. One of
one of the things that's really great about Aquaman that
I feel that people don't people don't realize because they think, oh,
it's the guy that talks to fish kind of a thing.
His rogues gallery is uh, pretty impressive. I mean, this
(19:30):
dude stabbed dark Side and the eye with this tritnant
Aquaman did that, you know that? And like some of
his other roadus, like for instance, with like continuing with
silver Age, with um At Lana, she yes, was an
exiled queen. There was this whole thing where she okay
with silver Age. It's like comics are hell of a drug.
(19:52):
There's so much okay. So she was exiled, she had
author on land um knew that she couldn't bring him
back with her. She did go back where then she
was forced forced it was politics by the people, to
then marry another suitor where she then had another baby
orm Ocean Master, and one of the between that him
(20:17):
and Black Manta, I think are like the strongest my
favorite supervillains for Aquaman. Yeah, so it's good to know
that that happened when Yeah, it says here Arm disappeared
after becoming an Amnijack and would resurface years later as
Aquaman's nemesis, Ocean Master. Yeah, but I think I think
(20:37):
in Silver Age it was like reverse where I think
orm was on the sea, not on the sea on land.
I think it was like that. But there are so
many like this has been red on so many times.
I will say, here's my my thing on Black Manta
is he's the only time in Silver Age DC that
I'm like, yeah, I'm glad you called him black Manta
(21:00):
because because when he pops off the helmet and he
is black, I'm like, oh, I didn't know. Thanks for
putting it in your name, bro, Like you don't need
it for black Lightning. I see, just be lightning, my guy.
You know. Yeah, it's amazing. It was like with um
this is Marvel where they do black Maria for um
Luke Cage. You don't you don't have to do that. Yeah,
you can just call her Strong Maria or you know,
(21:21):
as Maria. But also black Manta is way harder than
like Manta, but like Lightning. That's like, oh that's a
good name. Could have been like death Manta or something. No,
I like black Man because he's like not just so
you know, so you know who I am under this mask. Uh.
So during this time, Aquaman's ability to talk with fish
(21:42):
eventually expanded to full fledged telepathic communication with sea creatures,
even from great distances. He also retroactively developed a specific weakness,
again to Superman's vulnerability to kryptonite. Uh. Kind of interesting
that they kind of a CURATORI ama this. It was
like going back retroactively, like, oh, by the way, he
(22:03):
also he's allergic to this. So Aquaman had to come
into contact with water at least once per hour or
he would die. Prior to this story, Aquaman could exist
both in and out of water indefinitely, which I think
our current Aquaman is like that. Yeah. Yeah, I mean
I feel as far as I can gather with what
they're going forward with it, I feel like that was
(22:24):
just silly, like adding that ability rather kind of a thing.
They don't want to make him to opeque, but he
wasn't Like I can see if his power set because
you have someone like Daymore who you know, this comparison
is always going to be coming up because that was
Marvel's Aquaman. He was the first one. Yeah, he had
super strength, you know, outside, was sexy. Yeah, oh yeah,
(22:47):
he was that dude essential. It's just like an arrogant
Oh yeah, it's just like yeah, and then and then
you have Arthur Curry, who's is a good guy, a
good guy, but he's a king and he's had to
make a lot of really tough decisions. Like what I'm
really interested in with with this movie, like what you
can read in the comics, but depending on who who
you're going, like Peter David's Aquaman, that's a whole different
(23:08):
kind of Aquaman than Jeff John's Aquaman. For instance, are
m Paul North and why Singer So with it, I
would like for them to do it where they do
comedic nuance and like building this world like for instance
Marvel did with Black Panther, because you have that with Aquaman.
He is a king of the sea, that of the ocean,
(23:31):
two thirds of the earth, you know right there. He
has control over that, and there's this whole culture and
everything that happens underneath there. I think what people don't
realize is like it's kind of like what they did
with Black Panther, where he's like he has Waconda in
its own culture, but he spent a whole lot of
time in America and in other places, you know, traveling
(23:51):
with the Avengers and with Arthur Curry. He spends a
whole lot of time, you know, oh, in America, traveling,
you know, with the Justice League and say everything like that. Yeah,
and that's that's kind of what was cool. That was explored.
So man, I feel like we're talking so deep in comics. Luckily,
with Aquaman, it's pretty much like he's pretty much stayed
(24:13):
the same for the most part. You know, he'll lose
the arm here or there, but like his attitude in
the nineties totally changed, but he's generally like King of
the Atlantis, same same person, the same way through. Unlike
you know, you have Batman, who has tons of red cons.
He ended up having a son, and then his son
got killed and his son got back, and then you
(24:34):
have like Flash where there's like three, four or five
different Flashes if you go back and listen to that episode.
Same thing with Green Lantern. Aquaman was pretty untouched. So
we get to be done for the most part we'll
go into his powers and abilities, but we get to
be done with most of the history of it. You know,
we we could if we wanted to talk about like
(24:54):
the big moments. But look, if if I'm being an
off rip and there's gonna be some Aquaman had who
come at me like there's nothing and you can you
can let me know. And of course we'll always blast
you and retweet you if you have like historic Aquaman
moments like from one I was going to talk about
mine because I got I got one. We might have
(25:16):
the same one. I think we'll see, Yes, we will see.
Right after these messages are doing that, I'm going to
do it. I'm going to do it. Okay, and we
are back, so I am going to I don't think
you guys actually are talking about the same moment, but um,
(25:37):
since Marcia is our guest, I'm going to start with her.
Of just come on, MARKA, what is the big moment
for you that really stands out with Aquaman? Well talking
you know, back in the seventies, like that Aquaman not
on the two thousand eleven um and on Aquaman, which
I feel is a that's a whole different kind of Aquaman.
(25:58):
It's got a different kind of feeling. I really enjoy
way what is happening, especially with what they're doing now
with Drowned Earth. James Tynan Jr. The Fourth I can't
say enough about that. It's it's epic. But for like
in the seventies, my moment is Dark Destiny Deadly Dreams,
where okay, so um Aquaman had kind of been on
(26:19):
hiatus before that, and then he comes back and they're like, okay,
so we're gonna do this storyline. It's this is gonna
this is gonna be great. It's good for the fans.
He's backed by popular demand, is going to bring in
some more fans, and the and the whole thing of
it is like, okay, so Aquaman is married to Mara
and they have a baby. Author Junior, So aqua baby. Actually, yeah,
(26:40):
and you know things are going good, you know still
as politics, you know, Atlantis and such and such. And
he also has Aqua Lad. Aqua Lad is there than
Garth and this black aqua Lab it is not, Yeah,
it is. It is the same Aqua Lad that becomes
a founding member of Teen Titans. But yeah, but this
(27:03):
one like goes and trains in Scotland and all this
other stuff. Yeah, but in this major storyline where they
do like Black Manta comes after Aquaman and um he
gets ahold of Aquaman by getting ahold of Aqua Baby.
And Aqua Baby can't breathe oxygen, like he can only
live under the water, so he traps him in this
(27:25):
like in this sphere and then he slowly fills it
with oxygen. Oh yeah, yeah, So do you want me
to tell you what happens or it came out? I
mean yeah, it's like seven. So Black Manta's terms are, hey,
(27:47):
I'm going to kill your son or you can kill
Aqua Lad. So and then Aqua Lads like, ha ha ha,
that's not going to Aquaman like goes to town and
he's like, I'm sorry, you know it's gonna have to happen. Um.
So he's battling with Aqua Lad and you know, long
story short, it gets to the point where it's like, oh,
(28:10):
were we in time too, you know, save Author Jr.
And then you have this panel like this picture where
they're just holding the body and no, oh my god,
they literally brought back Aqua Man and in this storyline
they killed Aqua Baby. Yeah, so yeah, that was actually, yeah,
(28:34):
the miss didn't that happen, not like that the Ultimate
where the kid died too. In the midst he kills
and then there was help coming right then, right after
he kills because he like he kills everyone, he's about
to kill himself. There's not a bullet left, and then
that's when the help comes through. The miss. Yeah, it's
(28:56):
always that's like, that's like something that Twilight, like Rudd
Sterling died of black mirror crap was Stephen King, so
you know he was ready to do So my moment
is a lot lighter than that, a moment true anguish,
and I remember that one that is like the moment
(29:16):
and everyone that you, anyone who who reads comics and
has read a lot of comics, and you and ask
you that will be the Aquaman story. That's they'll tell
you to check out. My story was one that was like, oh,
Aquaman can be cool, but it didn't it technically never
it happened, but it doesn't exist. And it was during
(29:37):
flash Point. Well Flashpoint happened. There was real cool. This
is one of the only times I went around buying
So okay, I think I've explained crossover events and comics
and crossover events are an event that is so large
it's happening over multiple comic books, and there's usually one
main story book that you can copy. Uh, And normally
(29:59):
I just read the main storybook. You you ain't gonna
get me, comics publisher. Now I'm only picking my mans
and the and the art. So if it happens in
the books, I'm already again, then I'm reading it. But
besides that, I'm not going around. And except they did
one which one was it? Where it was hopping from
book to book and I was, Uh, so Flashpoint they
(30:20):
did this cool thing. So what what happened in Flashpoint?
And I felt they were going to do this with
the movie. Now it seems like they're not. The Flash
was fighting the reverse Flash and went back in time,
messed up the storyline and it caused a moment called
the Flashpoint that and and uh and it like shifted
timelines and you know this created new timelines and so
(30:42):
all the books changed into these new timeline books. Uh,
A death stroke had a real dope one that was
him as a pirate and uh the Aquaman and in
this universe, I think, uh, Bruce Wayne was dead and
his there was Batman, which was really cool. Yeah, Superman
(31:04):
was being kept from sunlight and he was a he
was a being helped by the government under experience. Experience
and Wonder Woman and Aquaman and Mira were at war.
There was a world war where like wonder Wan was
commanding all the Amazonians and they were trying to conquer
the world and it was so hardcore, like just to
(31:27):
see like you know, Aquaman like yo, it's it's going
down and just like seeing that side of it. And
I really started falling in love with Mira around that
era too, because during like the Darkest Night stuff, she
got the Rage ring and like Rage Mirror. I still
have that action figure at home. It's such a cool
mir because like she had does it kind of like
(31:49):
it was a cool way for them to address kind
of the baggage that she is dealt with, but they
never get to talk about because it's Aquaman's book and
she kind of had the rage of you know, losing
her throne. Not her throne, but she lost a lot.
It's like losing a way of life. It's like, um,
it's not necessarily lifestyle, it's like losing the stuff that
you self identify with and then having that just ripped
(32:11):
away and then all that black Lantern stuff was so
dope as Nicron, I need to go back and read that.
I know this was so well worth a reread. Yeah,
if you if you ever want to read any DC
fool like, if you just want to look at crossover ars,
(32:31):
obviously it's going to be, Um, what's the one, you know,
the one I'm thinking, Um, you're thinking Dark Knight Oh,
Final Crisis, Yeah, Dark Knight Metal. Yeah, Dark Knight Metal.
That's the current running one. Yeah, everyone's been talking about that.
It's amazing, it really is. There's there's dark dark Days
and Dark Night I'm hoping that I'm saying it right metal.
(32:55):
If someone was to bring that up to make sure
I've read through. Uh, Danny, this is an other thing
that I read the second half of gosh instead of
the first half. I will go back and read the
first half, um, which is Dark Day Metal and this
is Dark Night Metal. Feel free to correct me if
I got that wrong. But like, for instance, um, they
(33:17):
have different Batman like from different alternate you know, the dimensions,
different dimensional Batman's Like there's the Batman who laughs, it's
a Batman who went the way of the Joker. It
is terrifying. Um, and I love that causeplay so hard.
There were so many either and for talking about like
(33:39):
what you were saying, if he that is well worth
a dive into. In fact, I'm Sam Humphreys from d
C Daily has written one of the Batman. Yeah, I
will because someone literally last week I forget. I wonder
if it was after episode mentioned that we should read it.
(34:00):
And it is good. Well, the latter half that I read.
I need to go back and see where everything started.
So I just wanted to talk about some of Aquaman's
abilities before we fully, before we move on to other
other elements of his comics and then eventually the film. Yeah,
he's surprisingly Opie. He is, and so I think that
(34:22):
that's why they made So that's why they made that
a couple of those changes in some of the comics
where he needed to have water or needed to be
around water every hour. Um, they also removed there was
one comic where they removed his ability to talk to fish. Yeah,
sorry to cut you off, Danny, but I found it.
It was infinite content. Soul brother. He sent me this
picture and this is from Yes, she's looking at the Batman,
(34:48):
who laughs. Yeah, it's he's gnarly there. There's one storyline
in in this Metal series where just after the Metal
series is actually I'm sorry, it's not the Doubles, it's
the in any case, I'll remember in a second, but
they have Lex Luthor trap the Batman, who laughs. And
(35:08):
then he also as part of his local ball, he
grabs Joker and all of them because he's trying to
I don't want to give away what he's trying to get,
but he puts him like in this is like four
layers of things to wrap him in the cell. And
Joker is like, no, he's there because he wants to
be there. This is not a good idea. And this
(35:28):
is like the Joker Joker, not like another Joker Joker.
So the Joker is like literally helping out. Oh my gosh,
I got to read that. Let's go back to powers
of ability before we go on this huge Yeah, so
he has ability to breathe underwater and possesses a superhuman
physique strong enough to withstand attacks from superhuman opponents and
resist machine gun fire because of his density. Because he
(35:51):
basically he you know, do you even lift bro, but
under the sea you know. There was another hero who
had the power to control their density UH who existed.
Nobody is gonna get this reference and his name was
de Ka Nakam Valiant Vanquished. There was a character Noah
who had a crush on him, and it was This
(36:15):
is the most meta inside joke. The ones who get
it will love it. They'll love it. He can swim
at very high speeds, capable of reaching speeds of three
thousand meters per second Damn, and can swim up Niagara Falls.
He can see in near total darkness and has enhanced hearing,
granting limited sonar. He's like he's like a bat He
(36:36):
has more bat like powers than Batman. Although Aquaman can
remain underwater indefinitely now without suffering any ill effects, he
grows weak if he remains on land for extended periods.
They need to get this straight. This keeps going back
and forth. They keep on changing it. There's so many differents. However,
when Batman invented Aquaman's water suit, he was able to
(36:57):
walk on land for an indefinite amount of time and
was no longer vulnerable to a de humidifier. This weakness
was later removed from continuity in UH they're just kind
of mess. You know. You know, he can't be too uh,
he can't be too op established that he grew up
on land before learning of his Atlantean heritage, but he
still runs the risk of dying by dehydration within in.
(37:19):
I love that. I love that he's like one of
the strongest men ever and he can die from d
He's just like a regular human. Yeah, it seems like
he just and he's also as thirsty as the dudes
in your comments. Oh lord, if he you know our
friend Nick Ross who was on our show, Um, he
has a really funny tweet about how humans are, like
how we're the top of the food chain that can
(37:39):
also die from a plastic bag, Like isn't that crazy? Like,
no matter how strong you are, if you have a
plastic bag over your head for like thirty seconds, no
matter how strong you are, you can't hold a glass
of water in your hand straight out to your side
for longer than I think it was a minute? What
was a minute too, or maybe it was three minutes
something like that. Because there's something about the way that
(38:00):
your muscles are in your arm that you just you,
no matter how strong you are, you physically can't do it.
What about people that hold weights and do that, but
they're not like holding it for you know. Three Ever,
let's see if the rock is I feel like he
has uh so maybe what seven minutes before we hop
into the New fifty two market, can you explain to
(38:22):
people what the New fifty two was in d C,
because it's not just Aquaman in effective comics. Oh so
many like, um, the harlequin that people knew like, um, well,
she was originally Batman the animated series b t S.
She didn't exist in comics. So then after having her
in there, she then you know, existed in comics in
(38:43):
a certain way, and then she was And that's the
full harlequin outfit that people see mainly at comic cons
where you see where she's um, I believe it's like
half black, half red type of things, like a full outfit.
Very it's like it looks like it's painted on, looks
like body paint kind of a thing. Giant hammer. Um.
(39:03):
And that's you know, the harlequin that started off in
BTS UM when like, for instance, I'm just using this
as a character for instance, and the New fifty two
hit that's when she really became the Harlequin that you
see now with like Suicide Squad where you have like
the candy colored hair and the bat um putting necklace
kind of a thing where it's like really doubling down
(39:25):
on the relationship between her and Joker, you know, in
the toxic way that we recognize that it is um
kind of a thing. So like, yeah, the New Hipty
two is kind of like just basically, you know, things
have to shake up every now and again, and some
it happens. It tends to happen a lot, sometimes um
(39:45):
too much that people think. But with a New fifty
two or the Rebirth, they took a lot of characters
that people had they might have stagnated a little bit,
and then they just revitalize them in a different way.
Not a lot of people agree with on this there
on the same page with all of the characters. Like
some people are not a fan of the new Harlequin
(40:07):
as opposed to um a classic Harley, and then other
people are like, no, no, she's definitely you know, there's
a lot more than we can do that. Plus we
have movies now, you know, Bird of Prey and so
on and so forth, so you know, mixed bag whatever.
It's here to stay for right now. It's seven years
old and so far it's going on, it's continuing. They
(40:28):
haven't had to reshake things up too much. So yeah.
So the New fifty two was then revamp and relaunch
of d C Comics of its entire line of ongoing
monthly superhero comic books. So this was following the conclusion
of the flash Point Crossover, which, if you talked about,
DC canceled all of its existing titles, debut a new
(40:49):
fifty two series um in September ofleven. And I think
we have a quote from Jeff John's here, So this
is from an I g N interview with Jeff John
in eleven around the New fifty two number one issue
being released as part of the New fifty two d
C relaunch of their entire superhero line. Jeff John's Ivan
(41:10):
Rice and Joe Prado served as the initial creative team
of the company's new Aquaman series, so the first issue
was released in September of twenty eleven. The three creators
remained on the title for the first sixteen issues that
subsequently led to the first continual Aquaman related crossover known
as the Throne of Atlantis. Aquaman now struggles with his
(41:31):
lack of reputation with the greater public, which views him
as a lesser metahuman. This is like a going joke
that I've seen in the comics of them, kind of
like the public making fun of Aquaman. Yeah, the thing
that I enjoy about Aquaman, and they even Jeff John's
addresses it really well. UM in like re envisioning Um Aquaman.
(41:53):
I like UM volume seven, number one, the trench Um,
but with this, Like, for instance, there's a scene where
he is sitting in a restaurant. Everybody's like, what you're
You're that dude, You're the dude that talks to fish,
and it's like, I do not talk to fish, and
it's yeah. And he even goes into it where it's
like it's part of him stimulating the cerebellum and and compelling,
(42:17):
compelling UM sea creatures to then do what he wants
to heed what he wants to make it into an
instinct for the creature. So it's not out of you know,
it's not out of this step of life for them.
So it's not him telepathically being like, hey, so what
do you do on Wednesday? My schedules, clear kind of thing.
But going back to what you were saying with Aquaman,
where he is people make fun of him, you know.
(42:41):
I like that about him. I like that he's in
the classic outfit. Not everybody agrees with this, but it's like,
because he is, he's a decent person, He's a good guy.
With this Aquaman. He does have a lot of the
personality traits of like the nineties Aquaman, but enough that
also bounces it out that he's a sure individual that
(43:01):
puts up with people making fun of him. He makes
it okay to be who he is. He normalizes being
authentically you. And that's one of the things that I
really love about that. And that's why I like that
they have Jason Momola being Acaban because can you picture anybody,
just anybody else, being totally chill with being themselves no
matter what anybody else says, and still being able to
(43:23):
like lay down the law but with a gentle hand
if need be. Yeah, Yeah, I'm really glad that they
picked him. I was going to say in this I
g N interview, the reporter said, who was He was
always one of the least interesting characters in the DCU.
For me, that changed in Brightest Day. What is about
the character that makes him so attractive to you? And
Jeff John said that he's the underdog. And then the
(43:45):
I g N reporters said, how do you see his
relationship to the rest of the DC universe, And Jeff
John said, it's very clear an issue number one, what
his relationship is to the rest of the world. I
think he's underestimated by everybody, both inside and outside of
the comics. Uh So with the rebirth, he is uh
once again a founding member of the Justice League and
(44:06):
is the main member of the team. That's a huge
thing to like being one of the main forefront members. Yeah. Absolutely,
I mean he's he's not there you know, for you
know the popcorn or you know, for what whatever they
have in catering. No, it's not that he's there because
he is abnormally strong. With this with this dense strength,
(44:28):
he's able to leap so high it says if he's flying.
He has a type of sonar. He has a trident
that was um, you know, passed down from the first
King of Atlantis. I forget if in the new fifty
two if they keep that particular No, no, actually they
change that up because his his trident is one of
seven artifacts. It's like it's some serious power, some serious
(44:50):
legacy that we're talking about with this, and he can
you can't drown him. He breathes underwater, and he's a
king with the king's resources with a Queen Mira, who
is amazing in our own right. I like like with
them the New fifty two, they up the stakes with
like arm and black Man, who I talked about before.
(45:11):
You can tell a lot from their hero by the
villains that they fight. What I like, for instance, about
Orm and what they did with that is that you
identify with Orm because he's he's basically like because they
have the the deluge, where's like this hierarchy system that's
in an Atlantis and there's um these um they call
themselves bottom dwellers, like it's not a derogatory term um
(45:32):
with them, and it's like they're they're all pure. They're
like pure about Atlantis. There's no point in going into
like um on the land. And with Orm, his whole
thing is like they're polluting us there one third of
the planet and they're killing us all. Let's just get
rid of them, Let's just drown them all. Let's do this,
and you kind of see where he's coming from, and
(45:52):
you also see why he's kind of but he's also
he's also a half brother of authors Arthur, so you
can't just kill him. So yeah, well that's I mean,
that's the recipe for any good villain is one that
you can see where they're coming from. They might not
be going about it the right way, but you definitely
see where they're coming from, because it seems less cartoonish
(46:13):
when you have a villain that you can reason when
you're like, I see why you're mad. You This just
isn't the way to handle this, I want to say.
So we are going to actually hop into the future
of Aquaman in this movie right after these messages and
(46:37):
we're back and before we hop into the film, we're
gonna talk about a couple of other Aquaman films. Uh.
One of them, actually not a film, is the animated series.
I don't know if you know this, Iffy, but Aquaman
is a filmation animated series that premiered on CBS on
September n seven and end of June seventy. It's a
(46:58):
thirty minute version of the super Man Aquaman Hour of
Adventure and it was repackaged without the Superman and Superboy segments.
I love that they kept super Boy in there. Um. Yeah,
so there were thirty six Aquaman segments produced for that,
plus eighteen segments featuring other superheroes. Oh man, Just speaking
of aquad shows you may not know about. Were you
(47:21):
aware of the Aquaman pilot that dropped in two thousand seven? Wait?
So like it aired? So what happened was the Aquaman pilot?
They were expecting it to debut on the fall schedule
of two thousand six, but they also had a merger
with w B and up N, which is what created
the CW network. So it was supposed to be for
the w B during like small bills, you know, huge boom,
(47:45):
but when it turned into the CW, they opted not
to buy the series and they passed on the pilot.
But they did make the pilot available online, which is
cool because that normally doesn't happen. It just disappears. And
Aquaman was played curiously enough by the person who played
Oliver Queen and Green Arrow and Smallville, which was the
(48:06):
actor Justin Hartley. Uh So that would have been weird anyway.
Which came first interesting crossover? I did want to say
for the Aquaman the animated series, those episodes have been
seen as part of Cartoon Networks Boomerang, and then in
October of two thousand and seven, Warner Home Video released
The Adventures of Aquaman The Complete Collection on DVD, SO
(48:27):
which was a two disc set features all thirty six
Aquaman segments from the series and was presented its original
uncapped broadcast presentation and original air day. I wonder if
you're an Aquaman fan at home, let us know if
you have those and let us know if you have
those that. It also had a little feature at called
Aquaman The Sovereign of the Seas, which explores Aquaman's depiction
(48:51):
in various media and how his character and superhero capabilities
have progressed over the years. Also, his animation has changed
as he's been in different Justice League animated one but uh,
the film, the film that's coming up, Marky, I have
you enjoyed? So Aquaman was first introduced or are current?
Jason Momoa run of Aquaman was first introduced in Justice League,
which I've weirdly forgot if you remember when we were
(49:13):
talking about Justice League on this podcast and I was like, yeah,
we had the introduction Flash and Cyborg and everyone's like
and also Aquaman. But it's so funny because Jason Momoa
has just been like in the Zeit Guy so much
that I forgot that that was his first introduction. I
just feel like we knew him as Aquaman for for
when it was first announced, and like Jason Momoa himself
(49:34):
just being a part of you know, the nerd fan
base with Game of Thrones and everything else he's been
in that, and then when it was announced that he
was already getting his own film, it just kind of
he just felt like he was already in there with them. Um.
But yeah, So, Markia, what has been your take on
on his Aquaman? I enjoy it. I think it's a
I think Jason Mamoa well when it clicks, it clicks,
(49:56):
and definitely does with him. I think he's a really
good balance of it feels like there's like two extremes
that it comes with um Aquaman. You know, you like
you have the type of Aquaman where it's like yes
and the Goldfish inspired, you know, classic suit and um
flying around trying to do the right thing, being stalwart,
you know, type of goody, but still being him, you know,
(50:19):
nerdy him um. And then you have the other one
that you have like in the from the nineties, Like
I said, Peter David's Um Aquaman where it's like hook
for hands. We didn't even mention. I mean, yeah, where
he he loses this harpoon. Yeah that was hand. That
wasn't That wasn't his first one, Like um, the Lady
(50:40):
of the Lake gives him a magic hand. There's he
also has his hand eating. Do you remember when he
put it in the piranhas, Well he didn't put it there.
Well yeah, well he lost his um, his ability to
talk to the we're on the same pace, and then
the Piranha took the hands and he was off to
the races. No more pretty boy. Now. It was like
(51:03):
the long grizzled adventurer you know, you know, kill you
before you kill anybody in my city type of a thing.
And I think Jason Momoa is a really great balance
of the both of those, where you have like that
long hair, that physique um, which Aquaman always had a
type of physique, but you know it's it's a mentality
(51:23):
and the way that you carry yourself, and then still
being definitely being the type of dude where It's like, yeah,
he would play you know, tea party with his daughter
kind of a thing. So I I love that they
have this casting for him for Aquaman because we're I
think that we're going to see him lethal, We're going
to see him vulnerable. Um, we're gonna see him funny,
and we're gonna see him kill, right. I think that's
(51:45):
gonna happen. Yeah. I loved his comedic moments. He definitely
adds that, like the humor and comedy to the Justice League.
I was in a great casting for the balance. Yeah,
for real, I was gonna say so. The development of
the Aquaman film began back in two thousand and four,
with several plans falling apart throughout the years, and then
eventually James One signed on as director in April. It's
(52:06):
taken a while for them to get the Aquaman film. Well,
you know, there were some ups and downs that happened
with things, so I could see why they would be cautious.
I am very happy with the direction that they're going
with things, though. I mean with the way that Deucey
is going, I could see Flashpoint being a real possibility
(52:28):
for and that would be I think by then when
that does happen. If it does happen, the public would
be ready for it, you know, with the post post
Metal series, post wonder Woman, you know, and so on
and so forth. It's like get a you know, they
would trust and be able to expand on the worlds
(52:51):
that they were creating. Yeah. Yeah, I was gonna say
it looks like slash film because we were talking about
some of what the critics have said said Aquaman is
better than expected. Feels like I'm Marvel Phase one movie
in a good way. It's at its best when it's
having fun and not taking itself too seriously. Eric Davis
A Van Dango said Aquaman is a most ambitious DC
(53:11):
movie to date, a big, sprawling visual spectacle that is gorgeous,
crazy stuff with terrific action and a lot of fun
to watch. It's crazy. Yeah, it looks like it's a
going to be a treat. Yeah. Yeah. Something that I
also like about Jason Momo is like you could totally
see him writing a big seahorse like and being and
(53:33):
making it look cool and then also him stabbing dark
Side and the Yeah, he's all those things. He's he's
the rock when he's like boxing and he's also the
rock when I fall him on Instagram and he's letting
his daughter paint his nails. So that is Pen's Aquamani.
Dwayne Johnson content. You know, I enjoy his Instagram feed him.
(53:54):
Will Smith like all of the motivational off Dad's huh buff,
Dad's buff. Daddy's Yeah. I think that's a that's it
for Aman. I think if you haven't seen that c
w AT, it will be in the footnotes. It's quite
a treat. And by a treat, I mean it's horrible.
So uh but you know where can people find you?
(54:17):
Mark you? Uh yeah, you can find me on Twitter
and Instagram at Markie McCarty. That's m A r k
E I A m c c A r t Y.
Also I do fan Growing with Danny ms Danny Fernandez
and you can there's new episodes of that every Thursday.
You can see that on Facebook, um, Facebook dot com,
slash watch fan Growing. I also do Ask your Black
(54:39):
Geek Friend for Geek in Century and that is a
monthly show we've just wrapped for this year, so check
that back out in January unless you have Alpha and
then please, you know, watch some of our shows there.
And yeah, that covers the the mainly geek in comic
book and movie stuff that I'm doing right now. Uh,
(55:00):
and I am in DC Universe, Yeah that before exactly. Um,
So yeah, if you have DC Universe, and I do
recommend the subscription. It's it's comic book movies. I mean,
I go down so many rabbit holes with it is
so great. Um. I'm on d C Daily and one
of the hosts there that you will see in that
show is a Monday through Fridays. Yeah, and you know me.
(55:22):
You can find me uh if I f y n
W A d i w E on Twitter and Instagram
if he's on twitch. Y'all really came through ner Fem
hanging out mostly because Danny r T did a lot
of y'all made that a point. It was like, we
came here because of Danny Cool. I'm going to pop
in more. Wait no, not on your Twitch stream. You're
not gonna come. Okay, if you invite me over to
(55:46):
your house, I will eat your food and play with
your daughter. But also, yeah, coming the Discord That's what
she was talking about. Discord dot g G slash Salt
Squad and make sure you get that gear from t
public te public dot Com slash near difficent. We got
lots of dope gear there. Uh you know you were
able during the Black Friday to snag that nerd prem
(56:11):
hoodie or shirt if you wanted to. If you missed it,
you missed it. But there's lots of other dope stuff
you can grab. I am at ms Danny Fernandez and
we've been doing a lot of giveaways, so follow us
on Twitter because dang. We did a Doctor Who giveaway,
we did a what do we have before, we did
a Buffy the Vampire Slayer giveaway. We have more giveaways
(56:32):
coming up. I believe we have a Miles Morales giveaway
coming up. So um, just check out our Twitter because
we are We've been given the love back to y'all
for listening. Um again, if you are an Aquaman fan
and you have a comic that you love that we missed,
or a certain moment that that we missed, please let
us know kindly, or any of your fun Aquaman facts.
(56:57):
We will definitely be checking back in with this gentleman
after the movie. So yeah, but for now, this was
a good intro to our our water Boiling Water King,
our Agua senor Um, and I think as always, stay Nearty,
Welcome to Nerdificent I am would have of your host
and Fernandez, and sitting across from me is my co
host who is currently eating. So I can say your
name if you Watty Way. Oh no, you know, I
was just going to show him down, your boy chomping
down on a choice to choice to choice to a
toaster Strudle world that I'm trying to say toaster strufuse
(00:32):
the words together, but you know, hey, where my t
Strudal said at. Oh no, you're it's pop tarts, man.
I mean, I guess there's that great debate. It's the
Great debate. It's a marvel deep c It's toaster Struddle's
pop tarts. It's looks like those um was it those
(00:55):
pastry Ravuli Yeah, Pastry raul. Look, I'm weird, Like I remember,
I forgot what it was, but I think it was
Carl's Jr. Had a pop Tart ice cream sandwich and
it was like two pieces of pop tart and an
ice cream in the middle. Anyways, we are joined up
top by a host of fangirling on nerd as she
is also we asked her because she is one of
(01:15):
the hosts of d C Daily. It is our girl,
Marquisa McCarty, Hey, yeah, thanks so much for having me,
and uh for people that do that pop tart versus
revul thing, which is a real thing. Damn on Twitter.
Um yeah, look at the pop Tarts Twitter and you'll
see people sending them pictures of revel. Oh the shade, Yeah,
(01:37):
the shade, poor pop You know they're doing fine. College kids, parents,
busy parents, they're hanging in. I mean the edge pop
Tarts has over Toast Shroudles is that you can have
them at any temperature. You know, there's there's too much
prep for toast of Shrewdle, but I think you know,
both heated and completed. I'm gonna have to give it
(01:59):
to the Toasta's trude. But you know, if you're running
out the door, you're busy. You know, you're like, I
gotta get out of here. You can pop a pop tark.
You can't do that with tous. True, you got an
ice cold brick. You could suck on it in the
like pop like a popsicle in the summertime. Marcia, we
brought you on because we're talking about Aquama. Excellent Aquaman,
(02:19):
who is a known DC character and also has a
film dropping December fourteen, starring Jason Momoa. Yeah, already a
few good reviews out. I know, I don't want to
say better the best DC like Universe movie, and I
was like, no, there's no way. Yeah, mar knows what
(02:39):
I'm talking about. I'm like, there's no way, but you know,
we'll see. Yeah, I'm I'm super excited for the direction
that a DC is going, especially with A with Aquaman,
with Wonder Woman, Wonder Woman and so on and so forth,
because they're I don't want to say taking the note,
but you kind of get what I mean where it's
not we don't just want ready, we want to have
(03:01):
like that cross genre when it comes to Superhero and
they've they've given Arthur the nuance that I enjoy him
having in the comics. You know. Um. One of the
things I mean in like being off the top with
like with Aquaman, I think it was basically because of
Super Friends, he turned into like this joke where it's like, oh,
the dude the tugs of fish and he looks like Goadfish.
(03:24):
It's like what you know, um, And then he had
a partner, Aqualat that would say things like great guppies. Well,
you know, they all got a you know, Robin, Robin
was hidden, but that that was funny because because people
were wondering if it was his power that made him lame.
But then you have someone like nay More in the
(03:45):
Marvel universe who has always been dope, like he's always
been cool, this dude who's like and because and I
think it goes back to that word you said, which
is nuance. Where you have someone who is this king
or in some cases fallen king, or some case forgotten
king or some case lost king. All the variations of
someone who is belongs to royalty and is for some
(04:07):
reason either away from it or stepping away from it.
There's there's a lot of baggage there, and when you
make him guy who talks to fish, you don't explore
any of that interesting, fun baggage. But I guess we
should start, you know, start with the top of the
deep dive, and then we'll get into our thoughts and
and and and feelings about Aquaman a k. A. Arthur Curry. Yeah,
(04:33):
because I don't think a lot of people realize how
far deep the you know, the rabbit hole goes with him.
I meant, oh, yeah, yeah, he's uh he debuted in
More Fun Comics number seventy three and nineteen forty one
November of one, so hey just hit that anniversary, uh uh,
And he was like a backup feature in DC's anthology titles,
(04:55):
and he later ended up starring in several volumes of
the his own comic book series, and then during the
fifties and sixties superhero revival period, which you know is
known as the Silver Age, he was a founding member
of the Justice League. Which is interesting because I think
that the iterations that I think of, because I was
going to try and make a definitive statement, but I'm
(05:16):
gonna walk it back and make a statement that goes
from my mind is I know, he started one version
and then the other version, the newer reboot, it was
more like the Flash was getting everyone together in the like,
uh what was it? D C was New fifty two,
and the New fifty two was kind of the Flash
who was kind of the leading one. But in a
(05:38):
lot of iterations, I think it is Batman who's like
I think, especially in the DC Cinematic universe, it's Batman
who's wrang letting everyone. So it's interesting because you know,
you do kind of get a vibe. We're gonna explore this,
but you do get a interesting vibe based on who
is starting the Justice League. Like when the Flash was
(05:59):
doing it in the comics, he was kind of the
the goofy one who was kind of just being like,
come on, guys, let's just be friends. Let's you know,
you know, we need to work together to save the world.
And he was the heart of the Justice League, whereas
like in the cinematic universe, it feels like Batman is,
you know, doing the tactician version of like, this is
the most efficient way to handle this. This is why
(06:20):
we gotta do it, Martha. You know, yeah, it's pretty grim. Yeah.
So so you know, getting into you know, uh, this
version of the Justice League, which was a little a
little hokey at first, it is interesting that Aquaman, who
is like the do good or do goody guy. Yeah,
(06:41):
so he was created by Paul Norris and more. Uh
White singer by saying that, right, Um, I read a
lot of words and a lot of people's names, and
I think of how it sounds in my head, and
I just say it that way until somebody else corrects me. Perfect.
So that's how So apologies to the people that are
listening to this for the pronunciations that I'm going to
(07:01):
be doing. Yeah. And so during the late nineteen fifties
and nineteen sixties, the superhero revival period known as a
Silver Age, which we went over I think yeah in
our flash episode. Um, he was a founding member of
the Justice League. And then in the nineteen nineties, Modern
Age writers interpreted Aquaman's character more seriously, with storylines depicting
the weight of his role as a King of Atlantis. Yeah.
(07:24):
And in his nineteen sixty original animated appearance, Uh, it
ended up leaving a lasting impression which made him widely recognized,
which I think it makes sense. Oh, nineties Aquaman nineteen No,
I heard nineties, but yeah, yeah, no, I like the
(07:45):
nineteen sixties one. Um uh for Aquaman. Well, to know
where the base came from with it, where you have,
um Atlanta and Tom Curry. You know Tom Curry's uh
you know, worked in a light house and um, well,
in the original nineteen sixties one, there was a woman
that was lost in a hurricane on a raft and
Tom Curry's the one that saves her. They flipped that
(08:08):
and you know, um in the latest one in two
thousand eleven, Jeff John's did that one, Jeff Johnson, I'm
gonna say ivan rece r e I S and and that.
Then they fall in love, and you know, like I
think a year or two years go by and she
gets she becomes pregnant, and it's like, oh, but there's
still something about her. Baby. Uh, there's still something about her.
(08:32):
You know, she keeps on staring at the sea. What's
going on? And then you know, baby comes along. And
then when they're playing one day he finds out, oh,
Arthur can breathe underwater. What the crap? What's going on
in Atlanta? Whoa? Whoa? What's happened? You know, because in
his early Golden age appearances like you said, I'll come in,
(08:53):
can breathe underwater, control fish and other underwater life for
up to a minute. I like that. There's a time
you only got it for him. That. Yeah. After that,
the fish like, get off my neck. That's how all
fish talk, by the way, if you didn't know, uh,
that's why we eat them. Yeah. Nope. But initially he
(09:16):
was depicted as speaking to see creatures in their own
language rather than telepathically, and only when they were close
enough to hear him, which was generally around twenty meters
and the Knockleman's adventures took place all across the world,
and his base was a wrecked fishing boat kept underwater.
Kind of an upgrade now in the movie where he's
(09:38):
he was staying now in like a kingdom as opposed
to a wrecked fishing boat. He was originally a dude
who talked to fish and lived on a boat. Prime
dating material right there. Yeah, I mean super Friends alone.
When he's the noise that he would make when he's
communicating with fish, you just see the wavy lines going
out into the ocean. Yeah. So during his wartime adventures,
(10:01):
most of Aquaman's foes were nazi U boat commanders and
various access villains where he once worked with the All
Stars Squadron. The rest of his adventures in the nineteen
forties and nineteen fifties had him dealing with various sea
based criminals. I like that sea based criminals Arial's father
King Triton, including modern day pirates such as long time
(10:23):
arch enemy black Jack, as well as various threats to
aquatic life, shipping lanes and sailors. You know what they
need to bring that back. I haven't seen the film.
Have you gotten to see Aquaman yet? I have not? Okay,
that I would love because you know, I want to
see him battling like plastic water bottles, plastic straws, plastic bags,
about that plastic islands, plastics. I believe it's the Pacific,
(10:46):
the Pacific or the Atlantic and it's this giant as
we need Aquaman more now than ever. Well, they did
have like a little stint during the BP oil spill
where he like was kind of mad about and he
was like, see humans always messing up the shoot and stuff,
and that was Matt Corny, uh but necessary. Yeah, but
(11:07):
you have black Jack, which is his first you know,
black arch Nemesis because you know black manch this is
the man who who is like arch Nemesis with Now
black Jack was Captain Blackjack was a modern day pirate.
But like everyone when we first said it kind of
was thinking of like look at me and the captain now,
(11:28):
you know, but this was this was back in the
day and to them, modern day pirates were just people
who dressed like pirates, but exists now because Captain Blackjack
these like he has like a straight up what is
the name of the the that pirates sword that you
always see cutlass, cutlass. Okay, you know, but that's also
(11:49):
what I'm whipping in. Wasn't there also a female black Jack? Yeah?
The black Jack was the name used by several characters
in the in the d C universe. I mean that
happens like with superheroes, like across the board, like yeah, yeah,
I mean just think how many green lanterns we have. Well, also,
(12:12):
what I like about looking through his powers and the
building abilities. This is what I love about all the
early like silver Golden Age villains is this is usually
they're they're so corny. Here's Blackjack's power skilled combatant, seamanship, swordsman, leadership,
a word, that's that's that's your Yeah, that's your power
(12:34):
set right there. You you are what what is it?
You went to Toastmasters. That's yours and that's where you
got you. So it started off. I was in a
radioactive spill that I narrowly avoided and walked into a Toastmasters.
I like the seamanship though, because it's like, is this
like etiquette class or you know, are you like high
(12:55):
class etiquette with that seamanship? You know all the laws
of the sea even unwritten, well, like, so you can
break them all. I mean straight up, because in Blackjack's
first appearance, his gang stole a yacht full of passengers
and through the ship's captain at sea. And I feel
like nowadays that you'd be a hero for that. That
shows you have times to change back and they eat
(13:17):
the rich. All right, let's keep this ball rolling, yes, So,
starting in the late nineteen fifties, new elements to Aquaman's
backstory were introduced, with various new supporting characters added and
several adjustments made to the character, his origins, his powers,
and persona. So the first of these elements was the
story Aquaman's Undersea Partner and Adventure Comics number two to
(13:41):
October nineteen fifty six, where his octopus sidekick Topo was
first introduced. They need to bring Topo back, seriously, this
and subsequent I'm going to say that throughout the thing
they need to bring this back is Subsequent elements were
later after the establishment of DC's multiverse in the nineteen
sixty attributed to the Aquaman of Earth one, I did
(14:03):
want to say, I don't know if you remember, if
you When they first tweeted out the poster for the
current Aquaman film, and um, somebody had photoshopped it to
look like Lisa Frank, which listener, if you don't remember,
Lisa Frank was a very big thing in the eighties
and nineties of like those psychedelic looking like bear leopards
(14:26):
and yeah, leopard print, pink glitter, and so someone made
a bunch of dolphins and it just looked like Lisa
Frank and I, honest to God, thought that that was
the poster, and I retweeted it and was also sad
that it was not, in fact going to be him
writing pink dolphins. I was like, going for you were
(14:48):
like genuinely hyped because I was like, whoa, that's such
a risk. I love it, you know, like I want
to see Jason Momoa writing rainbows. This is cool. I
actually enjoyed that because you know, yeah, that all command
love is there, like that fan art love is there.
And when you think about it, um, having Aquaman do
something in a Lisa Frank way in any way shape
(15:08):
or formed like something as a as a web video
would be like Thor doing Thor and Darryl, his roommate Darryl.
It would be like that. So if they went that
route some plus She's alone a literal fish out of water. Yeah.
Then we had the Silver Age Aquaman who made his
appearance and adventure comics number to sixty on May nineteen
(15:29):
fifty nine. And you know what happened in May nineteen
fifty nine, right, that was oh um got his powers? No, no, no,
that was I like to give little anecdotes about the
time when we say them and uh. And May nineteen
fifty nine was after the release of Some Like Some
(15:50):
Like It Hot. It dropped that March also twenty nine
years before me and Danny were born. And I gotta
say it was a great year because Aquaman he was
better than ever. And it was revealed that Aquaman was
Arthur Curry, son of Tom Curry, grandfather of Tim Curry. Uh.
(16:11):
Which is a lighthouse keeper in Atlanta, a water breathing
outcast from the lost underwater city of Atlantis. That sounds
too much like Atlanta. Now I'm thinking of the Atlanta
Aquaman cross. You can you can call her Atlanta Atlanta.
That might help to distinguish shot between that in Atlantis. Yeah, like, yeah,
(16:31):
that's see. This is that early age comics where we
got real lazy with names like Atlanta from Atlantis? Uh?
Do we all? Does everyone in here? No? Black Bolt's
real name black Bolt from Marvel Comics. Real name is
black Agar Bolt. You know that. Scooby Doo's real name
(16:52):
is Scubert. No, Scubert Scobert. I don't want to believe. No.
I was going to tweet to Maybe I'll do it later.
Scooby Doo's full name. I made up the second part,
but it should be Scubert Dubington. Subert, you always This
isn't the first time you told me that, and it
still makes me laugh because the last time he said
Scubert Dubert Scubert Dubington. Archer decided to use his talents
(17:18):
to become the defender of the Earth's oceans. It's a
noble cause. It was later revealed that he had, in
his youth adventured as Aqua Boy and on occasion met
super Boy, or only other publicly active superpowered hero at
the time. When Arthur grew up, he called himself aqua Man. Yeah,
(17:41):
this seems like mixed up, because I mean, is this
a This is where we lean to Marcia, who is
an expert in d C. So is this Superboy, the
super Boy that we know today, or is this an
like the teen Titans Superboy where he's a Superman for
this silver Age Superboy, I don't believe that it is. Yeah,
(18:04):
it's from this. Is it the same? Is it the
same one with a clone background for Superman? Because I
know that for later on I believe this is different.
I think you're right, Okay, it's just Superman and yeah, exactly,
yeah he was super Boy. Okay, so yeah, I mean
you have to think back. It was a simpler time
(18:25):
in the Silver Age comics. So it's like somebody is younger,
they'll be called super Boy and then they'll if you
go into yeah, this is a different one. He does
not look like a boy. Look at this Markia. Look
it's a sixteen birthday. That man is hardcore twenty five
years Is he is Lizzie McGuire sixteen? Yeah? Is Channing Tatum?
(18:45):
And um what was the one? She's the man? Yeah?
Channing Tatum in that. Yeah, you know, one well grown man.
One would think that with that kind of mentality, that
if Bruce Wayne had taken on the cowl, you know,
at an earlier age as opposed to like training to
get ready for to take on Gotham. He might have
been bad Boy eventually been Batman. Yeah, because that's close
(19:10):
to what I call Superman. Whenever he walks out the
house wearing something weird, I'm like super Boy. One of
one of the things that's really great about Aquaman that
I feel that people don't people don't realize because they think, oh,
it's the guy that talks to fish kind of a thing.
His rogues gallery is uh, pretty impressive. I mean, this
(19:30):
dude stabbed dark Side and the eye with this tritnant
Aquaman did that, you know that? And like some of
his other roadus, like for instance, with like continuing with
silver Age, with um At Lana, she yes, was an
exiled queen. There was this whole thing where she okay
with silver Age. It's like comics are hell of a drug.
(19:52):
There's so much okay. So she was exiled, she had
author on land um knew that she couldn't bring him
back with her. She did go back where then she
was forced forced it was politics by the people, to
then marry another suitor where she then had another baby
orm Ocean Master, and one of the between that him
(20:17):
and Black Manta, I think are like the strongest my
favorite supervillains for Aquaman. Yeah, so it's good to know
that that happened when Yeah, it says here Arm disappeared
after becoming an Amnijack and would resurface years later as
Aquaman's nemesis, Ocean Master. Yeah, but I think I think
(20:37):
in Silver Age it was like reverse where I think
orm was on the sea, not on the sea on land.
I think it was like that. But there are so
many like this has been red on so many times.
I will say, here's my my thing on Black Manta
is he's the only time in Silver Age DC that
I'm like, yeah, I'm glad you called him black Manta
(21:00):
because because when he pops off the helmet and he
is black, I'm like, oh, I didn't know. Thanks for
putting it in your name, bro, Like you don't need
it for black Lightning. I see, just be lightning, my guy.
You know. Yeah, it's amazing. It was like with um
this is Marvel where they do black Maria for um
Luke Cage. You don't you don't have to do that. Yeah,
you can just call her Strong Maria or you know,
(21:21):
as Maria. But also black Manta is way harder than
like Manta, but like Lightning. That's like, oh that's a
good name. Could have been like death Manta or something. No,
I like black Man because he's like not just so
you know, so you know who I am under this mask. Uh.
So during this time, Aquaman's ability to talk with fish
(21:42):
eventually expanded to full fledged telepathic communication with sea creatures,
even from great distances. He also retroactively developed a specific weakness,
again to Superman's vulnerability to kryptonite. Uh. Kind of interesting
that they kind of a CURATORI ama this. It was
like going back retroactively, like, oh, by the way, he
(22:03):
also he's allergic to this. So Aquaman had to come
into contact with water at least once per hour or
he would die. Prior to this story, Aquaman could exist
both in and out of water indefinitely, which I think
our current Aquaman is like that. Yeah. Yeah, I mean
I feel as far as I can gather with what
they're going forward with it, I feel like that was
(22:24):
just silly, like adding that ability rather kind of a thing.
They don't want to make him to opeque, but he
wasn't Like I can see if his power set because
you have someone like Daymore who you know, this comparison
is always going to be coming up because that was
Marvel's Aquaman. He was the first one. Yeah, he had
super strength, you know, outside, was sexy. Yeah, oh yeah,
(22:47):
he was that dude essential. It's just like an arrogant
Oh yeah, it's just like yeah, and then and then
you have Arthur Curry, who's is a good guy, a
good guy, but he's a king and he's had to
make a lot of really tough decisions. Like what I'm
really interested in with with this movie, like what you
can read in the comics, but depending on who who
you're going, like Peter David's Aquaman, that's a whole different
(23:08):
kind of Aquaman than Jeff John's Aquaman. For instance, are
m Paul North and why Singer So with it, I
would like for them to do it where they do
comedic nuance and like building this world like for instance
Marvel did with Black Panther, because you have that with Aquaman.
He is a king of the sea, that of the ocean,
(23:31):
two thirds of the earth, you know right there. He
has control over that, and there's this whole culture and
everything that happens underneath there. I think what people don't
realize is like it's kind of like what they did
with Black Panther, where he's like he has Waconda in
its own culture, but he spent a whole lot of
time in America and in other places, you know, traveling
(23:51):
with the Avengers and with Arthur Curry. He spends a
whole lot of time, you know, oh, in America, traveling,
you know, with the Justice League and say everything like that. Yeah,
and that's that's kind of what was cool. That was explored.
So man, I feel like we're talking so deep in comics. Luckily,
with Aquaman, it's pretty much like he's pretty much stayed
(24:13):
the same for the most part. You know, he'll lose
the arm here or there, but like his attitude in
the nineties totally changed, but he's generally like King of
the Atlantis, same same person, the same way through. Unlike
you know, you have Batman, who has tons of red cons.
He ended up having a son, and then his son
got killed and his son got back, and then you
(24:34):
have like Flash where there's like three, four or five
different Flashes if you go back and listen to that episode.
Same thing with Green Lantern. Aquaman was pretty untouched. So
we get to be done for the most part we'll
go into his powers and abilities, but we get to
be done with most of the history of it. You know,
we we could if we wanted to talk about like
(24:54):
the big moments. But look, if if I'm being an
off rip and there's gonna be some Aquaman had who
come at me like there's nothing and you can you
can let me know. And of course we'll always blast
you and retweet you if you have like historic Aquaman
moments like from one I was going to talk about
mine because I got I got one. We might have
(25:16):
the same one. I think we'll see, Yes, we will see.
Right after these messages are doing that, I'm going to
do it. I'm going to do it. Okay, and we
are back, so I am going to I don't think
you guys actually are talking about the same moment, but um,
(25:37):
since Marcia is our guest, I'm going to start with her.
Of just come on, MARKA, what is the big moment
for you that really stands out with Aquaman? Well talking
you know, back in the seventies, like that Aquaman not
on the two thousand eleven um and on Aquaman, which
I feel is a that's a whole different kind of Aquaman.
(25:58):
It's got a different kind of feeling. I really enjoy
way what is happening, especially with what they're doing now
with Drowned Earth. James Tynan Jr. The Fourth I can't
say enough about that. It's it's epic. But for like
in the seventies, my moment is Dark Destiny Deadly Dreams,
where okay, so um Aquaman had kind of been on
(26:19):
hiatus before that, and then he comes back and they're like, okay,
so we're gonna do this storyline. It's this is gonna
this is gonna be great. It's good for the fans.
He's backed by popular demand, is going to bring in
some more fans, and the and the whole thing of
it is like, okay, so Aquaman is married to Mara
and they have a baby. Author Junior, So aqua baby. Actually, yeah,
(26:40):
and you know things are going good, you know still
as politics, you know, Atlantis and such and such. And
he also has Aqua Lad. Aqua Lad is there than
Garth and this black aqua Lab it is not, Yeah,
it is. It is the same Aqua Lad that becomes
a founding member of Teen Titans. But yeah, but this
(27:03):
one like goes and trains in Scotland and all this
other stuff. Yeah, but in this major storyline where they
do like Black Manta comes after Aquaman and um he
gets ahold of Aquaman by getting ahold of Aqua Baby.
And Aqua Baby can't breathe oxygen, like he can only
live under the water, so he traps him in this
(27:25):
like in this sphere and then he slowly fills it
with oxygen. Oh yeah, yeah, So do you want me
to tell you what happens or it came out? I
mean yeah, it's like seven. So Black Manta's terms are, hey,
(27:47):
I'm going to kill your son or you can kill
Aqua Lad. So and then Aqua Lads like, ha ha ha,
that's not going to Aquaman like goes to town and
he's like, I'm sorry, you know it's gonna have to happen. Um.
So he's battling with Aqua Lad and you know, long
story short, it gets to the point where it's like, oh,
(28:10):
were we in time too, you know, save Author Jr.
And then you have this panel like this picture where
they're just holding the body and no, oh my god,
they literally brought back Aqua Man and in this storyline
they killed Aqua Baby. Yeah, so yeah, that was actually, yeah,
(28:34):
the miss didn't that happen, not like that the Ultimate
where the kid died too. In the midst he kills
and then there was help coming right then, right after
he kills because he like he kills everyone, he's about
to kill himself. There's not a bullet left, and then
that's when the help comes through. The miss. Yeah, it's
(28:56):
always that's like, that's like something that Twilight, like Rudd
Sterling died of black mirror crap was Stephen King, so
you know he was ready to do So my moment
is a lot lighter than that, a moment true anguish,
and I remember that one that is like the moment
(29:16):
and everyone that you, anyone who who reads comics and
has read a lot of comics, and you and ask
you that will be the Aquaman story. That's they'll tell
you to check out. My story was one that was like, oh,
Aquaman can be cool, but it didn't it technically never
it happened, but it doesn't exist. And it was during
(29:37):
flash Point. Well Flashpoint happened. There was real cool. This
is one of the only times I went around buying
So okay, I think I've explained crossover events and comics
and crossover events are an event that is so large
it's happening over multiple comic books, and there's usually one
main story book that you can copy. Uh, And normally
(29:59):
I just read the main storybook. You you ain't gonna
get me, comics publisher. Now I'm only picking my mans
and the and the art. So if it happens in
the books, I'm already again, then I'm reading it. But
besides that, I'm not going around. And except they did
one which one was it? Where it was hopping from
book to book and I was, Uh, so Flashpoint they
(30:20):
did this cool thing. So what what happened in Flashpoint?
And I felt they were going to do this with
the movie. Now it seems like they're not. The Flash
was fighting the reverse Flash and went back in time,
messed up the storyline and it caused a moment called
the Flashpoint that and and uh and it like shifted
timelines and you know this created new timelines and so
(30:42):
all the books changed into these new timeline books. Uh,
A death stroke had a real dope one that was
him as a pirate and uh the Aquaman and in
this universe, I think, uh, Bruce Wayne was dead and
his there was Batman, which was really cool. Yeah, Superman
(31:04):
was being kept from sunlight and he was a he
was a being helped by the government under experience. Experience
and Wonder Woman and Aquaman and Mira were at war.
There was a world war where like wonder Wan was
commanding all the Amazonians and they were trying to conquer
the world and it was so hardcore, like just to
(31:27):
see like you know, Aquaman like yo, it's it's going
down and just like seeing that side of it. And
I really started falling in love with Mira around that
era too, because during like the Darkest Night stuff, she
got the Rage ring and like Rage Mirror. I still
have that action figure at home. It's such a cool
mir because like she had does it kind of like
(31:49):
it was a cool way for them to address kind
of the baggage that she is dealt with, but they
never get to talk about because it's Aquaman's book and
she kind of had the rage of you know, losing
her throne. Not her throne, but she lost a lot.
It's like losing a way of life. It's like, um,
it's not necessarily lifestyle, it's like losing the stuff that
you self identify with and then having that just ripped
(32:11):
away and then all that black Lantern stuff was so
dope as Nicron, I need to go back and read that.
I know this was so well worth a reread. Yeah,
if you if you ever want to read any DC
fool like, if you just want to look at crossover ars,
(32:31):
obviously it's going to be, Um, what's the one, you know,
the one I'm thinking, Um, you're thinking Dark Knight Oh,
Final Crisis, Yeah, Dark Knight Metal. Yeah, Dark Knight Metal.
That's the current running one. Yeah, everyone's been talking about that.
It's amazing, it really is. There's there's dark dark Days
and Dark Night I'm hoping that I'm saying it right metal.
(32:55):
If someone was to bring that up to make sure
I've read through. Uh, Danny, this is an other thing
that I read the second half of gosh instead of
the first half. I will go back and read the
first half, um, which is Dark Day Metal and this
is Dark Night Metal. Feel free to correct me if
I got that wrong. But like, for instance, um, they
(33:17):
have different Batman like from different alternate you know, the dimensions,
different dimensional Batman's Like there's the Batman who laughs, it's
a Batman who went the way of the Joker. It
is terrifying. Um, and I love that causeplay so hard.
There were so many either and for talking about like
(33:39):
what you were saying, if he that is well worth
a dive into. In fact, I'm Sam Humphreys from d
C Daily has written one of the Batman. Yeah, I
will because someone literally last week I forget. I wonder
if it was after episode mentioned that we should read it.
(34:00):
And it is good. Well, the latter half that I read.
I need to go back and see where everything started.
So I just wanted to talk about some of Aquaman's
abilities before we fully, before we move on to other
other elements of his comics and then eventually the film. Yeah,
he's surprisingly Opie. He is, and so I think that
(34:22):
that's why they made So that's why they made that
a couple of those changes in some of the comics
where he needed to have water or needed to be
around water every hour. Um, they also removed there was
one comic where they removed his ability to talk to fish. Yeah,
sorry to cut you off, Danny, but I found it.
It was infinite content. Soul brother. He sent me this
picture and this is from Yes, she's looking at the Batman,
(34:48):
who laughs. Yeah, it's he's gnarly there. There's one storyline
in in this Metal series where just after the Metal
series is actually I'm sorry, it's not the Doubles, it's
the in any case, I'll remember in a second, but
they have Lex Luthor trap the Batman, who laughs. And
(35:08):
then he also as part of his local ball, he
grabs Joker and all of them because he's trying to
I don't want to give away what he's trying to get,
but he puts him like in this is like four
layers of things to wrap him in the cell. And
Joker is like, no, he's there because he wants to
be there. This is not a good idea. And this
(35:28):
is like the Joker Joker, not like another Joker Joker.
So the Joker is like literally helping out. Oh my gosh,
I got to read that. Let's go back to powers
of ability before we go on this huge Yeah, so
he has ability to breathe underwater and possesses a superhuman
physique strong enough to withstand attacks from superhuman opponents and
resist machine gun fire because of his density. Because he
(35:51):
basically he you know, do you even lift bro, but
under the sea you know. There was another hero who
had the power to control their density UH who existed.
Nobody is gonna get this reference and his name was
de Ka Nakam Valiant Vanquished. There was a character Noah
who had a crush on him, and it was This
(36:15):
is the most meta inside joke. The ones who get
it will love it. They'll love it. He can swim
at very high speeds, capable of reaching speeds of three
thousand meters per second Damn, and can swim up Niagara Falls.
He can see in near total darkness and has enhanced hearing,
granting limited sonar. He's like he's like a bat He
(36:36):
has more bat like powers than Batman. Although Aquaman can
remain underwater indefinitely now without suffering any ill effects, he
grows weak if he remains on land for extended periods.
They need to get this straight. This keeps going back
and forth. They keep on changing it. There's so many differents. However,
when Batman invented Aquaman's water suit, he was able to
(36:57):
walk on land for an indefinite amount of time and
was no longer vulnerable to a de humidifier. This weakness
was later removed from continuity in UH they're just kind
of mess. You know. You know, he can't be too uh,
he can't be too op established that he grew up
on land before learning of his Atlantean heritage, but he
still runs the risk of dying by dehydration within in.
(37:19):
I love that. I love that he's like one of
the strongest men ever and he can die from d
He's just like a regular human. Yeah, it seems like
he just and he's also as thirsty as the dudes
in your comments. Oh lord, if he you know our
friend Nick Ross who was on our show, Um, he
has a really funny tweet about how humans are, like
how we're the top of the food chain that can
(37:39):
also die from a plastic bag, Like isn't that crazy? Like,
no matter how strong you are, if you have a
plastic bag over your head for like thirty seconds, no
matter how strong you are, you can't hold a glass
of water in your hand straight out to your side
for longer than I think it was a minute? What
was a minute too, or maybe it was three minutes
something like that. Because there's something about the way that
(38:00):
your muscles are in your arm that you just you,
no matter how strong you are, you physically can't do it.
What about people that hold weights and do that, but
they're not like holding it for you know. Three Ever,
let's see if the rock is I feel like he
has uh so maybe what seven minutes before we hop
into the New fifty two market, can you explain to
(38:22):
people what the New fifty two was in d C,
because it's not just Aquaman in effective comics. Oh so
many like, um, the harlequin that people knew like, um, well,
she was originally Batman the animated series b t S.
She didn't exist in comics. So then after having her
in there, she then you know, existed in comics in
(38:43):
a certain way, and then she was And that's the
full harlequin outfit that people see mainly at comic cons
where you see where she's um, I believe it's like
half black, half red type of things, like a full outfit.
Very it's like it looks like it's painted on, looks
like body paint kind of a thing. Giant hammer. Um.
(39:03):
And that's you know, the harlequin that started off in
BTS UM when like, for instance, I'm just using this
as a character for instance, and the New fifty two
hit that's when she really became the Harlequin that you
see now with like Suicide Squad where you have like
the candy colored hair and the bat um putting necklace
kind of a thing where it's like really doubling down
(39:25):
on the relationship between her and Joker, you know, in
the toxic way that we recognize that it is um
kind of a thing. So like, yeah, the New Hipty
two is kind of like just basically, you know, things
have to shake up every now and again, and some
it happens. It tends to happen a lot, sometimes um
(39:45):
too much that people think. But with a New fifty
two or the Rebirth, they took a lot of characters
that people had they might have stagnated a little bit,
and then they just revitalize them in a different way.
Not a lot of people agree with on this there
on the same page with all of the characters. Like
some people are not a fan of the new Harlequin
(40:07):
as opposed to um a classic Harley, and then other
people are like, no, no, she's definitely you know, there's
a lot more than we can do that. Plus we
have movies now, you know, Bird of Prey and so
on and so forth, so you know, mixed bag whatever.
It's here to stay for right now. It's seven years
old and so far it's going on, it's continuing. They
(40:28):
haven't had to reshake things up too much. So yeah.
So the New fifty two was then revamp and relaunch
of d C Comics of its entire line of ongoing
monthly superhero comic books. So this was following the conclusion
of the flash Point Crossover, which, if you talked about,
DC canceled all of its existing titles, debut a new
(40:49):
fifty two series um in September ofleven. And I think
we have a quote from Jeff John's here, So this
is from an I g N interview with Jeff John
in eleven around the New fifty two number one issue
being released as part of the New fifty two d
C relaunch of their entire superhero line. Jeff John's Ivan
(41:10):
Rice and Joe Prado served as the initial creative team
of the company's new Aquaman series, so the first issue
was released in September of twenty eleven. The three creators
remained on the title for the first sixteen issues that
subsequently led to the first continual Aquaman related crossover known
as the Throne of Atlantis. Aquaman now struggles with his
(41:31):
lack of reputation with the greater public, which views him
as a lesser metahuman. This is like a going joke
that I've seen in the comics of them, kind of
like the public making fun of Aquaman. Yeah, the thing
that I enjoy about Aquaman, and they even Jeff John's
addresses it really well. UM in like re envisioning Um Aquaman.
(41:53):
I like UM volume seven, number one, the trench Um,
but with this, Like, for instance, there's a scene where
he is sitting in a restaurant. Everybody's like, what you're
You're that dude, You're the dude that talks to fish,
and it's like, I do not talk to fish, and
it's yeah. And he even goes into it where it's
like it's part of him stimulating the cerebellum and and compelling,
(42:17):
compelling UM sea creatures to then do what he wants
to heed what he wants to make it into an
instinct for the creature. So it's not out of you know,
it's not out of this step of life for them.
So it's not him telepathically being like, hey, so what
do you do on Wednesday? My schedules, clear kind of thing.
But going back to what you were saying with Aquaman,
where he is people make fun of him, you know.
(42:41):
I like that about him. I like that he's in
the classic outfit. Not everybody agrees with this, but it's like,
because he is, he's a decent person, He's a good guy.
With this Aquaman. He does have a lot of the
personality traits of like the nineties Aquaman, but enough that
also bounces it out that he's a sure individual that
(43:01):
puts up with people making fun of him. He makes
it okay to be who he is. He normalizes being
authentically you. And that's one of the things that I
really love about that. And that's why I like that
they have Jason Momola being Acaban because can you picture anybody,
just anybody else, being totally chill with being themselves no
matter what anybody else says, and still being able to
(43:23):
like lay down the law but with a gentle hand
if need be. Yeah, Yeah, I'm really glad that they
picked him. I was going to say in this I
g N interview, the reporter said, who was He was
always one of the least interesting characters in the DCU.
For me, that changed in Brightest Day. What is about
the character that makes him so attractive to you? And
Jeff John said that he's the underdog. And then the
(43:45):
I g N reporters said, how do you see his
relationship to the rest of the DC universe, And Jeff
John said, it's very clear an issue number one, what
his relationship is to the rest of the world. I
think he's underestimated by everybody, both inside and outside of
the comics. Uh So with the rebirth, he is uh
once again a founding member of the Justice League and
(44:06):
is the main member of the team. That's a huge
thing to like being one of the main forefront members. Yeah. Absolutely,
I mean he's he's not there you know, for you
know the popcorn or you know, for what whatever they
have in catering. No, it's not that he's there because
he is abnormally strong. With this with this dense strength,
(44:28):
he's able to leap so high it says if he's flying.
He has a type of sonar. He has a trident
that was um, you know, passed down from the first
King of Atlantis. I forget if in the new fifty
two if they keep that particular No, no, actually they
change that up because his his trident is one of
seven artifacts. It's like it's some serious power, some serious
(44:50):
legacy that we're talking about with this, and he can
you can't drown him. He breathes underwater, and he's a
king with the king's resources with a Queen Mira, who
is amazing in our own right. I like like with
them the New fifty two, they up the stakes with
like arm and black Man, who I talked about before.
(45:11):
You can tell a lot from their hero by the
villains that they fight. What I like, for instance, about
Orm and what they did with that is that you
identify with Orm because he's he's basically like because they
have the the deluge, where's like this hierarchy system that's
in an Atlantis and there's um these um they call
themselves bottom dwellers, like it's not a derogatory term um
(45:32):
with them, and it's like they're they're all pure. They're
like pure about Atlantis. There's no point in going into
like um on the land. And with Orm, his whole
thing is like they're polluting us there one third of
the planet and they're killing us all. Let's just get
rid of them, Let's just drown them all. Let's do this,
and you kind of see where he's coming from, and
(45:52):
you also see why he's kind of but he's also
he's also a half brother of authors Arthur, so you
can't just kill him. So yeah, well that's I mean,
that's the recipe for any good villain is one that
you can see where they're coming from. They might not
be going about it the right way, but you definitely
see where they're coming from, because it seems less cartoonish
(46:13):
when you have a villain that you can reason when
you're like, I see why you're mad. You This just
isn't the way to handle this, I want to say.
So we are going to actually hop into the future
of Aquaman in this movie right after these messages and
(46:37):
we're back and before we hop into the film, we're
gonna talk about a couple of other Aquaman films. Uh.
One of them, actually not a film, is the animated series.
I don't know if you know this, Iffy, but Aquaman
is a filmation animated series that premiered on CBS on
September n seven and end of June seventy. It's a
(46:58):
thirty minute version of the super Man Aquaman Hour of
Adventure and it was repackaged without the Superman and Superboy segments.
I love that they kept super Boy in there. Um. Yeah,
so there were thirty six Aquaman segments produced for that,
plus eighteen segments featuring other superheroes. Oh man, Just speaking
of aquad shows you may not know about. Were you
(47:21):
aware of the Aquaman pilot that dropped in two thousand seven? Wait?
So like it aired? So what happened was the Aquaman pilot?
They were expecting it to debut on the fall schedule
of two thousand six, but they also had a merger
with w B and up N, which is what created
the CW network. So it was supposed to be for
the w B during like small bills, you know, huge boom,
(47:45):
but when it turned into the CW, they opted not
to buy the series and they passed on the pilot.
But they did make the pilot available online, which is
cool because that normally doesn't happen. It just disappears. And
Aquaman was played curiously enough by the person who played
Oliver Queen and Green Arrow and Smallville, which was the
(48:06):
actor Justin Hartley. Uh So that would have been weird anyway.
Which came first interesting crossover? I did want to say
for the Aquaman the animated series, those episodes have been
seen as part of Cartoon Networks Boomerang, and then in
October of two thousand and seven, Warner Home Video released
The Adventures of Aquaman The Complete Collection on DVD, SO
(48:27):
which was a two disc set features all thirty six
Aquaman segments from the series and was presented its original
uncapped broadcast presentation and original air day. I wonder if
you're an Aquaman fan at home, let us know if
you have those and let us know if you have
those that. It also had a little feature at called
Aquaman The Sovereign of the Seas, which explores Aquaman's depiction
(48:51):
in various media and how his character and superhero capabilities
have progressed over the years. Also, his animation has changed
as he's been in different Justice League animated one but uh,
the film, the film that's coming up, Marky, I have
you enjoyed? So Aquaman was first introduced or are current?
Jason Momoa run of Aquaman was first introduced in Justice League,
which I've weirdly forgot if you remember when we were
(49:13):
talking about Justice League on this podcast and I was like, yeah,
we had the introduction Flash and Cyborg and everyone's like
and also Aquaman. But it's so funny because Jason Momoa
has just been like in the Zeit Guy so much
that I forgot that that was his first introduction. I
just feel like we knew him as Aquaman for for
when it was first announced, and like Jason Momoa himself
(49:34):
just being a part of you know, the nerd fan
base with Game of Thrones and everything else he's been
in that, and then when it was announced that he
was already getting his own film, it just kind of
he just felt like he was already in there with them. Um.
But yeah, So, Markia, what has been your take on
on his Aquaman? I enjoy it. I think it's a
I think Jason Mamoa well when it clicks, it clicks,
(49:56):
and definitely does with him. I think he's a really
good balance of it feels like there's like two extremes
that it comes with um Aquaman. You know, you like
you have the type of Aquaman where it's like yes
and the Goldfish inspired, you know, classic suit and um
flying around trying to do the right thing, being stalwart,
you know, type of goody, but still being him, you know,
(50:19):
nerdy him um. And then you have the other one
that you have like in the from the nineties, Like
I said, Peter David's Um Aquaman where it's like hook
for hands. We didn't even mention. I mean, yeah, where
he he loses this harpoon. Yeah that was hand. That
wasn't That wasn't his first one, Like um, the Lady
(50:40):
of the Lake gives him a magic hand. There's he
also has his hand eating. Do you remember when he
put it in the piranhas, Well he didn't put it there.
Well yeah, well he lost his um, his ability to
talk to the we're on the same pace, and then
the Piranha took the hands and he was off to
the races. No more pretty boy. Now. It was like
(51:03):
the long grizzled adventurer you know, you know, kill you
before you kill anybody in my city type of a thing.
And I think Jason Momoa is a really great balance
of the both of those, where you have like that
long hair, that physique um, which Aquaman always had a
type of physique, but you know it's it's a mentality
(51:23):
and the way that you carry yourself, and then still
being definitely being the type of dude where It's like, yeah,
he would play you know, tea party with his daughter
kind of a thing. So I I love that they
have this casting for him for Aquaman because we're I
think that we're going to see him lethal, We're going
to see him vulnerable. Um, we're gonna see him funny,
and we're gonna see him kill, right. I think that's
(51:45):
gonna happen. Yeah. I loved his comedic moments. He definitely
adds that, like the humor and comedy to the Justice League.
I was in a great casting for the balance. Yeah,
for real, I was gonna say so. The development of
the Aquaman film began back in two thousand and four,
with several plans falling apart throughout the years, and then
eventually James One signed on as director in April. It's
(52:06):
taken a while for them to get the Aquaman film. Well,
you know, there were some ups and downs that happened
with things, so I could see why they would be cautious.
I am very happy with the direction that they're going
with things, though. I mean with the way that Deucey
is going, I could see Flashpoint being a real possibility
(52:28):
for and that would be I think by then when
that does happen. If it does happen, the public would
be ready for it, you know, with the post post
Metal series, post wonder Woman, you know, and so on
and so forth. It's like get a you know, they
would trust and be able to expand on the worlds
(52:51):
that they were creating. Yeah. Yeah, I was gonna say
it looks like slash film because we were talking about
some of what the critics have said said Aquaman is
better than expected. Feels like I'm Marvel Phase one movie
in a good way. It's at its best when it's
having fun and not taking itself too seriously. Eric Davis
A Van Dango said Aquaman is a most ambitious DC
(53:11):
movie to date, a big, sprawling visual spectacle that is gorgeous,
crazy stuff with terrific action and a lot of fun
to watch. It's crazy. Yeah, it looks like it's a
going to be a treat. Yeah. Yeah. Something that I
also like about Jason Momo is like you could totally
see him writing a big seahorse like and being and
(53:33):
making it look cool and then also him stabbing dark
Side and the Yeah, he's all those things. He's he's
the rock when he's like boxing and he's also the
rock when I fall him on Instagram and he's letting
his daughter paint his nails. So that is Pen's Aquamani.
Dwayne Johnson content. You know, I enjoy his Instagram feed him.
(53:54):
Will Smith like all of the motivational off Dad's huh buff,
Dad's buff. Daddy's Yeah. I think that's a that's it
for Aman. I think if you haven't seen that c
w AT, it will be in the footnotes. It's quite
a treat. And by a treat, I mean it's horrible.
So uh but you know where can people find you?
(54:17):
Mark you? Uh yeah, you can find me on Twitter
and Instagram at Markie McCarty. That's m A r k
E I A m c c A r t Y.
Also I do fan Growing with Danny ms Danny Fernandez
and you can there's new episodes of that every Thursday.
You can see that on Facebook, um, Facebook dot com,
slash watch fan Growing. I also do Ask your Black
(54:39):
Geek Friend for Geek in Century and that is a
monthly show we've just wrapped for this year, so check
that back out in January unless you have Alpha and
then please, you know, watch some of our shows there.
And yeah, that covers the the mainly geek in comic
book and movie stuff that I'm doing right now. Uh,
(55:00):
and I am in DC Universe, Yeah that before exactly. Um,
So yeah, if you have DC Universe, and I do
recommend the subscription. It's it's comic book movies. I mean,
I go down so many rabbit holes with it is
so great. Um. I'm on d C Daily and one
of the hosts there that you will see in that
show is a Monday through Fridays. Yeah, and you know me.
(55:22):
You can find me uh if I f y n
W A d i w E on Twitter and Instagram
if he's on twitch. Y'all really came through ner Fem
hanging out mostly because Danny r T did a lot
of y'all made that a point. It was like, we
came here because of Danny Cool. I'm going to pop
in more. Wait no, not on your Twitch stream. You're
not gonna come. Okay, if you invite me over to
(55:46):
your house, I will eat your food and play with
your daughter. But also, yeah, coming the Discord That's what
she was talking about. Discord dot g G slash Salt
Squad and make sure you get that gear from t
public te public dot Com slash near difficent. We got
lots of dope gear there. Uh you know you were
able during the Black Friday to snag that nerd prem
(56:11):
hoodie or shirt if you wanted to. If you missed it,
you missed it. But there's lots of other dope stuff
you can grab. I am at ms Danny Fernandez and
we've been doing a lot of giveaways, so follow us
on Twitter because dang. We did a Doctor Who giveaway,
we did a what do we have before, we did
a Buffy the Vampire Slayer giveaway. We have more giveaways
(56:32):
coming up. I believe we have a Miles Morales giveaway
coming up. So um, just check out our Twitter because
we are We've been given the love back to y'all
for listening. Um again, if you are an Aquaman fan
and you have a comic that you love that we missed,
or a certain moment that that we missed, please let
us know kindly, or any of your fun Aquaman facts.
(56:57):
We will definitely be checking back in with this gentleman
after the movie. So yeah, but for now, this was
a good intro to our our water Boiling Water King,
our Agua senor Um, and I think as always, stay Nearty,
Nerdificent News
Hosts And Creators
Dani Fernandez
Ify Nwadiwe
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