Once upon a time, there was Aquaman. And comics fans looked down upon Aquaman, and they saw that he was Good.
Well, not good exactly, but tolerable. In that way that, like, Poindexter from Revenge of the Nerds was tolerably entertaining. Sure, Poindexter wasn’t Lewis or Anthony Edwards or Booger or Takashi or the gay black guy, but when he was onscreen, you didn’t actively hate him. Like you hated Ogre. Oooooh, how we all hated Ogre! Until he became a good guy in the sequel. Or like how we hated Ted McGinley’s smug jock, until in the third movie (yes, there was a third movie, and a fourth! They even got James Cromwell to come back for the fourth movie? Why? Blackmail!) when we found out that secretly he liked using MS Office.
I am getting away from my point here, which is that although Poindexter was not particularly compelling or anything as characters go, it was funny when his crotch went up and down of its own accord. And then he played electric violin and that was pretty cool.
Anyhow, Aquaman is like the Poindexter of the DC universe. He is not a nerd or anything (he will kick your ass underwater and sometimes his hand is a hook, and do you want to gamble that you get him on a no-hook day? I thought not), but there is no large group of Aquafans desperately demanding the return of Topo as the aquatic equivalent of a furry or anything like that. (Although we did in fact get that.) People just say “huh, Aquaman, all right then.”
I am still getting away from my point here, which really has little to do with Aquaman per se because this is about the Marine Marauder. Who is kind of like Aquaman, but with breasts because she is a woman person. And, interestingly – according to her writeup, anyhow – a lazy one, too! Because it looks like she didn’t invent her powers (talking to fish – sorry, “commanding sealife”), but instead stole them from her brother, who was also the Marine Marauder, although presumably not one with breasts. (Unless he is out of shape.) You would think that a Who’s Who writeup would try to explain these things more definitively, wouldn’t you? I mean, I bet if you touched Roy Thomas with this issue, he would start to burn upon contact, just because it’s so vague.
(Geoff Johns, meanwhile, would become compelled to explain how the Marine Marauder fits into his 328957-part History Of Everything In The DC Universe Ever.)
But I like Marine Marauder. Because she is a girl who decided, from an early age, that she wanted to be rich without doing any work, and so chose the obvious path of becoming a marine biologist and then using fish to rob cruise ships. I’m sorry, but any girl who decides upon that on a life path has to be insane in bed, and as we all know, the only reasonable capacity for judging the value of a female fictional character is how good she would be in the sack. (Especially when her costume essentially consists of arrows pointing at her erogenous zones.) Hence:
Also she has a nice costume, and pretty hair. Why does her costume have a mohawk on it when she has nice hair? That doesn’t make sense. Someone get her a personal shopper.
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>>I’m sorry, but any girl who decides upon that on a life path has to be insane in bed, and as we all know, the only reasonable capacity for judging the value of a female fictional character is how good she would be in the sack. (Especially when her costume essentially consists of arrows pointing at her erogenous zones.)
I know I’d hit that.
Mean to add that the statement above is both funny and sad for the same reason: it’s true.
God, reading her motivation is like wading through the worst Mary Sue origin fanfic ever. At what point did people need elaborate reasons for becoming supervillains? At what point did you have to explain yourself in 500 words, 10 point font, double space paragraphs?
All right, she’s an evil girl Aquaman and I can get behind that. And the costume kind of works if you replace the mohawk with a proper fin. But I don’t think I’d want to hear her talk. I don’t she has anything interesting to say.
And she obviously can’t fight her natural antagonist, Aquaman, because Aquaman has the same powers as her AND he’s kind of Atlantis AND he’s strong enough to fist fight Wonder Woman. And she might get into a conversation with Black Manta.
I don’t think any of us want that.
Maybe the mohawk is supposed to make her look a bit umm… sharky? Sharkesque?
Is Black Manta still a black supremacist?
I have to say, i do dig the mohawk. A woman with a hairstyle like that gets definite plus points from me.
“Is Black Manta still a black supremacist?”
Was Black Manta ever a full-on black supremacist? I thought he just prescribed to an even sillier-than-usual version of Back To Africa.
Well, this is an appropriate choice — especially considering I now have that ‘Submarines’ song from the other day stuck in my head, and must keep playing that clip — *damn you*, MGK! 😉
I agree with most of the other people here. The Mohawk is not necessary – a fin would be better. Or yes, just show off your own hair.
But since she first appeared in the Outsiders, she must be a Mike Barr villain. And with New Wave, Barr established a semi-precedent that female villains with water themes *must* rock the Mohawk.
Yes, the origin sounds very Mary-Sueish. But I like how they mention how her powers don’t allow her to control anything ‘more intelligent than sea life’. Rather sneeringly, in my opinion.
Considering ‘sea life’ contains things like whales and squid — which are highly intelligent as I understand — that isn’t deserved.
NCallahan: I can respect her motivation. Mainly because it’s the same as the Shocker; “I don’t want to work, but I want to be rich.” So they develop the equipment (Shocker himself, MM by investing in the tech) and using it to commit robberies. Granted, she doesn’t have the power to take on Aquaman, especially not hook-hand Aquaman, but that doesn’t mean she can’t work as a villian. In fact pitting her against the Outsiders was probably the right idea. The more powerful members have to deal with the sealife she sends after them, while she can tackle the weaker members. And the costume isn’t that bad either. The mohawk works, strangely enough. Makes me think of the Marvel villain Tiger Shark though.
Is it still a mohawk when she’s underwater?
The last sentence on the page says why she has the mohawk on the costume instead of the pretty hair.
57% Rex seemed a bit high, but then I realized, hey, have you MET our humble narrator?
“But I don’t think I’d want to hear her talk. I don’t she has anything interesting to say.”
I bet she sounds like flipper. or snorky….
I think she needs to lose some points. Because MGK fails to point out she isn’t an AQUAMAN foe. She’s an OUTISIDERS foe. Her giant octopus is crushing friggen’ Geo-force there. If you fight the Outsiders and they DON’T have Batman then you’re pretty damn lame…
“The Marine Marauder’s powers enabled her to control all manner of sea life.”
There is nothing in this sentence that implies she could not control Aquaman.
Also…
“I’d always had a talent for oceanography…”
How the hell do you find that out? I mean, that’s not like ‘I’ve always had a talent for throwing shit’ or ‘I’ve always had a talent for kicking ass’, which you could conceivably happen upon while wasting time in the playground at school. It sounds like she was just drifting around an… I don’t know, oceanographic laboratory, and she played with some crap she found lying around and, whoops, accidentally discovered a new system for tracking the mating habits of sperm whales.
“There is nothing in this sentence that implies she could not control Aquaman.”
…..the Marine Marauder has suddenly become 90% sexier.
Marine Marauder has a cameo, like just about everyone else in the DCU, in one of Alan Davis’ The Nail books. Partnered up or perhaps dating Ocean Master. I don’t think that helps her, really.
NCallahan: ““There is nothing in this sentence that implies she could not control Aquaman.”
…..the Marine Marauder has suddenly become 90% sexier.”
This shows a peak into your psyche that I really didn’t need to know about.
“Was Black Manta ever a full-on black supremacist? I thought he just prescribed to an even sillier-than-usual version of Back To Africa.”
I think he was in that Alex Ross thingamabobber. Justice, maybe? Or maybe he was just kind of batshit insane, because he was willing to kill Aquaman’s son and other black people were like, “dude, no. That’s wrong.” and then Black Manta was going to kill everyone or something. I try not to remember it too much because the series gave Aquaman a healing factor and had Captain Marvel talking in space.
What, the Big Red Cheese can’t take a few lessons from Batman now?
(It’s lame, it’s been done to death, but it still amuses me)
I think its also the fact that she’s not wearing orange underwater that makes her slightly better than Aquaman.
To those that collect Marvel: Has Hydroman ever fought against Namor underwater?
A stupid question: her entry above doesn’t make mention of an ability to breathe underwater. Considering her whole sea schtick, wouldn’t she probably drown sooner or later? You think she’d pack some sort of rebreather apparatus, or a SCUBA tank, or a snorkel, for cryin’ out loud.
Topo? When did they bring back Top… Oh God, it’s hideous!
‘A stupid question: her entry above doesn’t make mention of an ability to breathe underwater. Considering her whole sea schtick, wouldn’t she probably drown sooner or later? You think she’d pack some sort of rebreather apparatus, or a SCUBA tank, or a snorkel, for cryin’ out loud.’ – Given how her costume offers absolutely no protection at all, it seems she’s some sort of metahuman fishperson, really.
She’s totally lying about her weight, unless she has hollow fish bones.
Dude, Aquaman is awesome. Everything under the water he owns. He’s not scared of Batman since he fought sharks when he was like 9. He’s had one of the toughest lives of anyone in the DC universe, he knows he’s not as strong as Superman and HE DOESN’T CARE. He will punch you in the throat anyway.
@Megh: I guess only the ladies were thinking this? Because that was my first impression when I saw her stats.
@Sofa King: Aquaman once counted to infinity… twice.
From what I’ve read, I don’t think Namor and Hydro-Man have… met. It could be interesting, but Namor is such a pompous ass that I don’t think he’d give two shits. I mean, wasn’t Hydro-Man defeated by evaporating him? This is based on the ’90s cartoon, though, so maybe not?? The other thing is that Namor was kind of “brought back” (the character was created before Aquaman which is as old as the sun practically) as a legitimate character rather recently, so Spider-Man crossovers haven’t really happened with the character aside from inclusion in “Civil War”. There was a cartoon, and an independent comic from the ’30s through WW2, plus some comics in the ’80s and a few mini-series, the 1602 sequel (sucked), and I think a thing with the Inhumans; plus the function as a Fantastic Four villain/lady-tempter. Now there is a new independent series running (ran?) and the Illuminati comics. Namor had the potential to be a really fascinating character, but a lot of crappy writing and even a little decent writing that just wasn’t good enough happened. (This is utter vanity, because as a mixed-race American, I think it’s cool to see mixed-race characters that aren’t a “mix” of the stereotypes of the individual aspects of their racial makeup, and tend to overestimate potential readership based on perceived quality.)