Sunday, October 23, 2005

Sweet Sweet Cetacean Lovin'

She was big, black, and beautiful: Orca the Whalewoman.

Whoosh! Now there's the antidote a brother needs to the gumbified spaghetti-girls of the DCU (no names, please!).

Poor Orca. So unloved, so unappreciated, both on Earth-1 and Earth-Prime.

Orca was kind and generous, creating and maintaining local soup kitchens in downtrodden Gotham neighborhoods. Orca was intelligent and educated, with a Ph.D. in Marine Biology and the science to casually convert herself into a whalewoman -- and back -- in her leisure hours. Orca was beautiful, with Rubenesque charms that even steely Batman could scarely resist:

There's just that much more to grab on to and love, huh, Bruce? After years of dating anorexic starlets, skinny photojournalists, and underfed event planners, Bruce can't wait to wrap his loving arms around a woman of substance, dorsal fin notwithstanding.






My goodness, Bruce! "Calling Dr. Light! You're wanted for a consultation!" Perhaps we shouldn't be surprised at Batman's attraction to the unusual; one can only overhear so many JLA satellite conversations about sweet sweet octopus love without becoming curious about the charms of the sea.

Now, Orca did have her problems. She suffered from one of comics' most dire conditions, Eponymous Destiny. I mean, if you live in the DCU and your name is "Balin" and you're foolish enough to become a Marine Biologist specializing in cetology anyway -- well, you're asking for it. Treatment by writer Larry Hama resulted in complications: Combat Bloviation, the inability to stop talking at length about your motivations while fighting. When it developed into full-blown Combat Dialecticism, infecting Batman with extended audience-free debates about justice, society, and class conflict during table-breaking fight scenes like the ones above, triage was required.

To save Batman, both Orca and her creator Larry Hama were purged through Hypertime Therapy. In fact, if you look closely on page 146 of Crisis on Infinite Earths, you can see Larry in a crowd scene, about to be wiped out by a wall of anti-matter. Sad, really, but necessary.

Bring Orca back; Aquaman needs a crack at her!

12 comments:

Walaka said...

I stumbled across Orca on somebody's page a few weeks ago and fell in love. Thanks for the scans; I have only found one decent one and I want a wallpaper of this great character.

And a Heroclix, or whatever you call them.

And maybe a Dakin(tm) plush doll.

Anonymous said...

Ah, a sea based Society of Super Villains for Arthur! Black Manta, Orca, Killer Shark, the Fisherman...who else?

Anonymous said...

Is Ocean Master still around? I haven't been paying much attemtion lately.

Bat-Mac said...

No.

You know how much I love the Absorbascon. Right now I'm very drunk. Hopefully drunk enough to pretend I never read the last line of this post.

Orca is the reason why good friends of mine, who I can manipulate to do anything (rather like the Bat (!)), stopped buying the Bat-books. It's still mentioned, although never in polite conversation, and has resulted in violence on several occasions.

Now let us never speak of this again.

;-)

Bully said...

That first scan:

"Holy crap! She's REALLY mad at that indicia!"

Anonymous said...

What's with Supergirl's current physique? Does her metabolism work at superspeed? Maybe her invulnerability somehow increased her body's mass to the point where it's collapsing in on itself like a black hole.

Whatever it is, it's creeping me out.

Anonymous said...

It seems like there is a mandate to make the current Supergirl look like Calista Flockhart, and hell yes, its creepy. I remember all my straight friends at the height of her popularity saying, "God, someone buy that girl some dinner and get her into anti-bulimia therapy, please."

Captain Infinity said...

Power Girl has nothing on Orca.

Devon Sanders said...

Character donations WILL return with a donation sure to rock The Intranet!

Scipio said...

What, Devon, no criticisms of Orca?

You've got something AGAINST big beautiful black woman, don't you?! I bet you like those skinny manga types...!

Axel M. Gruner said...

Well, at least she's mammal.

Anonymous said...

Tch. "Ohh no, what a ridiculous character, we can't possibly let her into this book, will somebody think of the children, etc."

For the love of Pete, are you people aware you're reading a book with Killer Croc in it? Give the big gal a break.