On the New Aquaman

 

Well, here's some good news.

"The announcement of the first new ongoing Aquaman comic book series since the end of the Kelly Sue DeConnick-written run in November, 2020 came during DC’s Absolute/All In Universes panel at New York Comic Con 2024. The series will be written by Green Lantern scribe Jeremy Adams, with art by John Timms; the title will launch January 8, 2025."

Apparently Aquaman will not only be back, but Better Than Ever.

Like any sensible person, I skipped the "Absolute Power" crossover. An upside of it, however, seems to be that if you take everyone's powers "away" for a bit...

Don't you hate it when that happens?
The idea that "powers" are these magical abstractions that can be added and subtracted, rather than natural results of particular physiologies and circumstances is really too absurd even for comics, but... we are stuck with it.

...you can give them BACK in whatever form you want.

In the immortal words of that villain of villains, The Hooded Claw:
"How TERRIBLY convenient!"

There are probably several (many?) characters who are being polished with this plot device; today, we discuss only Aquaman, who, FINALLY, is getting some form of hydrokinesis. We know this not simply from the cover image about, but from solicits.

Each of the seven seas? There's a kaiju in the Adriatic Sea? I'm just going to assume you don't mean the Classical seven seas, but are using "the seven seas" to mean "all the oceans". 

That solicit refers, interestingly, to Dagon (historically a one-off hydrokinetic foe of Aquaman).

With a snarky attitude and really questionable taste in swimwear.

It also refers to "The Blue" (also sometimes called "The Clear", because of course water isn't really BLUE), an aquatic parallel of "The Green" (the force that Swamp Thing accesses to control plant life) introduced in comics in 1995, but not discussed a lot since its initial introduction.

So, it sounds like this new writer, Jeremy Adams (whom the internet seems to love but I've never heard of), is using this opportunity to tie Aquaman back into some forgotten pieces of his lore, rather than crazily blasting off in some new, outré direction.

I mean, you'd have to be a fool or a monster to do that.

I am certainly happy that Aquaman will return to comics, and to finally see him get some form of water manipulation power.

Which he has had in several other media instantiations.

Because this means that Aquaman will at last have:

BALLS!

Filmation Studios (makers of the '60s Aquaman cartoon) knew instinctively what Aquaman needed to round out his power set: a ranged attack that didn't require FISH. 

Not that that power isn't awesome, mind you.

A bottomless source of aquatic batarangs with which to wallop enemies.  And so he had his hard water balls.

I know there are some Mera-stans who think hydrokinesis should be Mera's schtick, alone.  But if you look closely, Aquaman's used of HK has always been more limited and specific than Mera's. Without belaboring the details, Mera's HK works at a distance and on a larger (and finer) scale .  Aquaman's HK always works the same way: he can use it to create a smallish simple weapon he's holding.  One assumes his hard-water balls have a limited distance or time they can travel away from him before they dissipate. 

It's perfectly reasonable for Arthur to have a simpler, more limited version of this power, in the same way that not all characters with "superspeed" or "superstrength" or "telepathy" have the same kind or degree of that power.

That discussed, there is another aspect of this cover that I want to point out and it's just as ingenious and overdue from an artistic standpoint as the HK is for the purposes of plot.

Ask a gay person what color those pants and gloves are; they will NOT say "green".

This cover does a great job of narrowing the color palette to create a more iconic image. But the key is the main change he has made in order to do so: the formerly green parts of Aquaman's costume are now AQUAMARINE.

Aquamarine is not green. Neither is it blue. Nor, for that matter, clear.

THAT CHANGE makes Aquaman's color scheme click into place.  Because while 'orange and green' are not the most natural color combination, 

(which, as Rousseau knew, evokes the jungle, not the sea)

"orange and aquamarine" not only look very complementary, but evoke a maritime environment.

After over 80 years, that single cover image has solved Aquaman's " costume problem". 

A fresh take on Aquaman by a popular creative team who know how to synthesize a new interpretation that takes some of the best aspects from previous versions, integrating them thematically and visually with his environment?  

Sign me up.

Superman's Costume

 

Okay, I'm going to address this issue (the teaser pic from the upcoming Superman film) to get it out of my system. I am possibly the only DC comics fan who has NOT read any of the debate about this. But I have seen the HEADLINES of those articles enough to keep me aware of the issue.

Before I address the photo, I have to remind us of something about Superman's outfit:

It's a costume.

That may seem like a dumb statement of the obvious, but let me explain.  My point is that it is not a "combat suit" (such as Batman and other non-super characters favor, out of necessity). 

Some combat outfits are tactical.
Other are mostly ... strategic.

The man's invulnerable; the idea of a suit that "aids" him in combat is absurd. The only outfit that could possibly "aid" him in combat would be his birthday suit, since the fewer clothes he has on the faster he should be able to soak up solar energy.

That's what the Metropolis Prurient Scientific Society would prefer.

It's not a "disguise" (as are superhero outfits with masks).  Superman does want to keep his private identity secret, but he doesn't really rely on his heroing outfit to do that.  He relies on his super-thespianism and the idea that no one really has any reason to suspect that Superman even HAS a civilian identity.  

Now THAT is a disguise.

It's not a "uniform", such as the original X-Men wore to designate their status a members of a team,

Except for the guy running around apparently (mostly?) naked like he's a gay porn star.  
Must be an influencer.

or like those coordinated but individualized uniforms the Athramites designed for the Legion.

I love the Athramites.
If you do not know the Athramites, you have been deprived.

Uniforms, after all, are for characters who are known principally as members of a team, not merely incidentally.

The dumbest part about the New 52 Justice League was giving three of them the SAME COLLAR to give them more of a team look.  As if Hal, Arthur, and Clark go SHOPPING together.

No, it is costume, which he puts on for his "performances" as Superman (because, as previously discussed, Superman is essentially a circus performer).  

With all that in mind, let's examine the missteps in the photo of the film costume.

The costume does not seem well designed for the costume's purpose.  In contrast to, say, Batman's outfit, the purpose of Superman's costume is to make him very visible: a circus performer must be SEEN.  And clearly visible from a distance.

This iconic sequence of utterances conveys this need perfectly.

Superman needs to be as visible as possible so that people can be inspired by his presence and comforted by his arrival on the scene.  The movie costume doesn't shy away from the inherent color contrast in Superman's colors, but they have made them rather dark. The colors are right, but the hues are wrong, in that the fail to serve the costume's actual purpose.  That's misstep #1.

Misstep #2 is the texture.  The movie costume is all line-ified and Braille-bumpy.

Superman is a superhero, not a sofa, and does not require "texture".  This added complexity is not merely unnecessary, it is distracting.

For 25 years I was a performer on stage with a large chorus.  Often we were reminded to focus less on "adding" to the performance than on "subtracting" anything that would distract the audience. It was a process of working to remove moves or notes or vocal occurrences that might "stick out" from the whole, and distract the audience from the entirety of the performance.

So, too, should be the approach to Superman's performances as Superman.  His outfit already has a cape, and pants with a belt over a leotard, a chest emblem, those funky books and sometimes funky sleeves.  No additions are welcome, certain not detail that is completely invisible to the crowd of citizens who is the audience for his deeds.  Superman is not a complex character.  He may have lots of powers, but part of his appeal and staying power is just how simple a concept he is.  Anything that veers away from that simplicity is counter purposeful.

No counterargument based in some cobbled together movie lore can prevail. "Well, it's a Kryptonian garb that blah blah blah."  These are merely post hoc justifications for an aesthetic misstep and I will not dignify them with refutation; they are simply to be dismissed.

I do NOT deem the movie costume's collar as a misstep.  Yes, Superman's outfit traditionally  has an open neckline evocative of the shirts worn by circus strongmen.

But, other than showing how thick his neck is, that element of his costume serves no purpose but as a historical reference, and if someone wants to use a more natural and modern collar style, I see no reason to object strongly.

Also, I give a thumb's UP to the chest logo.  It looks BOTH like an alien symbol AND an image that any user of the Roman alphabet would perceive as an "S".  It's a fine line to tow, and they seemed to have done an excellent job on it, especially as it is MORE abstract than we have often seen, and so is in keeping with my views of the need for simplicity in Superman's costume.

Now for the blocking of the photo.  Look, I'm all for subverting expectations here and there to freshen up a literary property.  

For example, John Byrne's revivification of the Kents in his reboot of Superman became obvious only in retrospect; they had been DEAD in every other version of Superman (no, Superboy doesn't count).  

But this relaxed boot-donning pose is a severe misstep. Superman was mean to be a man of action; it's LITERALLY the title of the comic he started in.  And this putting on his boot pensively while sitting down is just about as inactive a pose as you could find outside a Hopper painting. Personally, the only thing I can think when looking at him in this pose is William Moulton Marston's fetish about Wonder Woman putting on her boots.

Showing Superman slowly putting on one boot like he's about to walk the dog in the rain, with no sign of urgency, concern, or even awareness of the disaster befalling Metropolis behind isn't some fresh interp, it's possibly the most aggressively out of character pose I can imagine.

Trite though it might seem after 90 years, there is a reason that THIS is our consistent image of Superman going into action. People are in DANGER and, superspeed notwithstanding, Superman LEAPS into action to save them, before even having finished his costume change, because there is no time to waste while lives are in danger.

And these are only the criticisms of the scene's symbolism.  There are also cogent, in-universe, fanboy logistical objections that are hard to dismiss.  Superman can FLY.  He is often depicted floating in mid-air simply because he CAN (and it leaves him more ready to act).  Why on earth is he SITTING DOWN to put his boot on?!  That's how humans do it because we can't defy gravity through force of will. 

Perhaps the creators of this film thought that the emphasis on him putting on his costume was a good way of highlighting the costume. However, as far as I call tell, it only seems to highlight much they simply don't get what Superman is about, not merely to me, but to most people.