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[[File:aquaman.jpg|frame]]
''[[Trope Codifier|The]]'' [[Our Mermaids Are Different|Aquatic]] [[Superhero]].
'''Aquaman''' (AKA Arthur Curry AKA Orin) is a [[DC Comics]] [[Superhero]] with water-based powers. He's probably [[Ink Stain Adaptation|best known for his]] ''[[Superfriends]]'' appearances, the [[What Kind of Lame Power Is Heart, Anyway?|lame nature]] of that version's powers and the fact that he is in practically every episode, whether this makes sense or not ("What's that? Trouble in the desert? Come on team, we haven't a moment to lose! And let's bring Aquaman with us; his ability to breathe underwater and talk to fish are ''sure'' to be useful there!"). In essence, having him take part in anything whatsoever was sort of the super-powered equivalent to [[Pity Sex]].
Said [[Superfriends]] persona also appears in a [[Needs More Love|highly-unknown]] ([[No Export for You|only released in]] [[Latin America]]) official parody series called [[Aquaman and Friends Action Hour]], which resembles [[Space Ghost Coast to Coast]].
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Aquaman now has a [[Aquaman/Characters|developing Character sheet.]]
{{tropenamer}}
* [[This Looks Like a Job For Aquaman]]: the [[Trope Namer]], most noticeable in the ''Superfriends'' cartoon.
{{tropelist}}
* [[A Nazi by Any Other Name]]: Atlanteans, [[Punctuated! For! Emphasis!|In SPADES]]. No matter how they preach about wanting nothing to do with the surface world, it always boils down to them returning to [[Kill All Humans]] and/or anyone in their society with [[Hates Everyone Equally|marine life deformities]] somewhere down the line given their unstable and flimsy way of life. {{spoiler|It is any wonder how they survived themselves for ass long as they did}}. Either thinking they are [[Entitled Bastard|at liberty]] to retake a world they'ed long since abandoned. Or are simply a prideful, narcissistic and war mongering sort with a fascist hatred of anything not of they're culture.
* [[Advanced Ancient Acropolis]]: Atlantis.
* [[Already Met Everyone]]: Superboy, anyway, in the Silver Age as "Aquaboy," Earth-One's sole other superpowered superhero during Superboy's time-era. Yes, the Silver Age Aquaman was an active hero longer than nearly everyone else, even [[Batman]].
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* [[Black Shirt]]: Many of Atlantis's elite warriors tend to veer into this on account of most of their staff being hateful, xenophobic assholes who despise airbreather culture and the surface born kingly hero who descends from it. More often than not whenever there's a [[Democracy Is Bad|sudden regime change that threatens the whole world]], many such naval teams such as '''The Drift'''. The elite forces of the Atlantean Royal Fleet in the ''New 52/Rebirth'', often side with the latest harebrained scheme of the [[Tyrant Takes the Helm|current idiot]] said moronic populace of the [[Hidden Elf Village]] elected to lead them and their world straight off a cliff.
* [[Blond Guys Are Evil|Blonds]] [[Blondes Are Evil|Are Evil]]: Atlanteans believe blond hair to be a curse.
** This is played straight with Kordax (Atlanteans refer to blond hair as the "Curse of Kordax") and subverted with Atlan (Aquaman's father, [[Post-Crisis]]).
** Going further back in time, Shalako and Orin I, first princes of Tritons and Atlantis. Orin I was dark-haired, Shalako was a blonde. Orin I was a good scientist, Shalako an evil wizard. On the next generation, Dardanus, Shalako's son, was blonde and every bit as twisted as his father, Cora, Orin's daughter, was a brunette and as good natured as her parents. Furthermore, Shalako and Dardanus did everything they could to make Orin and Cora's lives miserable.
** Son'a, the kind
** Again played straight and around the time Atlantis was a sunken city, Gamemnae; an evil sorceress who was exiled at birth due to paranoid superstition. Eventually she really did become such and such upon her return, growing up into a [[Sorcerous Overlord]] pretending to be a helpful liberator looking to conquer the world in [[Joe Kelly]]'s run in JLA.
* [[Boomerang Bigot]]: The whole Surfacer/Atlantean conflict can be seen as one massive go around of this. As the Atlantean species were formerly human themselves before magic and their own misbegotten ways turned them all into waterbreathers. Extra points go towards [[The Neidermeyer|Urcell]] who comments about Atlanteans who undergo sea change stop being Atlantean and become undesirables simply because they adapt marine life attributes. Particularly when [[Unfit for Greatness|Korum Rath]]'s dabbling in forbidden magic turns him into an actual, factual powerhungry monster that she calls him out on [[Hypocrisy|not being human anymore]].
* [[Burn the Witch]]: A mindset that many Atlanteans grew into after the ''Day of Vengeance'' event. While adjusting to the transfer from their ruined home to Sub Diego, the battered people often turned their ire for the destruction of their home on the powerless mages who lost their magic in the aftermath.
* [[Cain and Abel]]: Aquaman's enemy Orm, the Ocean Master.
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* [[Fantastic Racism]]: Surprisingly, many people within Atlantis hold great contempt for people of their own societal standing, not just of surface dwellers.
** in Pre/Post Crisis, it was the reason that Arthur was left abandoned on Mercy Reef after he was born. It was as much a matter of his hybrid nature, being both human and atlantean; as it was superstitious belief due to his being born with blonde hair. This negative trait is also shared between the neighboring cities of Poseidonis and Tritonis, wherein the latter of the two is ruled and manned by actual menfolk with fish-like tails or other sea life traits.
** In a similar vein, both Post Crisis/Flashpoint, Atlanteans with purple eyes were hunted and persecuted by their fellow atlanteans out of the superstitious fear that those with eyes like they'res would doom Atlantis to ruin. One such Atlantean was taken in as the Sidekick of King Orin at an early age, whom would one day grow up to be a great hero and king of Atlantis in his own right. While a couple of these Purple eye were found and sheltered by the Atlantean defector Atlanna, and taken to the extra-dimensional island of Pacifica where they'ed built they're own society AWAY from the constraining idiot laws of Atlantis.
** Though it is negligible in New 52 publications of Aquaman comics, the feelings of bigoted speciesism shows up more in Rebirth publishing by the time of story arcs such as ''Crown of Thorns'' and ''Throne of Atlantis''. Where deep social inequality both within Atlantis and
* [[Fantastic Slurs]]: Atlantean culture is rife with nasty little
* [[Fish Out of Water]]: Possibly the most literal example in history. Played for laughs in JLA: Year One.
* [[Funny Animal]]: "Aquaduck," a [[Funny Animal]] duck counterpart who lives on the parallel world of "Earth-C-Minus" (a [[Funny Animal]] version of the mainstream DCU), and is part of his world's "JLA" (the "[[Captain Carrot and His Amazing Zoo Crew|Just'a Lotta Animals]]").
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* [[Gullible Lemmings]]: Atlantean culture is mired in an atrocious history of [[Unfit for Greatness|following the wrong guy]] down a dark path. Usually after a cabal of racist jerks supporting him or her work [[Apathetic Citizens|said ingrates]] into ousting [[The Good King|Arthur]], only to lead them all down the path to isolation and ruin.
* [[Hair of Gold]]: Aquaman
** [[Hair of Gold, Heart of Gold]]: Again, Arthur/Orin to a tee.
** Aquaman's mother Atlanna (pre-Crisis)
* [[Half-Human Hybrid]]
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* [[In a Single Bound]]: Being fully adapted to live in the pressure of the deepest sea trenches, Aquaman and Mera while on surface are both able to leap miles at at time through the air, with [[Incredible Hulk]]-like jumps.
* [[In-Series Nickname]]: While Mera found that amusing during the '60s run, a slight annoyance in the '90s, she's now shown as completely fed up at the amount of people calling her ''Aquawife'' or ''Aquawoman'', and ready to snap towards them whether they use the unwanted fan nickname in her presence.
* [[Jerkass Has a Point]]: A couple of the more antagonistic entities in the world of Aquaman tend to list the faults and flaws of both humanity and the mariner races of Atlantis. Usually, they tend to be spot on about them too.
** The Abyssal Dark, a malefic arcane force spawned by pre-history Atlantean sorcerers who became overly reliant upon magic as opposed to science. Jabbed at the Atlanteans for being a stagnant pack of idiots too the hideously mutated King Rath whose dabbling in it's power put all of his hideousness out in the open for all too see.
** Namma, A.K.A. Mother Salt, a [[Jerkass Gods|powerful and hideously vindictive]] Primordial Deity. Held endless contempt for her own divine spawn and all of their creations for murdering her husband eons prior to the dawn of man. She spited them all as fools and malcontents for wasting their energy garnering the faith in [[Humans Are Insane|worthless mortals]] whom eventually forgot about them over the millennia.
* [[Kraken and Leviathan]]: He's been called on to fight these things a few times. For obvious reasons, Aquaman can deal with them on a much more level playing field.
* [[Love Redeems]]: Mera, post [[Brightest Day]]. Raised as little more than an assassin, her only purpose in life enacting her people's revenge towards Atlantis, she was meant to get close to the then-current Atlantis' king and start tearing apart the undersea kingdom from behind. However, she found Aquaman noble, gentle and likeable, [[Becoming the Mask|becoming an affectionate wife]] and a heroine on her own.
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** [[Memetic Mutation|PLATE]][[Large Ham|LET!]]
** And no one can forget Tusky the Walrus in the [[Filmation]] series (who even made a brief appearance in the [[New Titans]] comic) — though God knows I've tried.
* [[Never My Fault]]: Atlanteans tend to have a nasty little habit of turning on one another or blaming someone else for their faults whenever Atlantis is destroyed and their lives end in ruins as a result of their own poor choices. Case in point, after Atlantis was destroyed during '''Day of Vengeance''' the survivors turned their anger on the magicians who lost their powers as a result of which. Thinking it was they're dabbling in the forbidden craft that drew the Spectre's ire {{spoiler|[[Jerkass Has a Point|which actually was the case]]}}. As if letting a [[Fantasy Axis of Evil|arcane shadow government]] takeover, whom motivated them into [[Apathetic Citizens|having Arthur exiled and death sentenced for saving them from being enslaved by their jerkass ancestors]] in the Obsidian Age afterwards. And that was just the latest in a long, [[Punctuated!
* [[Our Mermaids Are Different]]: There are pretty much three different distinct varieties of Atlantean in Aquaman's oceans. Poseidonians - the [[Apparently Human Merfolk]] like Aquaman and most of the other Atlanteans. Tritonaians - your mermaids and mermen like Lori Lemaris. And an unnamed race of [[Fish People]] like Lagoon Boy, the animated version of Triton, or the revamped Topo. In ''[[Superman]] #129'', [http://superman.nu/tales2/lori/?page=9 it was established] that when scientists learned that Atlantis was sinking, they built a giant dome over the city, then later found a way to convert the populace into merfolk. As to why this has anything to do with Aquaman, ''[[Adventure Comics]] #280'' [http://4.bp.blogspot.com/_rLV-ZuNPwJ4/S4OS6tRoq7I/AAAAAAAAGwc/t8U5w2aqgac/s1600-h/Adventure280_06.jpg tells] that not everyone became merfolk successfully, thus a domed city remained necessary. This origin was later retconned in ''The Atlantis Chronicles'', where is clearly stated that the acquatic serum was never meant to convert Atlanteans into merfolks, but rather to merely give them the ability to breathe water and thrive in the ocean. The merfolk came to be much later as an accident, when Shalako, a villainous wizard-prince of Atlantis, just to spite his scientist brother, [[A Wizard Did It|tampered with the special serum used to achieve the transformation]], turning his denizens into frog-legged humans, who later gave birth to the current merfolk. So, while every Atlantean city was originally domed, some of them got the domes dismantled for the benefit of the merfolks. Curiously, the [[Fish People]] of Atlantis have yet to be given either an official name or origin story in the entirety of the franchise's history.
* [[Overshadowed by Awesome]]: For all the grief that pop culture gives him, Aquaman is by no means a lightweight - command over all sea-life, de-facto leader of the oceans and super-strength among other qualities. Problem is, he regularly hangs out with powerhouses like [[Superman]] and [[Wonder Woman]].
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* [[Required Secondary Powers]]: Due to being adapted for life deep underwater as well as dry land Aquaman has basically won the [[Superpower Lottery]]: He's strong and tough to the point where he can lift around 20 tons, has several [[Super Senses]], is very fast, and his telepathic abilities are as strong as (if not stronger than) the [[Martian Manhunter]].
** Aquaman is actually far above twenty tons, both in and out of water. And he's even admitted J'onn is the more powerful telepath
* [[Rewarded as a Traitor Deserves]]: Happens often in this series given how many times Atlantis's [[Ungrateful Townsfolk|idiot citizenship]] betray Aquaman and put some [[Tyrant Takes the Helm|worthless asshat]] on the seat of crown and country.
* [[Rogues Gallery Transplant]]: The Shark and King Shark started out menacing Green Lantern and [[Superboy]], respectively.
* [[Running Gag]]: Aquaman's love of hot dogs. This led to a hilarious moment when he was forced to see a doctor for an unrelated issue, and told he should be eating more fish.
** Atlantis's constant destruction and rebuilding by the people who indirectly destroy it with their racism, persecution, warmongering and incredibly poor choices [[Democracy Is Bad|in leadership selection]] only to [[Never My Fault|reassign blame]] on others for their infinite lack of common sense.
* [[Ruthless Modern Pirates]]: Aquaman often clashes with pirates.
** Black Manta himself is a submarine pirate.
* [[Screw You, Elves]]: Atlantis and
* [[Sidekick]]: The Aqualads and Aquagirls.
* [[Straw Hypocrite]]: A lot of that going around within the oceanic cultures of the world. In the ''Sink Atlantis'' arc the very same hateful people of the now risen Atlantis, whom spent the better part of 20-30 issues. As well as thousands of years before that, holding the Ninth Tride slums in contempt for being a nesting ground of criminals and undesirables; e.i.
** It is especially telling how a single minded tribe with [[Hidden Elf Village]] tendencies often sneer at surface folk when they themselves are merely [[Boomerang Bigot|altered humans who adapted to life under the sea]]. Considering the illustrious history of [[Arson, Murder, and Jaywalking|incest, rape, slavery, corruption, patricide, fratricide, infanticide, familicide, attempted genocide and the like]]; found in the high court of the nations monarchy and the lowliest citizenship of the [[Wretched Hive]] said shithole that the city often devolves into.
** In Aquaman Vol. 7 #18, [[Inspector Javert|Commander Murk]] once commented on how humans used scavenged Atlantean weapons tech bought and sold on the Black Market to murder and pillage one another, as if using their fallacies to justify his own [[Misanthropy]]. Yet in the Aquaman Vol 8 story line Crown of Thorns and beyond, it's revealed all Atlantis and it's people have ever done for years is try and persecute members of their own society based on birth, ethnicity and personal appearance. During the [[Tyrant Takes the Helm|regime of Corum Rath]], the Drift were reworked into death camp contractors with orders to round up and murder any/all taintblood civilians within the lower trides of the city.
* [[Speaks Fluent Animal]]: Only a few amongst the seafarer population possess the ability to commune with marine life, for Atlantean royals, like Aquaman. It is they're birthright.
** [[Technology From Magic]]: In other cases, both humans and Atlanteans have replicated Arthur's marine telepathy through a form of advanced science or [[Magitek]] to control the various sea creatures of the DC universe.
* [[Super Strength]]: His super-strength is often underestimated, but to drive the point home, a minor science fact. At it's deepest regions the sea has a pressure of 8 tons per square inch, the weight of forty-eight 747 Boeing jets. And this is for every inch of water on either side, above, and below you, in all directions as far as you can see. Aquaman not only survives this without exploding like a tube of toothpaste in a pressure cooker, he is strong enough under water to do things like lift an entire city block of San Diego to prevent it from sinking. Since he doesn't explosively decompress when he gets out of water like most deep sea animals do, he is keeping back the weight of the ocean with his ''muscles'', so being on land would actually make him ''STRONGER'' because he's not "holding back" the weight of the entire ocean, sort of like a human being's greatly amplified lifting strength from being on the lesser gravity of the moon. The new Geoff Johns run even draws this visual parallel with his massive [[In a Single Bound]] jumps.
** Used in [[Geoff Johns]]'s run to show just how serious Aquaman and Mera can get.
*** Just as a warming up, Aquaman lifts with ease an armored truck on his own head, impaling it on his snazzy trident.
*** Mera grabs a would-to-be abuser's arm and gives him just a light squeeze. That's enough
* [[The Chew Toy]]: In more than a way.
** Aquaman's life, after the ''Superfriends'' screwed his reputation, has spiraled into a long series of blunders and humiliations. In order: he lost his beloved son, was left by his wife (who, by the way, started to openly loathe and hate him, berating him for A.J.'s death with every breath), was exiled again from Atlantis with no apparent reason, got his left hand eaten by piranhas, pursued a relationship with a [[Cute Mute]] aquatic girl who later became noticeably less mute and somewhat less cute (trying to kill him because of a major [[Mind Screw]], leaving him for Tempest), became king again and got back Mera just to be later exiled, cursed and left to die by Atlantean Wizards, became the Champion of the Lady of the Lake and major of a city of modern waterbreathers just to be forced to trade his humanoid looks and sanity for keeping them alive, died while grooming his successor, was called back as a soulless inanimated corpse, was resurrected to have his hand lopped off (again) and was unwillingly turned into the new Water Elemental. He got better every time, but that's not the point.
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* [[Thematic Rogues Gallery]]: Most of Aquaman's enemies are involved with water and the ocean in one form or another.
* [[To Hell and Back]]: Near the end of PAD's run, Triton has killed Poseidon and is kicking the crap out of Aquaman and friends. Aquaman lets Triton kill him, so he can get to the afterlife. Once there, he decks Charon, rallies the souls who didn't have boatfare, jacks Charon's boat, runs Charon over with his own boat, storms the literal Gates of Hell, cuts off one of Cerberus' heads, marches right up to Pluto and demands Poseidon back, ultimately convincing Hades with a very solid [[Batman Gambit]]. On his way out, Cerberus is back, and Aquaman has just one word for the titanic guardian of the underworld: [[Crowning Moment of Awesome|Stay.]]
* [[Too Dumb to Live]]: Atlanteans, again, in full. Every time they try to elect a new leader over [[The Good King|Arthur]] due to their fascist narrow mindedness and equally simpleminded hatred, fear and petty racism of the surface world. They're penchant for electing bigoted, ignorant, self-serving jackasses who [[Unfit for Greatness|cause twice as much damage to their crapsuck nation]] in a few seconds than most of mankind has done to the world in billions of years really begs the question how the people of these assbackwards nameless nations have survived for so long.
* [[Ungreatful Townsfolk]]: Pretty much everybody. From the jerkwater citizenship of Atlantis whom Arthur has to save from their own cack-handed attempts at democracy time and time again, to the equally asinine homo sapiens who aren't much better off but are a lot more disrespectful to the jaundiced hero and the world they call home. Nevermind the fact that he saves these jerks from
* [[Upbringing Makes the Hero]]: In some continuities.
** Subverted with Mera, a clear case of [[Love Redeems]].
* [[What Happened to the Mouse?]]: In Dan Jurgens' underappreciated run on the book, the tyrannical surface nation of Cerdia went to war with Atlantis. Arthur appealed to the U.N. for help, to no avail. So Arthur and his people fought back and won, ''conquering Cerdia--''all nice and legal because it was a defensive war, and Arthur had gone to the United Nations first. Arthur swears to the Cerdians that he will be a better ruler than the tyrants he has deposed, and is optimistic that having territory on dry land will make Atlantis more of a "real country" in the eyes of the world. A [[Flash Forward]] story even confirms that that will happen. Then the book was canceled, and we never heard anything about Cerdia ever again.
* [[What Kind of Lame Power Is Heart, Anyway?]]: Aquaman is traditionally the poster-child for this trope, mainly thanks to ''[[Superfriends]]''. However, due to overcompensation by modern writers it no longer really applies to him, see [[Heart Is an Awesome Power]] above.
** As stated above, Geoff Johns has pushed this trope into a dichotomy: while the reader now knows how useful are Aquaman's powers, the DC Universe internal public,
* [[What You Are in the Dark]]: Arthur is all too aware of how ugly, hateful and rotten the atlantean people can be compared to the surface dwellers they've all come to fear and despise. Noting that, during his times as a king in exile, that there are a great number among them. Either citizen or military, who are all [[A Nazi by Any Other Name|cruel and irredeemable]] by nature and will gleefully look for any given excuse to war with just about anything and/or anyone whom they find displeasing to them.
* [[You Are What You Hate]]: For all of Atlantis and the other sea faring cities fear and bigotry against the surface world, a lot of the fin faced bigots and bastards tend to perpetrate humanities worst qualities better than them. Especially against one another, as evident during the '''Crown of Thorns''' arc where the [[Upper Class Twit|jerkass royals]] commit to segregation, persecution and outright genocidal profiling and extermination of citizens from the lower trides. On the seachanged of their city whom had taken on the physiological traits of marine life due to spending thousands of years adapting to the oceanic environment; people whom supposed [[Deadly Decadent Court|true atlanteans]] scornfully call said undesirables taintbloods as a racial slur.
* [[World of Jerkass]]: Just about everybody in Arthur's world is either a [[Sleazy Politician]] or an [[Ungrateful Bastard]], even better most of them are all [[Slime Ball]] asshats with severe arrogance and overconfidence issues. [[Humans Are Bastards|jerkass surface dwellers]] who regularly deride Aquaman despite all of his heroic deeds, even after gaining some minutia of recognition most of the doofus populace [[Arson, Murder, and Jaywalking|who still violate the seas, kill sell or steal from one another and cannibalize Atlantean body parts or dangerous weaponry]] tend to purposefully act like hideously unsociable rat bastards most of the time. The Atlantean kingdoms and they're adjacent peoples are infinitely worse. They're [[Hidden Elf Village]] tendencies coupled with [[Horrible Judge of Character|ineptitude]] in selecting a [[Democracy Is Bad|better monarch]] than Aquaman every. Single. TIME they remove him from power. Most of their chosen monarchs rushing headlong into [[Failure Is the Only Option|catastrophic war]] [[Fantastic Racism|against the surface world]] and persecuting their own subjects, the same dumb guys who [[Gullible Lemmings|put him on the throne]], showing just how big a bunch of idiotic [[Hypocrite]]'s they all are.
{{reflist}}
{{IGN Top 100 Heroes}}
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[[Category:Better Than It Sounds/Comic Books]]
[[Category:New 52]]
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[[Category:The Forties]]
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