Capeworld Comics

So a toon with, as the leaks reveal, 100+ pages of feats DJ Token has to read (skim) over vs the posterboy for useless, weak, punchline superheroes. The perception of Aquaman after Super Friends was so bad that DC overcompensated in updating his image and turned him into a grizzled, overcompensating hook-handed Namor clone.

 

RAAAAA BLACK MANTA KILLED MY SON AND I’M ANGRY. I’M TRAPPED BETWEEN TWO WORLDS AND I’M ANGRY. I-I’M ANGRY AND TOUGH AND I-I GOT A HOOK HAND BECAUSE I ORDERED PIRANHAS TO EAT MY HAND SO I COULD GET FREE AND FIGHT ORM, REMEMBER ORM?

 

MY WIFE IS GOING TO GO INSANE AND DIE, BEACAUE I’M ANGRY AND DRAMATIC NOW, AND I-I GOT TO BE ANGRY AND DRAMATIC ALL THE TIME, THEN SHE’S GOING TO COME BACK TO LIFE AND WE’LL HAVE MORE DRAMA BECAUSE I’M BANGING DOLPHIN. REMEMBER DOLPHIN? FROM THE FORGOTTEN HEROES? I-I HAVE LOTS OF SEX NOW BECAUSE I’M TOUGH NOW!

 

PETER “DIE GYPSY DIE” DAVID TURNED ME INTO A DRAMA WHORE, TOPPO. I’M DRAMA WHORE AQUAMAN!

 

That was Aquaman. That was what they did to Aquaman because they got so tired of “lol weakling only talks to fish and dries out of water” jokes.

 

A guy with 100+ pages of feats is fighting joke Aquaman. The HEY GUYS REMEMBER WHEN SPONGEBOB DID THIS POWERFUL THING guy is fighting the Aquaman that couldn’t get a giant clam open.

 

Uh, yeah, blowout. Major blowout.

 

I think the idea here is “characters everyone thinks are weak but are actually really powerful when vs battle autism is applied to them.”

 

But,

 

1. That’s every character. There’s not a single character that isn’t dramatically stronger than they actually are under Swank rules. The speds at Death Battle gave James Bond the ability to move faster than his car. That’s how much of a boost characters gets under Swank rules.

 

2. Spongebob swank is widely available online.

 

They’re probably going to bring up that one time Aquaman put out coastal fires by raising the sea level. I’m not sure what else they could give him, its been awhile since I saw Super Friends, but that should be his big feat. Knock yourself out figuring out how many bigatons it’ll be worth, but it won’t be worth enough. Maybe they’ll consider his solo cartoon canon to Super Friends and he has some weird stuff in that. I haven’t seen it so I wouldn’t know.

 

Could Aquaman control Spongebob? I don’t know. He’s a cartoon sponge. In the comics, the telepathy rule was something bent to include sea birds because “they’re sea creatures,” and he’s taken control over the minds of White Martians, but we aren’t dealing with the comics (though more on that later), we’re dealing with a very specific version who has never mind controlled something sapient, nor has mind controlled anything like a cartoon sponge. And Spongebob once operated without a brain, so there’s that.

 

Come on, would they really do the fight if Aquaman could end it in the first second? No they wouldn’t. It’s Spongebob, guys. They aren’t going to kill Spongebob. The episode is only fun if Aquaman dies. Killing Sponegebob would be like asking Boomers to pull the trigger on Captain Kangaroo.

 

Now, could Aquaman win? Maybe (though really, hell no), but it would require some deep lore.

 

 

You see, Super Friends takes place within a version of pre-Crisis continuity known informally (and not formally because the brainiacs of DC would rather blow up the multiverse and create continuities where Batman eats Joker’s heart and becomes the Batman Who Bores than put even the least amount of clerical work into the continuities they already have) as  Earth-1A, though some believe it should be called Earth-Thirty-Two.

 

Super Friends debuted on ABC in 1973. The comics never talked about Super Friends. How it fit into the multiverse, if it even did, wasn’t addressed. Then in 1976, E. Nelson Bridwell, underrated writer for bronze age Superman, started the Super Friends comic (quite a fun read, I highly recommend it for those that want superhero stories with the feel of Marvel Adventures). As he revealed in his editorial in the first issue, it was Bridwell’s intent from the start that the comic and the cartoon were in main continuity. He wrote the events of the comic as happening on Earth-One and had characters reference events from current comics set on Earth-One. The characters even called their world Earth-One. Bridwell’s idea was that the Super Friends (Superman, Wonder Woman, Batman, Robin, and Aquaman) were a subsection of the Justice League devoted to training the next generation of superheroes–Wendy, Marvin, and the Wonder Twins. Yeah, the Junior Super Friends were expected to one day be full-fledged superheroes. You probably wouldn’t get that vibe from the cartoon, but the Junior Super Friends were a lot more competent in the comics. The Wonder Twins in particular earned their spurs. I really want to use them in a fight one day to talk about all the cool things they did.

 

Why didn’t the Super Friends include Green Lantern, Flash, Green Arrow, Atom, et al? Bridwell explained that, unlike other Justice League members, the Super Friends had to develop their powers making them ideal teachers for young superheroes-to-be. Green Lantern? Hal finds a dying alien, boom, powers. Flash? Lightning blows up his chemistry set, boom, powers. But the Super Friends all either had powers from birth and had to learn how to control them as they grew up or underwent intense training to become quasi-superhumans. Wonder Woman did both, so points for her.

 

So the Super Friends are Earth-One canon and Super Friends Aquaman is just bronze age Aquaman…right?

 

No.

 

While the first few seasons of Super Friends can be slotted into Earth-One continuity, as soon as the Legion of Doom shows up, you can’t really do that anymore. Giganta being a woman that stole Apache Chief’s magic pouch doesn’t jive with her Earth-One origin of being a transformed ape lady. Priscilla Rich being Cheetah on the show didn’t work with Deborah Kane being Cheetah in the comics. Bizzaro in the show was just an evil dude that went ME BIZZARO, totally at odds with him being a sympathetic weirdo in the comics. Solomon Grundy is supposed to be on Earth-Two, why is he hanging out with a bunch of Earth-One bad guys? And Black Vulcan, Samurai, Rima, El Dorado, who are these guys? They aren’t in the comics!

 

So editorial decided that the Super Friends comic couldn’t be on Earth-One. Editor Bob Rozakis suggested calling the Super Friends universe Earth-B. Fans called it (and still call it) Earth-1A, in recognition of the fact that it’s Earth-One but with a few tweaks.

 

Earth-B came to be a term for “the place Earth-One stories that don’t fit into continuity go.” It got its name from Bob Haney and his many Brave and the Bold stories. Bob Haney didn’t like playing within the rules of continuity and would make stories where, for instance, Batman had an older, brain-damaged brother who became the Boomerang Killer and got possessed by Deadman. So when fans would inevitably ask what the hell was up, editorial would answer “Earth-B!”

 

Imagine how much better modern comics would be if there was an Earth-B for Bendis, an Earth-K for King, an Earth-S for Snyder…

 

I said it once and I’ll say it again and I’ll be saying it until I die–Crisis on Infinite Earths was a mistake. The old multiverse model solved all the problems Post-Crisis DC created for itself.

 

Earth-B also came to be the home for comics that didn’t fit the tonal mode DC was trying to create for itself during the bronze age–in other words, humor books. Books like The Inferior Five, Bob Hope, Jerry Lewis, and Dean Martin. They didn’t want Superman and Batman to turn into Scooby-Doo where they were interacting with celebrity guests, though Superman used to interact with celebrities quite a lot in the golden age. He even met Orson Welles.

 

Because of Rozakis’ comments, people assumed that Super Friends took place on Earth-B. While the Super Friends would have been more than at home with the Inferior Five, the Bob Haney side of Earth-B looked to be a strange home for them. But when the Crisis on Infinite Earth Companion was released, it divided up Earth-B into Earth-Twelve, where he funniest funny book characters went, and Earth-Thirty-Two, where the Bob Haney stories went.

 

And weirdly enough, they put the Super Friends…on Earth-Thirty-Two. Not Earth-Twelve.

 

Yeah, I don’t get it either.

 

Call it Earth-Twelve, call it Earth-Thirty-Two, call it Earth-1A (I personally like 1A), but whatever it is, it was confirmed to be a hypertime universe in 770 when Wally west jumped to it through the Speed Force, or more specifically, jumped into the body of Reverse Flash. Because remember, though Reverse Flash never appeared in the cartoon, he did appear in the bronze age, which shares continuity with it.

 

So you’re probably asking “Hey, Otto, what does this all ultimately mean for Aquaman?”

 

It means the Super Friends continuity is close enough to Earth-One to justify giving Aquaman bronze age feats…and maybe, maybeeeee that could give him something to work with.

 

But we’ve seen the recommended list for Aquaman media.

 

It doesn’t even include the Filmation series.

 

Look, we get it DB, this is a fight to gush over Spongebob. It’s a fight for Spongebob, not with Spongebob. But damn guys, there’s no need to make Aquaman’s execution a full-blown crucifixion.

 

UPDATE: Some G1ers think Aquaman can travel through time because an image of him doing so is on the time travel page of the Super Friends wiki.

 

Behold, the difference between a Death Battel researcher and a Capeworld researcher–I know the origin and context of the image.

 

It’s from the episode The Time Trap. Aquaman doesn’t travel through time on his own power, as Black Vulcan, Flash, Green Lantern, and Superman would do in later episodes. Instead, he chases Black Manta through Lex Luthor’s time conveyor. Go to the very end of the clip here to see it for yourself.

 

So no, there really is no prayer for Aquaman.