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Once upon a time, Aqua Man was a poorly dressed amphibious hero whose friends consisted mainly of fish.

However, today he's well, he's the sexy C version of Shell Drogo.

But even with his burly muscles and killer shark friends, he still can't seem to shake the stigma of being, well, awful, man.

So my question is, what the hell happened to Aqua Man?

I'm just on the Internet.

I do all the research nobody else wants to straight from the desk of battle.

Like any good a researcher will start at the beginning.

For Aqua Man, that would be a 1941 issue of more fun comics.

As a scientist that learned how to survive underwater and literally talked with some fishies held, the man rode around on a seahorse, which is like the least badass sea creature there is.

I mean, like the boys seahorses have the babies.

You probably knew that not off to a good start.

To be fair, though, more fun.

Comics were in much younger audience, so his dopey concept kind of fit the bill.

However, he wasn't all sap as he got to beat up some Nazis, which turns anyone a fair share of cool points.

The Nazi, fighting aside awful man, was more or less a filler character.

It wasn't until the late 19 fifties or the Silver Age, as it's commonly referred to.

That D.

C really started the flesh out and make changes to Aqua Man some good, some bad and some strange.

Just strange.

Among the strange category falls the introduction of his sidekick.

Tell Bo on octopus that can play happy first day on multiple instruments that waas for Ray.

I mean, sure, for an octopus.

He had his moments Topo could even fire four bow and arrows at a time and was apparently almost as good a shot as Green Arrow over.

Although Tobel didn't really help out Aqua Man's cool factor very much.

But one of the better changes to Aqua Man that came out of the Silver Age Waas, his new backstory, Aqua Man, was changed from seafaring scientists to Arthur Curry, wayward son of an outcast, Atlantean.

Since he was now from an aquatic race rather than a scientist who lived at the bottom of the sea, Awful man's powers went through some changes.

This included Aquaman switching from literally talking to fish to telepathically communicating and controlling sea creatures.

I'm pretty sure we can all agree.

That was a change for the better.

However, with all his powers becoming more super in nature, the writers decided he needed a weakness as well.

Aquaman gained a weakness almost as stupid as green lanterns, vulnerability to the color yellow.

And would Aquaman could no longer survive outside of water, essentially super dehydration, seeing as he would now straight up die if he didn't take a dip into some good old H 20 at least once an hour, Aqua Man donned the notoriously stupid Fish bowl helmet every time he went on land.

And I'm not gonna lie to you.

Aqua Man's pool factors stayed right around here.

He was neither amazing or unbearably lame.

He was just somewhere in the middle, that is, until the 19 seventies got ahold of him and ferociously shaped him into the proverbial butt of the joke.

E.

We're talking about the timeless classic Super Friends, which followed the hijinks of the Justice League with the addition of two powerless Children and a dollar store version of Scooby Doo with a.

For whatever reason, super friends depicted Aquaman as not only being near useless out of water but also pretty garbage in water.

More often than not, his control of sea creatures was floor him just jan with, um, Janet.

Sure, he still had super strength, but pared to his companions like Superman and Wonder Woman, he wasn't all that impressive.

So Arthur just kind of became the lame and fairly useless joke hero of the Justice League.

Kind of like Boom, stick around here, Don't tell My Aqua Man's popularity spoiled faster than buff a sushi me so much so that his standalone comic was even cancelled during this time in true VH, one Behind the Heroes Special.

This is when Aqua Man hit rock bottom.

Sadly, this is how a lot of people remember awful man.

But I assure you, since the 1989 debut of Legend of Aqua Man, he has become one of the most badass heroes in D C lineup.

Just to give you a quick highlight reel.

Aquaman has commanded armies of killer sharks bathed in the blood of his enemies and smacked the shit out of Superman.

Even lost his arm a couple times and replaced it with a sweet as harpoon so he could do dope.

Shit.

Like rip off one of services heads which he then uses to should you not break through the gates of Haiti's.

So yeah, maybe give Aqua Man a second chance.

Fun fact.

Aquaman wasn't the only one to get bad ass ified.

Remember Topo the stupid, Happy birthday playing octopus.

Yeah, well, this is him now.