Super Friends - The Power Pirate - Toonstalgia

Toonstalgia: The Limits of Aquaman's Appeal for Me

Super Friends - The Power Pirate

Season 1, Episode 1
Premiered: September 8, 1973

The Power Pirate episode is basically about...

Aquaman and the Super Friends work to stop the Power Pirate from draining the world of energy. The friends are Aquaman, Wonder Woman, Batman, Robin, Superman, Marvin, Wendy, and Wonder Dog. The episode is a clunky cautionary tale about the wanton abuse of our natural resources with no real villain.

Super Friends features budget animation, a message, familiar voices, 70s concepts of the superheroes and a Scooby-lite set of characters.

Big props to the Narrator. He is a champion here.

On to the point...

The Limits of Aquaman's Audience Appeal

Aquaman is a comically maligned character. I think Aquaman's relatively limited appeal when compared to characters like Batman, Superman or Wonder Woman is related to the limits of his reinvention, the easy jokes at his expense and his core meaning.

Batman is a malleable character. He could be anything. He can be a different person altogether and he (or she) will retain the essence of Batman. We don't have to love every version and the versions I love might not be the same you love. You might hate Batman but just replace Batman in my argument with any oft reinvented superhero and the point remains the same. The version I love might have stark differences from the one you love.

Aquaman could be anyone but he would still be a guy that talks to fish. The most recent reconceptualization of Aquaman is grim and gritty. I have issues with the current movie franchises that I won't go into. There's a quirky weirdness about the ability to talk to fish (until you consider he could ask a shark to tear you apart). It's easy to think of jokes. It's hard to take him seriously when the jokes come so readily.

I am fond of Jason Momoa. I watched him on Stargate Atlantis. Stargate the movie was my favorite part of the franchise and SG-1 was great though it had more than its share of shark jumping moments. Momoa was a stand out character on Atlantis. While the show was populated by some characters I have to struggle to remember because they were common tropes among scifi series of the time, I never forgot about him. He did fill a typical role but Momoa did not fill it in a typical way. He is a charismatic actor. I'm sure he'll do well with the role of Aquaman.

Aquaman and Aqualad have changed over the years. If you're anything like me, you get attached to the character in your head. The version of a character that you imagine them to be. It's what drives people to write fanfiction and craft headcanon.  When I think of Aquaman, the first thing that comes to mind is an episode of Batman: The Brave and the Bold. Batman sees Aquaman mourning the loss of a whale's life. Batman brings him on an adventure. That is the Aquaman I like. One who faces tragedy and recovers his unbelievable optimism. I'm not like an optimist. I found myself wishing there was an Aquaman to fight for the oceans and sad there wasn't.

For me, a character is who I imagine him to be and what he means to me. To be invested in him, I need a moment where I form the attachment. It could be anything including a fanvideo, a commercial for an episode, a great moment like Mrs. Hudson's stand out moment in The Lying Detective episode of Sherlock or a small moment from a single episode like Aquaman's pain over the whale. That's the problem with Aquaman and me. In my headcanon, he doesn't deal with the world because the people on land are destroying the oceans and making jokes about him. It's easier to embrace the jokes about him chatting with tuna because his character makes me feel helpless. He reminds me of ongoing tragedies happening far beyond my reach without giving me the feeling I could fix something.

Maybe I take this all too seriously.