Showcase #30 is the first full issue story devoted entirely to Aquaman, and let's just get it all out of our systems because we will NOT have time to talk about them later. Aquaman talks to fish! He rides a purple seahorse! Most useless member of the Justice League! Mermaid Man and Barnacle Boy! His shirt looks like a goldfish and his pants look like kelp! Alright. Are we good? Welcome to the Gutters!
(CONTENT WARNING: Discussions of the Vietnam War, chemical weapons, and Marvel Comics. I'm not joking about this, please use your discretion)
One of the reasons I started this insane project - blogging about comics, I mean, I was already reading thousands upon thousands of issues of old comics for my own insane reasons - is that the Silver Age Aquaman comics were actually really good, and I knew nobody would believe me unless I brought receipts. However, it does take a long time to get going, especially because the very first page of this issue completely broke my brain.
The issue starts with an exciting sea rescue where Aquaman and Aqualad use their amazing and abilities to control sea life to rescue a tanker ship containing, and I quote here, "a new rare poison." I read that sentence, and I just knew that I was going to have to spend the whole post talking about this scene. Aquaman fights an army of eel-men in this issue and we are not going to get to any of that!
So like, first off, what the fuck? What the fuck? What the actual fuck? What, pray tell, the fuck? Futuo hoc est? Why on Poseidon's blue testicle is there a cargo ship carrying industrial quantities of poison? They don't even say "herbicide" or "pesticide" or even like, toxic waste, or chemicals used in some industrial process that just happen to be toxic. They just say it's poison. It is a substance created for the purpose of killing. They also say it is new, and it is rare. So this is brand new poison, hot of the presses, and it's deadlier than uncommon poison, but not as good as legendary or mythic poison.
I gotta find the jokes where I can here, there's not gonna be a lot of comic pages in this one. I'm making this whole post out of the implications of two pages of comics.
Aquaman and Aqualad just happen to roll up to the scene, and once they find out what specifically is going on, their only reaction is "Oh gee jimminy jillickers, this ship full of poison could make the fish sick!" They call in a bunch of whales to put out the fire with their blowholes, which is not a thing that whales can do. I'm not going to look that up, but the writers of this comic didn't look it up either.
This bit with the poison isn't actually important to the plot of the issue either. The gun has been taken off of the mantelpiece and thrown into the trash thirty seconds after the curtains open on act 1. Aquaman and his finny friends bundle up all of this NEW RARE POISON, and helpfully bring it to port free of charge so that the flow of capitalism continues unbothered by any silly concerns like "What are you doing with all this poison?"
And that made me think about Namor.
I really didn't want to turn this blog into a comparison of DC and Marvel. Like, they exist, and they have different vibes, and that's fine. That's good, in fact. We don't have to constantly ask if Superman could beat Thor, or if Spider-Man is a better character than Batman. At time of writing, DC and Marvel just teamed up to publish a team up of Superman and Spider-Man, and their conclusion was that the two of them would be best friends, and that is objectively the correct answer. There is no pairing of heroes that would be better friends than the Man of Steel and the Friendly Neighborhood Spider-Man. I am going to talk about Marvel comics, but I'm mostly going to let that be its own thing, and not compare the two unless I have something to say.
And I have something to say.
I've always been curious about why Aquaman and Namor have such different reputations. They both were created in the golden age, they both have similar power sets, they both are kings of their respective undersea kingdoms, they both have complicated interpersonal relationships, and the both dress like male strippers. Why is Namor seen as a badass but Aquaman seen as a joke?
Unfortunately, I have the worst kind of answer to this question: an obvious answer. Namor is treated as a badass because he's a badass. Aquaman is treated as a joke because he's a joke.
I showed my partner @toweringclam this page, and she had all the same questions that I did related to the larger problem of "what the fuck?" I said that Aquaman has zero questions about what the poison is for, why there's so much of it, and what these land mammals are doing shipping it in his ocean. She replied "Namor would make them eat it." Namor, the Sub-Mariner, would not put up with any kind of impertinence from dryworlders trying to pollute his beloved ocean with literal tons of poison. He's been like that since the 1940s. Even if he was being merciful, Namor would at the very least wreck the ship and dump the crew on a deserted island with their poison and see how they like it.
This is some absolute cop behavior from Aquaman. He sees a shipment full of poison in his ocean, and he's like "well you gentlemen have a permit for this, I wouldn't want to disrupt the supply chain!" I'm not saying Aquaman needs to kill these people, but he should, just like, ask even one (1) question about anything. A reasonable person would have questions here. Be concerned about this very concerning situation!
And that's not even the worst part. You see that title up there at the top of this post? That wasn't an exaggeration or a fun little quip there. I didn't do any research on if whales can fight fires, but I did research poisons.
Agent Orange was a chemical herbicide that was sprayed in massive quantities across South Vietnam by the United States during the Vietnam war. It was intended for use in destroying crops and thinning out the jungle, which allowed the US to get around chemical weapons restrictions. It's not a chemical weapon if it's just targeting plants. Millions of people were exposed, with up to four million people suffering from its effects ranging from birth defects and diabetes to heart disease and leukemia. I am by no means an expert on this topic, and I don't want to bring this post down any more than I already have, but I recommend the podcast Behind the Bastards, which did a two-part episode on Monsanto, one of the companies that produced Agent Orange, if you want to know more.
Why did I depress you all with that? Because this comic was published in 1961. JFK approved the use of Agent Orange in Vietnam in 1961, and usage would begin in 1962. The creators of this comic would have no way of knowing this - and Agent Orange was widely believed to be harmless to humans at the time - but you and I have a superpower too, called hindsight. With the proper historical context, I think that we can - nay, should - assume that Aquaman just found a tanker full of Agent Orange and decided that his first priority was to get this shipment into the loving hands of Uncle Sam so he can spray it over Quang Tri. Jesus dear God in Heaven this was supposed to be a fun time.
I'm really sorry. I am REALLY, really sorry. This is just... comics are bad. Comics are bad! Until next time, maybe. Maybe there's a next time. Maybe I'll just walk into the sea until I reach Atlantis. But there will be a next time. It'll be more fun, I promise. Until. Next time.
"Harley wanted to fight by my side. That's true love. But I told her that I must come alone. Because of the voices only I can hear. Because of the pain only I can feel."
