Ocean Master #1

We are aggrieved by this assault on our vitreous, light decoding organs by this doubled image which taunts us of a fleshy, wet birth which we are sure to have never known. At least not yet.

The man sits within the womb of the kingdom he commands. His kingdom is a womb. He issues an edict to those he commands: they must flee the womb to destroy those that have left it behind many thousands of cycles ago. His issues ripple forward slowly. So slowly. Slowly through the encasing, comforting, enfolding liquid in which his kingdom resides. Some his subjects hear and act upon those. Some his subjects do not hear and do not act upon those although the unspoken issues remain a current fueling and propelling the issues which are heard and acted upon.

The man is alone in his anger, in his hatred. He has forgotten how to be. He has lost the thread of his story. Now he is only a single thread in the weft and warp of his brother's life. He cannot be happy. He cannot forgive those that have long since forgotten, or have never even known, that they have hurt him in some particular way. They would not even recognize the particulars if he carefully tried to remind them. He does not understand how they could have forgotten such a travesty of justice perpetrated upon him. He does not see how they cannot remember. No, he thinks. It is only that they will not remember.

His story can be your story as well. Pay heed as he seeks revenge. Pay close attention as he kills. And he kills. And he convinces those around him to kill still more. For in the end, he garners no reward, no happiness, no apologies, and, certainly, no affection. For in the end, he chooses the armor of loneliness which leads him to an empty, stone, dead womb. But he must now be careful, this man. For now that he is captive outside his womb, his tears will not mix secretly with his surroundings but show, stark and glinting, upon his cheeks.

The man within the stone womb.

We are intrigued by the method which thoughts are passed on, one from the other, when a populace has not the power of telepathy to share thoughts with the whole. While we think the thoughts of ourselves and others, we do not know from whence each thought comes, and thus we cannot know from where the thought originated. But this material form of passing thoughts are labeled with the names of the beings who created the thoughts. These thoughts are not shared freely. These thoughts are owned, traded, sold. But they are also capable of wracking our chest with paroxysms, leading to violent exhalations of breath which result in stark and oft-repeated cracks of sound. We are used to thoughts being ephemeral as they are needed just once for all to share. We are used to thoughts being infinite as they are kept by us all and be each of us together. But we see the potential for communications to exist outside of ourselves, for our thoughts and ideas to be placed within time, so that others that are not us may share, others that are not us may care for those things which we care for. Perhaps the limitations of separation imposed on these beings has advantages that we can make use of.

The man, once more, experiences a birth of sorts, a rebirth, another chance. He will return to his womb. He will return and he will sit and he will hide his tears from those that pretend not to notice. But he will not have learned anything from his short life in the Over World.

The man nearly speaking his unspoken issues.

The man almost goes back to the...

We. We are. Lost. Lost in. Where are we? Help. We need. Lost. We. We? Where am? Why we? We. What are we? Who am....

ocean but he remains to help a boy, a young boy, a helpless boy. A boy that, this time, will not be abandoned. At least not by this man. This man will prove better than the man and the woman that came before him. This man, no, not a man...this Atlantean will prove a thing. The thing does not matter. He must simply prove because he cannot forgive and he cannot forget. His life has become a proof to those that ceased hearing him many years ago. His life is a proof unheard. His life is a waste.

We were perplexed at this attempt at levity at the end of this story, so we worried it as a dog does a hare until it gave up its secrets in a screeching, pitiful, painful wail: "Movement is life."

Ocean Master #1 Rating: What use do we have for an arbitrary list of permanent thoughts applied to dead organic matter arranged by subjective, seemingly random qualities? Qualities that are weighted differently by every individual being as opposed to understood perfectly, reasonably, objectively by the all-encompassing totality of ourself? What do we have to offer but a number that will be disputed for reasons that merely assert individuality and personal qualities so that one being can prove themselves smarter and greater and more insightful than other beings? We do not understand the need but we shall participate in the tradition of list making. We shall give this permanent thought an 18.

Ocean Master! (as seen in Aquaman)

PERSONAL DATA
Alter Ego: Orm Curry Marius
Occupation: Professional Criminal
Marital Status: Single
Known Relatives: Tom Curry (father, deceased), Mary O'Sullivan Curry (mother), Arthur Curry (half-brother), Mera (sister-in-law), Arthur Jr. (nephew, deceased)
Group Affiliation: None
First Appearance: AQUAMAN #29
Height: 5'11" Weight: 200 lbs
Eyes: Blue Hair: Black

HISTORY
Orm Curry did not have a happy childhood. His parents, Tom and Mary, were cordial but distant toward each other. Tom's only concern was Orm's half-brother Arthur. Arthur was Tom's son by his first marriage to an Atlantean woman (see Atlantis). Thus Arthur had undersea powers that Orm could never compete against. Nevertheless, Orm insisted on competing and that competition filled his life with bitterness, anger, and hatred.

Even after Arthur had become famous as the undersea hero Aquaman (see Aquaman), Orm persisted in getting into trouble. He dropped out of sight for a time, changed his name to Marius, and became infamous as the international marine criminal the Ocean Master.

Aquaman and the Ocean Master first clashed over Orm's illegal whaling activities. But whaling was small change to Marius. His favorite pastime was looting the sunken cities of Atlantis, and his favorite discovery was the device that allowed him to breathe underwater.

The two brothers clashed many times over the years, but Aquaman always came out on top.

Recently, Orm discovered the secret of the twelve crystals of Ancient Atlantis. He managed to locate six of them, and using his own hatred and that of his half-brother as fuel, Orm became a powerful sorcerer. However, when Arthur realized that he truly loved Orm, the spell was broken and Orm was defeated.

The magical feedback from that defeat caused an explosion that buried Orm under tons of rubble. It is not known whether he survived.

POWERS & WEAPONS
Orm is a skilled hand-to-hand combatant, but when he first began his career as Ocean Master, he counted on stolen technology to meet his needs. Submarines, harpoon guns, nets, lasers, and sonic pistols made up but a fraction of his impressive arsenal.

Later, he abandoned his arsenal in favor of his new sorcerous powers. Orm now possessed superior strength. He was able to teleport himself and fire powerful mystic bolts of eldritch energy. He could create realistic illusions and summon magical creatures from the ocean depths.

Orm can breathe underwater for an indefinite period of time.

Aquaman #21

Six years after this scene during a Justice League Meeting: Batman: "Has anybody seen Aquaman?"

After that interlude with The Others, I'm not sure I can remember everything that was happening with Aquaman. I'm not even sure the last time Aquaman spent any significant time in his own comic book. Mera had just traveled down the Bermuda Triangle to be reacquainted with the reason she never wanted to enter the ocean again: her husband. Aquaman was searching for The Scavenger to stop him from selling Atlantean technology. And the Ice King was still not revealing his actual identity.

I think the only other thing you need to know is Aquaman has stupid powers that could be replicated by a pet psychic with a strong swimming ability.

I know, Aquaman Defenders, I know. There's so much more to Aquaman than his ability to speak with fish and swim. Keep shouting from the mountaintop how anybody that makes fun of Aquaman is an idiot and just doesn't get it and doesn't understand comic books and only wants to write slash fan fiction about Batman. You're the assholes that drove me back into the "Let's Make Fun of Aquaman" camp because those people are much more fun and way less judgmental and holier than thou than you! Well, maybe they're not less judgmental since they are judging Aquaman on some pretty shallow traits. But you have to admit that at least 75% of the reason you claim to love Aquaman is because of all of the Aquaman stories where even DC Comics treated him as a joke! "Aquaman rocks because he rides gigantic, mutant seahorses!" "Aquaman is the best because he forces octopi to make him sandwiches!" Hmm, that may not have been an Aquaman story. I think I'm picturing an episode of Laff-a-Lympics where The Really Rotten's octopus went up against Squiddly Diddly in a head-to-head match creating a delicious deli tray. They also may or may not have ended up having sex with Josie and the Pussy Cats.

Not surprisingly, the issue begins with Mera because her name really should be on the cover of this comic book. Not because her super power is so much better than Aquaman's super power but because she's fierce and doesn't take any shit while Aquaman stoically takes shit to the nth degree until I can only imagine he's going to go Full Monarch at some point. At least that would make him interesting! Although his ass makes him pretty interesting. Maybe this comic book should be called "Aquaman and Mera Have Great Asses."

Assassinate? Well, she ate an ass's ass. Is that close enough?

Maybe this comic should be called "I Love Mera" because she's got some serious 'splaining to do. Also, she has red hair. And she's totally not funny! So it's just like "I Love Lucy"!

Holy crap, now I'm poking Lucille Ball fans with sticks as well as Aquaman fans! Maybe I am an internet troll! I don't care about comic books at all! I'm just a loser Batman fan that's trying to piss off everybody else! Except I've never really been as into Batman as DC thinks everybody should be into Batman. Sometimes while writing these commentaries, I find myself in a weird place where I want to explain the way things really are and not the way I present things! But when I do that, it means I'm doubting the intelligence of my readers and beginning to write to the few people that stumble on these commentaries and overreact because I called Aquaman useless and Batman super rad. Fuck it. I guess I just have to accept that my love of Batman and hatred of Aquaman is real and not just satire.

But what is satire anyway? Probably just my true, unrepentant feelings bubbling to the surface and shitting all over everything everybody else loves.

Bubbling shit. I think that's an apt metaphor for what's going on in my brain.

Oh hell. Those fish aren't going to keep this kind of juicy gossip to themselves.

Mera makes it clear that she isn't married to Nereus. They were meant to be married after Mera returned from assassinating Aquaman. But now that she accidentally married Aquaman instead of assassinating him, the marriage to Nereus is probably going to have to be delayed.

Men, this is why you can't give women too much freedom. Because they'll realize that their lives don't have to revolve around you and your needs and they'll actually discover that they enjoy sex with different, good looking, interesting men instead of overbearing despots and meek comic book lovers who just happen to be the best looking overbearing despot or comic book nerd in the bunch of comic book nerds or overbearing despots y'all run around with. But if a woman is allowed to expand her boundaries and explore her passions and desires, she might realize you're not actually the One and Only True Love which you and your society convinced her she was allowed to have. The equality of women means you might not be able to manipulate the woman you have a huge crush on into being with you and only you. So force them to cover their heads and bodies and limit their movements, Men!

Earlier I was speaking about satire, and it just now reminded me of a post I saw on Tumblr where somebody mentioned how they hated Stephen Colbert because, even if what he was doing was satirical, he was still saying homophobic things. I just hope that post was satire!

Meanwhile in my Aquaman Comic Book, Aquaman finally deigns to make an appearance. He's followed a trail of discarded Twinkie wrappers to The Scavenger's submarine. It's time to end this subplot! Oh fuck, I just accidentally cracked myself up.

Except The Scavenger isn't on this submarine. He's inside his secret submarine building facility. I don't know what he's planning on doing with all of those subs. An army of submarines with no other support sounds about as useful as an underwater superhero in space. Perhaps he's going to invade Atlantis and/or Xebel. Xebel is the underwater nation that Mera is from. What? You didn't know that?

Down in the Atlantean Prisons, Vulko notices the current has changed directions. This means either Mary Poppins is coming or The Great Lie is over. I suppose The Great Lie has something to do with who is the actual Ruler of the Seven Seas and how Atlantis usurped the actual ruler's power. But Aquaman never gets to hear any of Vulko's wisdom on the upcoming disastrous events because he finds out that Mera was kidnapped from Amnesty Bay and, possibly, tossed into The Bermuda Triangle. And Murk and Tula and Swatt have a conversation where they each mention the names of the others so that I don't have to feel crappy about my inabilty to remember them. Also, they're definitely ready to head to the surface and rescue Ocean Master.

This might also have something to do with The Great Lie.

Mera and her ex-fiance are turned into popsicles mere moments after this. People used to worry about violence and sexism and juvenile delinquency resulting from kids reading comic books. But I don't know why they weren't worried about a rash of kids freezing themselves and their friends in ice! Because according to comic book logic, this will never, ever kill a person. Everybody winds up perfectly fine once the ice is thawed.

Aquaman soon finds out they were frozen by the Ass Ice King who, it turns out, is the First King of Atlantis! And he's a bit miffed that nobody but Vulko seems to remember him. But the meat of that confrontation will have to wait until next month. The end of the comic book this month reveals that the Atlantean pulled from The Scavenger's sub with evidence of a removed kidney really was a Trojan Horse. That's like, and I don't use this word lightly, literally the oldest trick in the book! Unless The Bible is older and then the literal oldest trick in the book would be getting the Pharaoh to believe your wife is your sister. I'd say getting some schmuck to eat a forbidden piece of fruit was older but I don't think that was intended so much as a trick as a "Hey, I fucked up so you need to fuck up too so I'm not the only one God yells at."

The Atlantean had a tracking device shoved in his Atlantean Liver which enabled The Scavenger and his army of submarines to find Atlantis. And nobody is left in the city to save it! Except for normal Atlanteans but what good are they? If any of them were important, Geoff Johns would have introduced one of them to us by name. Although Atlantis does still have that gigantic underwater flea that Aquaman spoke with earlier. Maybe it can help protect the city.

Aquaman #21 Rating: +1 Ranking. When this comic book first began, I enjoyed the take on Arthur within a world that considers him a joke. I actually like his reaction to feeling ostracized from both of his parents' peoples even while he feels the obligation to protect them both. Some of the actual plots didn't strike me as that interesting but this is still the first time I've ever been interested and entertained by Aquaman. And this is from somebody who has purchased the beginning issues of every revamp he's gone through over the last twenty five years. Unless he was revamped during The Long Hiatus. I would have missed that one. Being, you know, on Hiatus. And while some of these issues have come very close to losing my interest, Johns has always included a few truly emotional and touching moments which redeem those issues. But by the end of this issue, I feel Johns has created a world here that I want to know more about. I don't care how little Aquaman is concentrated on each issue because I'm curious about all of these characters. The New 52 has been a lot about World Building but I don't think they talk enough about World Fixing. Although I still hope Aquaman rides a giant seahorse at some point.

Aquaman #14

Those sharks Aquaman used against their will in Justice League are back for revenge.

Do I ignore the elephant with the gun in the room simply so I can crack jokes at Aquaman's expense? Do I feign shock and surprise that, once again, a single person cut short the lives of nearly thirty people in the matter of minutes? People are going to argue for and against gun control one more time and it'll all be for naught because nothing will change. As long as people fear dying, they will stand adamantly on one side of the argument or the other. Because people afraid of guns want less of them out there. And the other people afraid of people want more guns out there. Let's just get one thing straight before I call Aquaman a stupid cunt: gun advocates need to embrace these dead children as one of the prices to be paid for the illusion of safety the gun they wield gives them. These children died for your right to bear arms. That is the price of the Second Amendment.

For my part, I think that price is a bit high just so a bunch of fearful people can feel safer.

In Drivers Education in high school, people used to have to sit through that film "Blood on the Highways" or whatever it was called. They had to see graphic images of the dangers of driving a car. Maybe we should institute the same policy with guns. People should have to look at image after image of the aftermath of gun violence.

I also think that meat eaters should have to kill one of their favorite animals at least once each year to understand the true cost of the meat they enjoy. So, take my fucking opinions for what they're worth (gold and diamonds, probably!).

And now my Aquaman Commentary is filled with depressing and polarizing gun talk! Thanks a lot, Connecticut Shooter! You ruin everything. Anyway, Aquaman is waiting for me to kick him in the crotch, so I'd better oblige him!

Look at this smug and arrogant bastard. These poor sea creatures simply want to be left alone.

The issue begins in 1820 where a story very similar to Arthur's rivalry with Black Manta is playing out. An Atlantean and a captain of a ship have been battling one another in an escalating conflict based on a seeming misunderstanding. Well, the captain did kill this Atlantean's wife. I guess that's not much of a misunderstanding. But he was trying to save her when he found her attacked by a shark. I'm sure after he saved her he probably would have done other unspeakable things to her like denying her the right to have a semi-automatic weapon. So she killed a bunch of his sailors before that could happen. And then he killed her because you can't have someone just going around killing your sailors. Then the Atlantean took the captain's eye. So the Captain hunted down the Atlantean to take his eyes! And then things really got out of control and it was army against army and, well, then the comic book returned to the present where Aquaman was mind-fucking his sea friends.

What Aquaman was really doing was sending them to his brother Orm to set up a meeting.

I should also point out that a faction in Atlantis believes that the "boy born with purple eyes" will somehow be the end of Atlantis. That's Garth! You know, Aqualad! I would have thought the legend would have said "the boy born with the pathetic afro" but that's just me.

Meanwhile in Belle Reve, Amanda Waller has sent an associate to visit Black Manta with an offer to join the Suicide Squad. Little does she know he's already got plans in motion for the Legion of Doom!

Just like I mentioned last commentary. Black Manta's ultimate goal seems to be to die at Aquaman's hands. Weirdo.

Aquaman's talk with his brother seems to go smoothly. Orm tells Aquaman he didn't hire Black Manta and he isn't planning on attacking the surface world. And since he's promising he isn't lying, that's that! One weird thing about the meeting is that Orm is constantly in shadow as if the creative team is trying to keep his look secret for some big reveal. But he's right there on the cover! So there's nothing mysterious going on with the art here. It's just kind of annoying.

Orm retells the story of his and Aquaman's great, great grandparents killed by the captain of the sunken ship they're meeting within. The Atlaneans sunk the ship but didn't kill the sailors. They let them drown. Then they took the captain to shore when he was about to drown. But he demanded to be taken back into the ocean.

Well, that subtle threat settles that! Everything is good between the surface world and the underwater kingdom!

The issue ends with whoever stole the Scepter of Kings freeing the cannibalistic fish people from The Trench. The thief is never shown but he's about to cause some kind of trouble because the Throne of Atlantis crossover with Justice League begins next month! Or this month, technically, since I'm two weeks behind.

Aquaman #14 Rating: No change. I think I forgot to make fun of Aquaman!