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Underground > Comic Books >

Rick Veitch's Aquaman

Murray Hamhandler

23:24 / 18.06.02

So...wow. Never thought I'd see the day.

I'm really a big fan of Rick Veitch's work. The only book of his that I've read and not particularly cared for was Cy-Gor. His run on Swamp Thing was, in my humble and surely controversial opinion, the best of the entire run. I would have really liked to have seen the direction his story ultimately would have taken, but his version of Swamp Thing 88 (and beyond, if we're lucky) may still be on the horizon now that he has a good working relationship w/DC again.

Not really a fan of Aquaman, but I'm willing to give Veitch the benefit of the doubt here. It should prove to at least be interesting, even if it only winds up being an interesting failure.

00:19 / 19.06.02

hmmm... could be cool... I remember one of his swamp thing stories had Swampy going to the bottom of the ocean to confront the Parlament of Mushrooms or some such that resided there... it could be fun if he get's all mythological!!!

Murray Hamhandler

01:34 / 19.06.02

Actually...not to get all pedantic or anything, but I think you're mixing up Swampy stories. The 'bottom of the ocean' story was during Millar's run, and all of the Grey stuff (about the fungi-dominated part of the Green) was done by Doug Wheeler.

Sorry. I've read the Swamp Thing stuff forwards and backwards (which actually helps when it comes to Veitch's time travel story) and I just know too much about it for my own good...

03:26 / 19.06.02

Aquaman has a lot of potential. I liked Erik Larsen's take on him. He focused on Aquaman as ruler of Atlantis (or whatever they call it) and did not really do any above the water superhero stuff with him. Aquaman as a superhero who talks to fish is pretty lame but Aquaman as ruler of 75% of the planet has potential. Fantasy stuff is not my cup of tea but there most be some people out there who enjoy it. Crossgen seems to be paying their bills and millions of roll players can't be wrong can they?

(Don't answer that.)

12:17 / 19.06.02

Erik Larsen's take... focused on Aquaman as ruler of Atlantis (or whatever they call it) and did not really do any above the water superhero stuff with him.

See, that, to me, is a no-brainer.

He's a King.

And his name is Arthur.

It fucking writes itself.

14:47 / 19.06.02

Exactly Jack. Exactly.

15:28 / 19.06.02

about the fungi-dominated part of the Green

Oh boy, never thought of that aspect. Just reading this line makes want to know more about it. How's the fungi portrayed in the story? Bad, corrupted? Wish we'd still get Swamp Thing over here...

Murray Hamhandler

16:33 / 19.06.02

The fungus story went something like this:

Fungal life came to Earth from another planet. The Green wanted to learn more about it, so they allowed their current elemental (a big dinosaur/dragon thing named Matango) to become consumed by the fungus. Things went smoothly for a while and there was a balance between the Green and the Grey, and then Matango started getting delusions of grandeur. There was a war, wherein many members of the Parliament were consumed by the Grey. There was a stalemate for millions of years, but then Mr. Buttinsky Swamp Thing had to go trying to save the Elementals that had been imprisoned by the Grey and he started the machinations of war all over again. Ultimately, the Grey wasn't seen as evil, but the elementals who had control over the Grey tended to use it towards those ends until Swampy fixed everything.

Pretty much all of Doug Wheeler's run was devoted to this story, and it's well worth checking out. But I think that's true of all of the Swamp Thing stuff from Moore's run on (except for Nancy Collin's run and the new series. Some people like them, but I'd tread lightly if I were you...).

Solitaire Rose as Tom Servo

17:04 / 19.06.02

In my mind, Pater David had good ideas, but executed them poorly. Aquaman is the King of 80% of the Earth...

Think about that.

80% of the Earth.

Of course, I'm starting to think he'd be a much better villian than hero.

19:41 / 19.06.02

Villan:

TOTALLY... not a "evil" kind, but there's SO much establish antagonism (see: toxic dumping in the oceans) that simply asserting soverienty could easily put him in conflict with the "surface World"

Werd UP on the King Arthur aspect...

Instead of a Lady of the Lake there could be a lady of some Molten puddle of Magma at the bottom of the Ocean. Or imagine a Subterrenian society that relates to The Sea Kingdom in a similar maner that Atlantis relates to the surface world... Ahhh... I'm feeling like a kid already.

On Swampy; does anyone remember his guest appearance in Aquaman, Peter David Era.

20:34 / 19.06.02

Aquaman is the King of 80% of the Earth... Think about that. 80% of the Earth.

And yet every time some alien jerk in a flying saucer shows up and sez "Take me to your leader," he gets an audience with the President of the US, or maybe the UN Security Council. Fuck that shit, man. "Leader of the Free World," my ass! You wanna mess with this planet, you talk to the guy who is Sovereign Lord and Master Over Its Vast Fucking Majority!

(This is turning into My New Fish-Telepathy Technique is Unstoppable...)

Solitaire Rose as Tom Servo

16:52 / 20.06.02

Anyone else see the makings of a great Elseworlds where Aquaman is King Artrhur, returned to stop the pollution and destruction of the environment, and becoming a dictator in that regard?

Kind of like Namor without the bi-polar disorder and a better army.

14:21 / 21.06.02

Bet none of you losers has an Aquaman costume.

A

04:25 / 22.06.02

Judging by the picture in the Newsarama story, i wouldn't be surprised if Aquaman woun up being a lot like the future Aquaman in DC1000000, but i could be wrong

15:43 / 24.06.02

Grant, normally I don't need to see pictures of the people I communicate through the web with, but after your last post, I think you absolutely must post a jpeg and fast!

03:29 / 26.06.02

"Of course, I'm starting to think he'd be a much better villian than hero."

That is why Namor the Sub-Mariner is so much cooler than Aquaman.

Well, that and the speedo.

A

00:12 / 27.06.02

hey, and let's not forget those functioning little wings on his ankles that can actually lift his body off the ground. or his upside-down triangle head.

But, anyway, why are we talking about the other underwater superhero guy. Aquamn is cooler for one simple reason- Giant fucking seahorses.

00:32 / 27.06.02

Or... GIANT SEAHORSES FUCKING.

A

07:09 / 27.06.02

...or seahorses fucking giants...

anyway, updates at CBR and Newsarama.

12:51 / 05.07.02

Here, gridley:

Links to photos from The Aquaman Project:
Getting evicted from the Hall of Justice (note crate of belongings, including fishbowl and Little Mermaid posters)
In my “secret chamber” in the Aquacave
Waving at civilians with my hook

Benefits of friends in film school.

A

08:50 / 06.07.02

god damn. that's beautiful.

00:32 / 13.12.02

So has anyone else picked up the comic?

I liked it...

I'll post spoilers next

15:44 / 13.12.02

moderate to tame ** SPOILERS **

I read it -- nice art, interesting lettering based on Veitch's by-hand lettering style, great Maleev cover, nice new logo, but nothing remarkable otherwise. Nice prose, some nice descriptive poetic images in captions, cool tie-ins with Arthur and the Lady of the Lake, but nothing all that interesting, I'm afraid. The whole "different hand" thing isn't all that thrilling to me either.

The whole "Aquaman as water elemental" thing won't be overdone, hopefully. I'm sure Veitch is too smart to repeat SWAMP THING tricks. However, I don't know....Aquaman is a hard character to write well. Seems like Peter David came closest to really hitting the mark on Orin/Arthur. Hopefully Veitch will make people stand up and take notice. There's nothing like the great feeling of being made to care about a character you never thought you could care about, of a great writer who takes a book everyone thought was a dead-end street and makes it a must-read. Maybe Veitch can work magic here.

However, two reviews at www.thefourthrail.com, esp. Randy Ladner's, whose taste I almost always agree with, gave it very low marks and were unimpressed with issue #1.

15:45 / 13.12.02

Also, anyone have any details on how Veith patched things up with DC after the infamous and long-standing "Jesus issue of SWAMP THING" debacle? I know he's done work with Alan Moore on ABC, but that's Wildstorm and not really DC.

16:00 / 13.12.02

Thought the interview near the top of the thred mentioned DC & Veitch's patch-up...

I particularly like the reference of the "WaterBarer" ... Aquaman is being groomed to play Aquarius... could be interesting.

The art was very nice... similar to MANKE of JLA....
liked some of the language/terms the atlanteans used... "thought sounds", etc...

Murray Hamhandler

21:30 / 13.12.02

**some spoilers**

Not a mindblowing first issue, but not bad. It's Veitch, and it's not Cy-Gor, and in my experience this means that we can expect exciting things. Veitch has used this first issue to take pretty much all of the standard Aquaman-tropes out of the picture (no more kingdom, no more ocean, no more functioning fishy telepathy...no more stoopid harpoon hand), so next issue will be a springing-forth from a fairly clean slate. The fucking-up of all kinds of shit will take place very soon, I'm sure...

BTW...Finally read Veitch's The Maximortal not too long ago. Wow. What would've happened if Michael Chabon had been on PCP when he wrote Cavalier And Clay. Highly, highly recommended.