Comic Book Alphabet Of Awesomeness - A

In this first installment of the Comic Book Alphabet Of Awesomeness, we'll not only examine the first letter of the alphabet, (which I won't keep you waiting: it's A) but also perhaps the most misunderstood superhero of them all.

Yes.

A is for Aquaman.

So why does Aquaman get such a bad wrap?

The character has been around since the Golden Age of comics and definitely still has fans, but why does he get no respect?

The answer is simple:

The closest he's been to greatness

The Superfriends cartoon.

It's pretty sad when most of what the population knows about one of the founding superheroes of the DC Universe comes from a cartoon that gave us the Wonder Twins and also Wendy, Marvin and *ahem* Wonderdog.

Fists aren't the only thing they were bumping. Am I right? Am I Right?

Yep

According to Superfriends, all Aquaman was really capable of was riding around on either a jet ski, strapping two flying fish to his feet or getting captured and giving the rest of the Superfriends something to do for 20 minutes.

Not really the best superhero legacy to leave behind, especially comsidering the damage done to Aquamans rep for the following decades.

Ok, maybe I'm being a LITTLE too harsh on the cartoon. It might not help that Aquamans powers aren't too great.

Sure he's superstrong, but the Justice League has like 15 other people to fill that spot.

He has telepathy, which is great and all but kind of useless when all a normal person has to do his hit a button on their phone and can talk to anyone they know.

But he prefers to use this ability when he flexes his royalty and talks to fish, which again could be awesome but is only really helpful when he's you know, underwater. Sure, being able to command the creatures inhabiting almost 70% of the Earth's surface is pretty bitchin', but when the Justice League gets called out to West Detroit?

To make things worse the Drive Thru isn't jet ski accessible

Well I'm guessing it just ends in lots of crying. Also, when underwater I'm guessing talking to fish isn't as awesome as it might sound. Imagine having a conversation with someone whose attention span lasts seconds, and once the conversation turns towards plankton I'm guessing all interest is lost.

Yeah he can swim really fast which kind of makes him the Superman of underwater, until you remember that Superman is pretty much Superman whereever he goes. Also key in the fact that Superman can't be out of water for an hour without starting to die.

Good for rappers and underwater dwelling superheroes

That bad rap he gets? Well it's probably because he deserves it. Way to Aquaman.