pardon the French, mesdames et messieurs...

PART DEUX of my Aqua Force diatribe... joined in progress...

However, I had in mind to have a veritable international force of aquatic heroics here - complete with une Femme D'Eau / Mulhere D'Agua from the Mediterranean Sea! The Seas have no visible boundaries, see? ;)
Thus, my "Aqua Force" was destined to be a truly international consortium of ecologically-aware champions of *true* justice - yes!
And, besides, the most famous oceanographer of all was a Frenchman!
Why stick to American interests solely? Not on my watch! Not in luminous land! ;)
Rest assured though that my homage to the most famous oceanographer of all, via a nymph-like curvaceous lady, is not in any way an amalgam of Jacques Cousteau and little-known late seventies/eighties porn starlet *delectable* Désirée Cousteau... no! I do not do things that way - even though I am aware of these rather odd facts... The fact remains that a mermaid is simply a thousand times more interesting than a merman... Ask Man From Atlantis Patrick Duffy - he was happier in Dallas than in Atlantis! And ratings were immensely better in the big "T" too...
Case closed.

Other characters and/or character-concepts that I had planned for my aquatic epic would be too strenuous to mention here - as a tad superfluous too! Suffice it to say though that in MY plans, there were no token odd / not-trustworthy / evidently treacherous members à-la-Devilfish - the only obvious soon-to-be-traitor member in all of the variant Justice Leagues (lest you count Justice League Arkham, which was nothing but criminally insane maniacs led by a psychopath and control freak - Batman! And no; it did not make it any better that the Justice League of Apostles made their lone appearance that I know of in Aquaman's chapter of the ''saga'' - that was nice but not nearly enough, for...) - the only traitor to be found had to be placed in Aquaman's Justice League of Atlantis for some unfathomable reason...?!? Why, DC, why?!? With telepathic powers as he possesses, Aquaman should LOGICALLY be able to ferret out any malicious intent coming from, quite obviously, some kind of mutant sea creature...!
I know - amping up the powers of anyone who is neither Soupesy nor Uber-Bat (though Batman has no powers to speak of) is anathema to most DC editors...
However this is simply being CONSISTENT with the idea that AQUAMAN only has telepathic powers in full throttle as far as sea creatures are concerned...! Can't you do that at least - can't you be CONSISTENT, DC?!?
"To summon and command..." as Ted Knight used to recite in the intro of Aquaman's cartoon in the sixties... He could have added "control and read the minds of... every creature of the deep" while he was at it! Ah, but DC sometimes... DC sometimes makes despondency set in within fandom across the nation - across the world!!! Aye, alas, it is most times... Time and time again... But, as PAD says so very often, I digress...

Sometimes I wonder if Mermaid Man and Barnacle Boy (respectively voiced by Ernest Borgnine and Tim Conway) do not get more respect from the producers of Spongebob Squarepants than Aquaman himself manages to get from DC...
Art © DC Comics Inc. ~ Commentary © Luminous Inc. ;)

Six who are never going to be a part of my "Aqua Force" either...

Neptunius was a "Shazam" type of answer to Aquavenger's Captain Marvel...?
Aquavenger (1971) was the type of hero that would have been great for a TV series; with the majority of dialogue scenes being out-of-costume ones.
Big Bang Comics' Human Sub must have been Sub-Mariner moonlighting during his release from Timely Comics or something... Didn't go so well.
The top two ladies are AQUAVIVA from the group "Iberia Inc." - she was seen in a most unique (as in "never gonna happen again") crossover in Marvel's "Avengers Forever", mainly due to artist Carlos Pacheco's involvement...
(Aquaviva is all that nerdy chicks such as Namorita, Marrina and others over at Marvel were made out to be - but are clearly not! The only true Marina is this one anyway! The Elementals' Fathom -not to be confused with M. Turner's Fathom- is another one envious of Aquaviva here, I'm sure...)
And the blue lady is "unknown" from planet AQUA - a misnomer in the order of Greenland and Iceland since it is a book about a planet deprived of the precious H2O... And people thought only uneducated analphabètes (illiterates) who roam the world (like the Norsemen did - just to ransack portuary towns) could reach such heights of absurdism... Not sure where this ''Aquapolis'' is, either...
Finally, at the top we have Captain High Liner... Uh, no, that's not it...  Call him "The Islander" and forget all about him already...!
(I'd rather have Captain Nemo onboard, quite frankly!)
The twin sharkeys are there for show only - enjoy! :)

The following are NOT in my "Aqua Force" either...! *LOL*

~~~
Splash ~
Not to be confused with this Splash nor with this one! Or my very own Mariamar...

Marine Boy, Neptina and another Splash-er... 

Deep Blue/Indigo I don`t really want, yo...

And Marrina... Ah, no go!

Not the Octonauts - and not this Aquaman either:

Atalon... nah!
and none of the following either - for obvious reasons! 

Hmm... I think I`m forgetting some Sub-Altern here...?

no - that`s not it!

Submarine Man

... ah... also Submarine Man!

And Michael Turner's Fathom is off-limits!
Ask around - you'll see that I'm not bastardizing the facts at all...!
But I might invite Shark-Man though... *lol*

... the more the merrier - right? 

And all of the following too - 

why the heck not: 

quest for an aqua arch-nemesis...

Arguably the greatest multi-part story ever chronicling AQUAMAN's adventures, the Quest For Mera was an instant classic. No other hero has had a quest that measures up to it!

The so-called saga surrounding the silver age Flash (Barry Allen) and his nemesis (more than a tad childishly named "Reverse-Flash) was unquestionably the greatest "near-epic" in said (and sad) character's run too... If anything compares, therefore, this would be it!

I thought it would be, ah, aquamusing to explore the possibility of giving the Sea King a worthy foe who is his exact opposite also...! After all, over the years, the many attempts to build one from scratch simply did not work out all that well... now did they? From Quisp to Queequeg, none of the "realistic and probable" to the most outlandish opponents that were thrown AQ's way truly made the cut! In exasperation, DC even turned a bit towards the abstract by conjuring up a "villain" (such an archaic way to refer to evil fiends - at least wrestling calls them "heels", which is soooooo cool - rrrrright? But I digress...) tailor-made for Aquaman - or so they thought. "The Thirst", ultimately, sucked too... Hence the Sea King remains seeking suitable competition.

Don<t chime in and give me the Ocean Master and Black Mantas now - we clearly are seeking elsewhere today and there is plenty of fish in the sea...!

So in I come with my luminous suggestion!
Wonder Woman had her exact opposite in Angle Man.
Superman has his exact opposite in Lex Luthor.
The Flash got a rather embarrassing Reverse-Flash
(who was retroactively replaced by the hipper Vandal Savage - retcons are customary now)

Hence, since DC is also in the habit of embarrassing the King of the Seven Seas, they'd surely agree with the idea of giving Aquaman as his main foe the one, the only... REVERSE-AQUAMAN!

Reverse-Aquaman!
He cannot swim the deepest seas - without getting an extreme bad case of the bends!
He cannot breathe underwater without some major air supply! (No, not the band!)
He cannot summon nor command any deep sea creature (even his goldfish mocks him openly! Or just ignores him... which is worse!)
He would drown in ten seconds if he was to find himself trying to work out in the Titanic's gymnasium (as Aquaman reputedly does routinely!)
He is totally clueless about which way is up while swimming in the dark waters of the famed Marianna's Trench!

Reverse-Aquaman - yay!
A character-find to be treasured always and always - for eons to come!
The average joe will easily identify himself with him too - thus ensuring the enduring appeal of said character for countless generations!

After all, we have seen why Batman is so popular - because ANYONE COULD BE BATTY, BATBOY IN THE MAJORS OR BATMAN!
All you need to do is don the bat-suit! And presto - you're Batman!
Ask Keaton, Kilmer, Clooney, Bale... Adam West!!!
The whole damnable "mystique of the bat" will do the rest of the work for you!
Yeah - sure... it's just THAT simple!
You don't need to know ANY martial art skills at all (let alone all of them) - the bat-allure will smite the abject losers that you have in your rogues gallery (usually nerdy types and slacker criminals; in other words - easy pickings!)

Such endearing traits have appealed to fans since the dawn of time (or the 1940s really) and character-identification has only been enhanced over the years by the Batty One's crimefighting ineptitude, evidenced by his marked inability to rid even one single town -his hometown- of the wretched "criminal element"... after years dedicated to the task!!

Truly, any single one of us could be Batman!
Verily, any two-bit sap, even those that wallow in self-pity, could be Batman!
Absolutely - even Dubya could be Batman!

Character identification is so simple with tools like Batmen and little birdies such as Robin - they have no powers to speak of!
Anyone could dress just as ridiculously as those two, take to the streets and fight crime (odd, eccentric would-be felons, really) and... get killed in the process!
It would be the likely scenario if Batty faced off with a real-life Riddler - and what do you think would happen if he went after Al Qaida?!? But that is another story...

It is much more complex -and it requires much more imagination and creativity- to identify oneself with a near-sea god who can do such wondrous things while making a very inhospitable environment HIS DOMAIN!

Hence, "Reverse-Aquaman" truly has tons and tons of potential! We are talking about the everyman of the millennium! 

We risk seeing here the same annoying thing happen though, as it has with the Joker and Bats really - the "villain" becoming more fun (make that much more fun - in Joke's case!) than the hero!

Anyone can be "Reverse-Aquaman"!
You, me - and grandpa too!
After all, as Ambrose Bierce said so well...
"(About The) Ocean: A body of water occupying about two-thirds of a world made for man - who has no gills" - and man has no frills about donning a silly costume, too!

Bonus (a huge one at that) - chicks dig Reverse-Aquaman... They share the same plight!  And by chicks we mean, of course... Aquaficionadas!

And here are some more examples of those - call it a refresher course...