Plot summary: When local marine life begins to behave aggressively, Lois Lane stumbles upon the source; Lex Luthor has captured the mythical Aquaman!
Notes and Trivia
Episode: 50 (S3.E9)
Original Air Date: May 8th, 1999
Directed: Shin-Ichi Tsuji (2)
Written: Hilary J. Bader (13) & Rich Fogel (9) (teleplay) and Alan Burnett (10) (story)
Animation: Group T.A.C. Co., LTD. & Jade Animation (3)
Music: Lolita Ritmanis (14)
Oh hey it’s that Signal Watch Jimmy got last episode!
You’ll recall from ‘Two’s a Crowd‘ that in this continuity while Superman has an impressive lung capacity, he cannot actually breathe underwater just as he cannot breathe in space.
While Aquaman makes his DCAU debut here his appearance will dramatically change when he returns in Justice League. His look here adheres to his classic design.
Despite Aquaman’s lengthy history in DC comics, Rich Fogel admitted they took inspiration from Marvel’s characterisation of Namor (who only predates Aquaman by 2 years) when writing the episode.
Recap
Bibbo Bibbowski takes Lois and Jimmy out to sea in the wake of reports of sealife attacks. They’re almost immediately attacked by a group of orca, requiring Superman to intervene.
Dr. Cardy, a shifty marine biologist dismisses it all as normal behaviour, but Lois doesn’t buy it and follows him. Sure enough, he has a rather ominous conversation with Lex Luthor about what’s causing it.
Poking around further, Lois hears a thudding noise and locates the source: Aquaman, trapped in a tube for study! Turns out Lex has been testing underwater explosives that have caused harm to Atlantis, thus Aquaman was captured while defending his home.
Cardy and a burly colleague arrive and pull a gun on Lois and then take her with them as they transport Aquaman further inland in the hopes of the marine life calming down.
Lex decides kidnapping Lois was a bad move so orders Cardy to kill both hostages… but turns out Aquaman can talk to seagulls too, and they are able to get free and fight off their captors.
Lois drives them away via motorcycle but armed pursuit forces her to drive off a cliff, where Aquaman summons a great white shark to protect them… from gunfire…
Superman decides that’s dumb and after dispatching their attackers scoops Lois out of the water and returns her to dry land. Aquaman gives him a little stare-down and then swims off with his shark bro.
Lois and Supes confront Luthor ahead of the next bomb test, but he points out they’re in international waters so the whole thing is legal. Aquaman shows up to cause trouble so Lex orders his men to kill him.
An array of animals (and Superman, I guess!) assist Aquaman in a battle below the waves, and while they’re able to defeat Luthor’s men… Aquaman summons an enormous Atlantean ship and declares war!
Superman disarms all the bombs and implores Aquaman to stand down and he reluctantly agrees, though not before sinking Lex’s ship. He warns Superman that they’ll be watching…
Best Performance
Deeply funny to me that Dana Delany played the “Jimmy…” when Olsen went overboard as if he had just died. Lois is in a somewhat fun and flirty mode here in general, one of her larger episode roles in a long time, as she guides a lot of the action alongside Aquaman. For lack of a better option I guess I’d go with her even if it is far from her best work.
As good as Miguel Ferrer can be at voice acting more generally, they sure lump him with some dull characters. When Aquaman isn’t generic and uninteresting he’s instead saying some absolutely bonkers thing that no actor could make work. He’s solid on some of the more emphatic/aggressive lines, and does start to bring it in that closing stretch, but is just far too hampered to win here. Perhaps if the end had been the entire episode…
Episode Ranking
Basically all the juice is in the final 3 minutes but they ran out of time to properly play with it. Aquaman revealing the true military strength of Atlantis and threatening to shift from hero to warmonger with Superman having to play diplomat and Lex threatening to shatter the truce? THAT is an episode. Bizarre to me they wouldn’t realise that and make far more of it.
Aquaman exists in an interesting space in the DCAU, respecting the other heroes, but maintaining a healthy distance (literally and figuratively), putting his kingdom above all. That naturally brings him into conflict with the good guys from time to time, but you can see his perspective even in those moments. But when one of Lex’s goons shoots first, Atlantis retaliates with disproportionate force, which makes for a surprisingly uncomfortable and grim tone, with the music blaring amid rampant destruction. To end the episode with Aquaman threatening Superman and then leaving as our hero can only watch on helplessly truly feels like the end of a Part I… but no Part II would ever come.
The episode is fine as a general Aquaman showcase, similar to how the general Green Lantern stuff worked in ‘In Brightest Day…‘, but the scripting issues here are far more pronounced than that, and the underwater antics aren’t as fun as the power ring constructs, so it can’t even coast on that.
I know they reveal something strange is going on with the animals, but early on you’d be forgiven for thinking they were just pissed off with Jimmy for his constant flash photography. Also the wrinkle that Jimmy only has a learner’s permit was a bizarre thing to casually drop so late in the season. Between that and the Signal Watch it feels like they’ve taken 50 episodes to decide on his characterisation. In a similar vein, why the heck are Lex’s goons suddenly dressing like Team Rocket or something? Giant L emblems on their uniforms (and a bunch of vehicles) has not remotely been a thing up to now. It seems they decided to turn him into a full Bond Villain here, which does make sense, but is not how he’s been portrayed in the series thus far. The final underwater fight sequence is very Bond too, with the whacky array of submersibles, which I did enjoy even if it stretched the credulity of Superman ‘not’ being able to breath underwater.
I rolled my eyes at the entire motorcycle escape scene. From the seagulls rescuing them, to Lois ramming a goon with a fucking bike less than 10 seconds after noticing the key on the ground. It doesn’t even stop there though as an ostensibly smart, award-winning journalist smashes through safety barriers near a cliff-edge and then is shocked when she runs out of road. The entire shark bodyguard thing feels pointless to boot; I thought the shark was going to swim them to safety, or that they were faking Lois’ death, but instead it seems Aqauaman just wanted to grab them some protection… from gunfire. Goofy in a bad way. Oh! And then Superman just leaves Lois on Lex’s ship where one of his goons almost chucks her overboard. He would simply never!
There’s still the unfortunate ugliness present in the other Group TAC/Jade episodes (lower detail in mid/wide shots, including missing faces), and at one point Lex becomes inexplicably chonky, but I liked all the sea creatures at least! Whales, sharks, eels, a giant squid, even the sea lions, they’re all looking majestic. Likewise the Atlantean fleet is a cool reveal at the end… though I would have liked to see what TMS or Koko/Dong Yang could have done with it.
I’m sticking it in a clump with most of the rest of this season, particularly the other ones that have these huge problems at the hearts of their scripts despite solid concepts.
- Obsession
- The Late Mr. Kent
- Brave New Metropolis
- Apokalips… Now!
- World’s Finest
- Livewire
- Double Dose
- Fun and Games
- Warrior Queen
- Knight Time
- Father’s Day
- Little Girl Lost
- The Hand of Fate
- The Last Son of Krypton
- Ghost in the Machine
- Stolen Memories
- Action Figures
- The Prometheon
- In Brightest Day…
- Tools of the Trade
- The Main Man
- Mxzypixilated
- Blasts from the Past
- Target
- The Way of All Flesh
- Solar Power
- Where There’s Smoke
- Protoype
- My Girl
- A Little Piece of Home
- Feeding Time
- New Kids in Town
- Superman’s Pal
- Little Big Head Man
- A Fish Story (NEW ENTRY)
- Speed Demons
- Two’s a Crowd
- Absolute Power
- Identity Crisis
- Heavy Metal
- Monkey Fun
- Bizarro’s World
Rogues Roundup
Lex Luthor (Clancy Brown) (sixteenth appearance)
OH HEY REMEMBER LEX FUCKING LUTHOR?!? Seriously, where the heck has he been???
I mentioned it above but they basically turned Luthor into a Bond Villain late in the game, fitting as they modelled his DCAU design on Telly Savalas. It’s a logical way to go, but a little jarring to see them lean this hard into it at this stage in the show.
Clancy Brown keeps us centred, but it’s a reasonably forgettable outing for Lex, largely because they’re so vague about his motives. I get that he’s a weapons manufacturer and is testing bombs underwater, but it all just felt unusually… floaty? He wants to study Aquaman after they capture him, but then he wants him killed for fear of Superman coming for them. He scolds his men for capturing Lois for the same reasons… but then thinks KILLING her won’t come back on him? Bleh.
He’s safe in his position because I just can’t bring myself to place Joker above him for this series, but this is not a great one for him!
- Livewire
- Darkseid
- Toyman
- Lex Luthor (–)
- The Joker
- Queen Maxima
- Parasite
- Metallo
- Karkull
- Brainiac
- Mr. Mxyzptlk
- Harley Quinn
- Granny Goodness
- Kalibak
- Volcana
- The Gotham Rogues
- Lobo
- Luminus
- Sinestro
- Project Firestorm
- The Female Furies
- DeSaad
- Detective Bowman
- Bruno Mannheim (and Intergang!)
- Steppenwolf
- The Preserver
- Bizarro
- Kanto
- Mercy Graves
- The Prometheon
- De’Cine
- Mala & Jax-Ur
- Corey Mills
- Earl Garver
- Titano
- Weather Wizard
The Matt Signal 
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