Aquaman, Tell Us About Your Mother

Many comic bloggers have drawn attention to the amusingly phallic comic book covers featuring Wonder Woman. Good lord, how many times was the Amazon Princess strapped to a rocket, stalactite, missile, or bomb?

Ah, symbolism.

Amateur Freudianism is fun! Remember: anything longer than it is wide is a phallic object.

But ya know what?

There was another superheroic champion of Freudian imagery who nobody mentions:

Aquaman.



Yeah, that's not symbolic or anything. Nope. Not at all. No feminine sexuality implied here.

-cough-



Oh, come on. An exploding circle, a prone Aquaman facing the circle crotch-first, a pale woman watching him, and "Die, My Love, Die?"

-cough-



Dragged into an ovoid abyss attached to a gold ring while his wife and adoptive son look on, Aquaman yells that he can't stop himself from shrinking and being dragged into the World Within the Ring.

-cough-

-cough cough-

Nope, no fears of women here. Marriage is groovy too, right, boys? Right?

Ahem.



Again, an exploding pit and Aquaman leading with his crotch. And it looks painful.

Mmm.



And the biggest "oh, come on" of all: the dreaded Dentata. "It's too powerful! It's ensnared my son and will devour us both! AAAAAAH!!"

Mmmm.

Really.

Aquaman was one of two major DC heroes in the Silver Age who was married. Perhaps it was no coincidence that he was the one to enjoy so many...feminine-threat covers.

(The other married hero, Hawkman, strutted around bare-chested and carried a mace. Uh-huh.)

Just a thought.

And it's not limited to the Silver Age, either. What, ten years ago, Aquaman lost his hand and replaced it with a harpoon. Ye gods. Any English majors out there want to explain what a hero "losing his hand" symbolizes? Replacing it with a hard metallic penetrating weapon?



Ooooookay then.