Rough Mondays: The Aquakids
With DC’s recent revamp announcements, I’m a little taken aback with the push to make everyone “bad-ass.” And, apparently, “bad-ass” also means overly complicated costumes with a lot of needless lines and seams all over the place.
So, I found this sketch I did a coupla weeks ago. It was just a doodle of Aqualad and his gal pal, Aquagirl. From artist Nick Cardy, on the introduction of Aquagirl: “I think it stemmed from the idea that the Aquaman character had Mera, while Aqualad was sort of left out. So George and Bob wrote in a young girl character, Tula. Like with Mera, I designed Tula’s outfit and overall look. She was Aqualad’s companion, being of the same age, they could relate to one another, or oppose the elders. We played up the fact that she was this wild, “hip” 1960s modern girl and Aqualad was more reserved and introverted.”
I dunno. Maybe I’m crazy…. but I think a lot of these characters had untapped potential. Not every hero needs to be a grim dude, all super-serious about his crime-fightin’. Sometimes they can be fun-lovin’ teen heroes with goofy haircuts. I’m fine with that.
Well so am I. Sadly, the guys over at DC seem to be stuck in a time warp somewhere between 1992 and 1996.
Oh well, been whinging about this for over a month, no use whipping a deceased equine. Thanks for sharing, Nightwing.
It seems that they made Superman a real HUGE stick in the mud by making him grim, they turned the Batman into a real Jerk, and if they keep this up it will be very easy to relate to the DC villains who seem to have a fun side with none of the angst and edginess.