After The New 52, more people started to see why Aquaman was a cool and lore-heavy character, his series of adventures and supporting characters gave his stories an element no other DC heroes could replicate. However, before the universal reboot could "give Arthur his groove back", the Aquaman mythos was a bit more expansive and featured interesting characters like this week's Z-Lister, Dolphin!
Created by Jay Scott Pike in "DC Showcase #79" in 1968, a young girl fell off a crew ship and was rescued from drowning a mysterious race of aliens. These aliens experimented on the girl for years, altering her body to become subaquatic. These tests led to various mutations and when the alien abandoned their experiment the young girl escaped their underwater lab. This young girl-now with undersea superpowers-grew up as a lone traveller of the seas, scavenging for clothing and other sunken objects. Eventually, she aided the crew of an oceanology ship in fighting off a dolphin-eating shark. The crew took the sea-girl in and named her Dolphin. Because of her separation from mankind, Dolphin lacked the ability to speak for some time, but the crew of the ship happily educated her and teach her sign language. Dolphin would eventually learn to speak again, but remained a woman of few words.
Dolphin went on to meet Aquaman and Aqualad and become an ally to them both. After falling in love with Aquaman, she and the King of Atlantis fought Kordax, an evil Atlantean who revealed he was the one who set Dolphin free and he had used mind control to use her as a sleeper agent. However, Dolphin's love for Aquaman overpowered the mind control and they defeated the evil villain.
An awkward change would come when Aqualad had returned from his years of sorcery studies older and under the name Tempest. At the same time, Aquaman's actual wife Mera returned from her extra-dimensional exile to be with her husband again. Dolphin had become smitten with Tempest and Aquaman returned to his wife Mera, both on good terms, oddly enough. Dolphin and Tempest got married and had a child named Cerdian, but Tempest's responsibilities as a superhero and a father became hard on him, additionally the transition to being a mother left Dolphin feeling constrained for the first time in her life. Tempest agreed to quit The Titans and spend full-time with his family, but after Aquaman was accused of sinking Atlantis deeper into the sea, the former king was exiled and allies like Tempest and Dolphin were put under house arrest as collaborators.
While that misunderstanding was resolved, the city of Atlantis was soon punished by the physical manifestation of God's vengeance. You see, Tempest used all of the magically energies of Atlantean sorcerers to cast a spell that would undo a curse on Mera, but the magical power of Tempest was considered too powerful and The Spectre (that physical manifestation I mentioned) laid waste to the city of Atlantis. The resulting destruction killed Dolphin and Cerdian, but left Tempest to mourn in his survivor's guilt.
Dolphin-like many aquatic female characters in fiction-seemed like an attempt to reinvent the idea of a mermaid, but what became of the character was much more cohesive. I mean, other than screwing a married man and then hooking up his the man's apprentice. Mainly I refer to the success of her life: starting out as a feral undersea child, becoming a lesser-known hero, teaming up with seafaring defenders, getting married and mothering a child. It seemed like a mostly successful life for her, up until God literally said "get pwnd, scrub" and destroyed her and her child. Bummer. Regardless, a character spun right out of the late 60's love of groovy and stylized heroines, Dolphin is a character who deserves a bit more attention. I mean hell, while their re-pitching Tempest in current comics why not give this chick a sick reboot. Not too sick, it's bad enough she was captured by ambiguous aliens.
Thanks for Reading and Happy Celebration September!
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Dolphin went on to meet Aquaman and Aqualad and become an ally to them both. After falling in love with Aquaman, she and the King of Atlantis fought Kordax, an evil Atlantean who revealed he was the one who set Dolphin free and he had used mind control to use her as a sleeper agent. However, Dolphin's love for Aquaman overpowered the mind control and they defeated the evil villain.
An awkward change would come when Aqualad had returned from his years of sorcery studies older and under the name Tempest. At the same time, Aquaman's actual wife Mera returned from her extra-dimensional exile to be with her husband again. Dolphin had become smitten with Tempest and Aquaman returned to his wife Mera, both on good terms, oddly enough. Dolphin and Tempest got married and had a child named Cerdian, but Tempest's responsibilities as a superhero and a father became hard on him, additionally the transition to being a mother left Dolphin feeling constrained for the first time in her life. Tempest agreed to quit The Titans and spend full-time with his family, but after Aquaman was accused of sinking Atlantis deeper into the sea, the former king was exiled and allies like Tempest and Dolphin were put under house arrest as collaborators.
While that misunderstanding was resolved, the city of Atlantis was soon punished by the physical manifestation of God's vengeance. You see, Tempest used all of the magically energies of Atlantean sorcerers to cast a spell that would undo a curse on Mera, but the magical power of Tempest was considered too powerful and The Spectre (that physical manifestation I mentioned) laid waste to the city of Atlantis. The resulting destruction killed Dolphin and Cerdian, but left Tempest to mourn in his survivor's guilt.
Dolphin-like many aquatic female characters in fiction-seemed like an attempt to reinvent the idea of a mermaid, but what became of the character was much more cohesive. I mean, other than screwing a married man and then hooking up his the man's apprentice. Mainly I refer to the success of her life: starting out as a feral undersea child, becoming a lesser-known hero, teaming up with seafaring defenders, getting married and mothering a child. It seemed like a mostly successful life for her, up until God literally said "get pwnd, scrub" and destroyed her and her child. Bummer. Regardless, a character spun right out of the late 60's love of groovy and stylized heroines, Dolphin is a character who deserves a bit more attention. I mean hell, while their re-pitching Tempest in current comics why not give this chick a sick reboot. Not too sick, it's bad enough she was captured by ambiguous aliens.
Thanks for Reading and Happy Celebration September!
Facebook: The Panel Biter
Twitter: @ThePanelBiter
Podbean: Panelbiter.podbean.com
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