Aquaman's power actually IS useless

Congratulations. You've proven Superman has a better power set than Aquaman.

How does this make Aquaman "useless"? Again, not everyone Aquaman fights is Superman.

For that matter, the exact argument you're using could be applied to almost every single superhero up to and including A-List characters Green Lantern (hard to focus on making constructs when someone's whistling at a hypersonic frequency) and The Flash (running fast isn't incredibly useful when your opponent is just as fast and can snipe you with heat vision from Pluto).

This has NOTHING to do with how useful their abilities are. It only provides a ridiculous fallacy that anyone who can't fight on the exact same level as Superman is useless, which is total baloney. You did nothing to address the points I brought up earlier.

This is also known as "Batman's only power is plot convenience".

Martial arts is useless against the majority of A-List opponents in the DC Universe, and resourcefulness? You can literally write ANY character as being "resourceful".

edited 27th Apr '11 6:44:55 PM by KingZeal

Here's what happens in fictional stories...whatever the author wants to happen.

The good ones contrive things so you can't even argue with them, the incompetent ones fail to think of obvious loopholes, the bad ones...don't give a damn.

Aquaman is exactly as lame or awesome as whoever is telling the story wants him to be.

Quoted For Truth

Fish telepathy is not useless in the DCU.

Why?

Because the friggin' DCU has giant monsters that can demonstrably make the transition between water and surface quite casually and listen to said 'fish telepathy'.

And when Aquaman is actually in his own element- "King of the seas, remember?"- fish telepathy is immensely useful, considering he can whistle up whatever bit of marine life (fictional or otherwise) he happens to need. Given how dense the fauna tends to be in the ocean, this can border on him creating a Genius Loci that doesn't like you.

Sure, for foiling a bank robbery in Tucson (Arizona is fairly arid, isn't it?), fish telepathy isn't going to help much, but how often is Aquaman going to be in the desert? Especially if he's not stupid?

I think what daveshan's getting at (and please correct me if I'm wrong) is that he's trying to assess the usefulness of Aquaman's fish-telepathy independently of Aquaman's usefulness as a character. Aquaman the character can use his fish-telepathy to make giant sea monsters do his bidding; that makes him pretty badass. However, fish-telepathy, in-and-of-itself, doesn't give someone access to giant sea monsters; that makes the power, by itself, not nearly as awesome.

The difficulty I'm having is that 'fish telepathy' manifestly does give Aquaman access to (and control of) walking biological WMDs in the DCU.

Ergo, 'fish telepathy' belongs quite firmly under Heart Is an Awesome Power, because in the context of the universe it exists in, it lets you flatten cities should you so desire. It also lets you melt peoples' brains via the bits-that-evolved-from-fish lobe (doesn't really make much sense, but then again, neither do most comic book physics).

However, you could consider living in a universe with such powerful sea life as a seperate superpower. Like, suppose someone had the superpower to make anyone they touch sneeze. Pretty lame, right? Except they also have an alien pet whose sneezes have the destructive force of medium-sized bombs. Does that make their sneeze-inducing power awesome? Or is it the alien pet whose power is awesome, and sneeze-inducing is just a complimentary power?

So... living in a Fantasy Kitchen Sink is a superpower now? @.o

Yeah, not really feeling that one. The giant sea monsters would be there whether Aquaman could control them or not (really, this is the DCU. You know they'd be around someplace, if only so Superman or someone could bludgeon them into submission every once in a while).

The DCU has giant fish-monsters that can operate on land. Aquaman's fish-telepathy can control them as massive weapons. So Aquaman's fish-telepathy is an awesome power. Not seeing how this is really all that complicated.

Let's just back up and make this simple. Te Chameleon, I agree with you, but you're kind of giving their argument ammunition, so let's break this down:

Saying that Aquaman's ability to talk to fish is "useless when separate from his other superpowers" is like saying that spider-sense is useless when separated from other superpowers.

For example, imagine if Spider-man had the ability to know a bullet was coming but lacked the agility to dodge it.

If you see where I'm going, then you can understand that it's a completely moot issue.

edited 28th Apr '11 6:17:54 AM by KingZeal

THANK YOU, RAVEN! I'm glad we have that matter settled now.

King Zeal: About Superman, I wasn't specifically referring to Superman. I was just saying that anyone who can get 20+ feet away from the water in any direction is safe from anything that aquatelepathy can do (don't take 20 feet literally, it's just an estimate).

About Batman, martial arts are shown to be useful against a plethora of villains. And his resourcefulness mostly comes from the stuff he carries, not the stuff he conveniently finds. There are times, yes, that he finds exactly what he needs or something close enough, but a lot of his battles are fought right from his vehicles and utility belt.

About Spiderman, Warning you of danger hardly qualifies as a useless power regardless of your agility. Maybe not an awesome power, but hardly a useless one (unless it waited until after the gun was fired to start working, then it'd be useless). I understand what you are trying to say, that separating any power from the sum of its parts would make that power useless, but it's not even close to being so.

I'll admit I don't read that much Aquaman, just see him in Justice League stuff. In those comics, it's usually his super strength and resilience that helps him do whatever job he needs done. Very rarely do I see him needing Chtulu or an army of sharks.

Also, remember that any marine life he calls for assistance has to: 1) Be in the reach of his communication. I don't know if there's an established limit to it, but it doesn't seem to go out forever.

2) Take the time to get from point A to point B. So even if he calls upon an army of great whites and you're in the water, how many great whites are in the area? How far away are they? If 10 attack you at once, most heroes and villains are in for the fight of their lives. If its one or two at a time, if someone's planning on fighting Aquaman, they'd probably be ready for that.

Blueharp: This is about his aquatelepathy. Not Aquaman as a whole.

Chameleon: The brain-melting power is kinda bizarre and I think that one author was just playing with it to see how far it would go. It's hardly a cannon power. If it were, why isn't he just placating any villain into surrendering and being sent to jail. May be bordering on the ethics of some, but so does letting hundreds of innocents die when you can have the person, who's clearly doing the killing, immediately surrender.

Your Fantasy Kitchen Sink argument does hold some merit. However, it's still saying that it can't stand on its own and needs hand waving by the writers. Consider: If the power of the Big Bad of the universe was that it could destroy any solid object with a thought, the power to melt becomes the life-saver of the century.

Whew. That was a lot to respond to. If I left someone or some point out, let me know.

edited 28th Apr '11 2:19:48 PM by daveshan

Sure, but how many superpowers are actually useful outside of twenty feet? For example, Gambit can only charge objects which he touches, but that's considered to be an extremely powerful ability. Once more, it's not Aquaman's fault that most stories are told on land. As has been mentioned here already, consider the fact that much of the world relies upon intercontinental travel and trade and that all of it is at Aquaman's mercy. As I said before, just because the writers are too lazy to acknowledge this fact does NOT mean that Aquaman's abilties are useless.

That has nothing to do with my point. You keep bringing up these points:

• Aquaman's ability to talk to fish is useless because fish can't hurt superheroes like Superman.
• Aquaman's command of the ocean is useless because most comics don't take place in the ocean.

This argument works for Batman as well. Martial arts don't work against someone with invulnerability and super-strength unless you invent some sort of Weaksauce Weakness (most fights involving Batman and Superman involve Kryptonite somehow). Also, Batman by the same argument, is obsolete if your battle takes place somewhere normal humans can't survive in (like, say the moon or a volcano). Batman's usefulness in these regards completely depends on how the writer feels like justifying that he can suddenly breathe in space or survive 3000 degrees.

No. Warning you of danger is only as useful as your ability to do something about it. For example, we have a such thing as "tornado warnings", but in everyday life, this equates pretty much to "run to the basement and pray". Having the ability to know that a bullet is heading your way and not possessing the agility to do anything about it is akin to learning that the sun blew up five minutes ago. Even if the ability warned of a gun ahead of time, what would be the use of that if you can't shout a warning or disarm the perpetrator in time?

This is the point I'm making: this does not mean that Aquaman's abilties are useless. This only means that the writers don't feel like being bothered to think of anything for him to do. Green Lantern used to have the same problem. Remember the 60s when all he used to do was make boxing gloves to punch people?

This, once again, goes for every superhero that relies on resources. Bringing up Batman again, he is limited by the amount of "preparation" (read: convenience) the writers decided to give him. Sure, he can call for the Batmobile/Batplane to airdrop some supplies for him, but he still has to wait for it to get there. Sure, he COULD use liquid nitrogen to take care of Clayface, but he would need to have it on hand first, like Aquaman would need to have his marine life. Except that where Aquaman lives, Marine life is EVERYWHERE and the population of the ocean's ecosystems make the surface world look like a deserted apocalyptic wasteland by comparison.

edited 28th Apr '11 3:18:52 PM by KingZeal

I don't think you get the point I was making, which is that the viability of a give power or ability is exactly what the writer of the story wants it to be because they are in control of what happens to the character. Sometimes they do write stories where Superman can't use his powers. Sometimes even that applies to Batman, when they strip him of everything...or in one case, give him Superpowers so he starts using those instead. If an author wants to write Aquaman as being useless, they will. If they want him to be useful, they will write that story.

The quality of which will depend on their competence.

Doesn't work. The oceans cover 2/3 of Earth's surface, and are terametres deep. All the pollution in the world would simply disperse out until it's too dilute to have serious effect.

Of course it's not cannon. A cannon power would involve Aquaman shooting some sort of sphere of matter or energy, which would presumably reduce his enemy to gibbering insanity.

I really don't see what its resemblance to a cannon has to do with anything. The fact of the matter is, Aquaman has used this power, and I don't think it was explained away as being a dream/imaginary story/whatever; therefore, it's Canon. Sure, Aquaman might choose not to use it, but the fact is, he can if he wants to.

Actually...

Huh. I sit corrected.

Think of it this way, though: suppose there was a literal Superpower Lottery in Real Life where a bunch of people from all over the world are given the chance to win superpowers by random selection. If a lot of the powers are stuff like mind reading/control, superspeed (with the Required Secondary Powers), the Flying Brick skillset, create anything you can imagine powers, and so on, are you really gonna be crossing your fingers going, "I hope I get the power to command fish! I hope I get the power to command fish!"?

I'm pretty sure a few marine biologists would jump at the chance to say yes. As would sailors, coast guards, fishermen, etc.

And again, the question has nothing to do with the usefulness of Aquaman's abilities.

And no one would ask for Rogue's powerset, or Speedball's, or Jubilee's... doesn't mean those are useless in battle either.

edited 29th Apr '11 11:02:37 AM by NapoleonDeCheese

-King Zeal: About anyone who can launch lasers (heat/ice/whatever), lightening, super sound blasts, super wind blasts out of their hands, eyes, mouth or anything else can fight beyond 20 feet or whatever the minor, but significant distance is. As can anyone telepathically move objects, whether those objects are super sharp, poisonous, or anything else.

Batman's skills work in a multitude of locations and environments. Though he can't actually breath in space, he can pilot spaceships and use space-based weapons effectively. Now, this is NOT saying that Aquaman cannot. This is just saying that his aquatelepathy is useless in many situations, where as many other powers are not.

Again, you're focused too much on when we used Superman. I'm not specifying him at all.

You're right about spider sense being useless if you don't have time to do anything about the danger. That's why I said it would be if it waited until the gun was fired to tell you the bullet was coming. If it alerted you, say, whenever a gun was loaded and cocked by someone nearby, who was your enemy, that would still be useful.

All of Aquaman's abilities are not useless. Just his aquatelepathy.

Back to the 'holding the shipping world at ransom' argument. I've been applying some fridge logic and realized that it wouldn't be as easy as it sounds to do that.

• To start things off, if he ever started doing that and we really needed to fight back, we could drastically pollute the water around our ports to prevent immediate blockades and give our ships time to start moving.

• Once our large boats are moving at close-to-top speeds, any marine life that isn't enormous, would get sucked into and chopped up by the ships propellers. And, by the way, I mean enormous. This limits what he could use to full grown whales, giant squids, and a few other species. Now, these creatures not only can't be everywhere at once, so they must be spread thin, they also make for very large targets. Since we are at war, the ships would be armed or have armed escorts.

• Though Aquaman's fellow Atlantians could get stop these ships without being easy targets and resisting the force of the propellers, his command of them isn't part of his aquatelepathy.

-Blue: Your argument's the inverse of mine. I'm saying that the writers have to create situations specifically for aquatelepathy to work. You're saying that writers have to create situations specifically powers to NOT work. See the difference?

-Vampire: About trade routes, see above.

About 'cannon', don't be an ass.

Once more, if there're any points I missed, let me know.

That isn't true. Some people have powers which only work on contact (Rogue, Gambit) and others have powers which only work within a certain range (Iron Man's repulsor rays). Keep in mind that most major cities all over the world are coastal. New York, Chicago, LA, Sydney, etc and that some "marine animals" (crocodiles for example) are amphibious. Now, of course, you are right in that I wouldn't expect Aquaman to throw a crocodile at someone while they're on land, but he wouldn't HAVE to. Again, that's like arguing that Gambit's playing cards are useless because it's raining.

Look what you just said. Batman has to be given a plot contrivance in order to be useful there. Batman suddenly acquiring space-based ships and weapons (because, you know, fighting the Penguin totally makes that necessary) is about equally likely to Aquaman suddenly finding Cthuhu at the bottom of the ocean and using him to kick ass.

So you didn't mention him a few posts back as a reason why Aquaman's abilities are "useless"? My mistake. You just ignored my Wolverine example so many times that I just assumed that every superhero had to be of the Superpower Lottery variety.

Again, this is specifically creating a situation for his powers to be useful. For one thing, this is a definite example of a Power Creep, since Spider-man's senses seem to bounce between whether or not they can sense only imminent danger (danger already approaching) and potential danger. I mean, really? His senses tingle just because someone loaded a gun? Sure that power would be useful, because it would be totally haxed. It would be like Aquaman suddenly gaining control over every creature that evolved from the ocean (basically meaning every creature ever).

Oh, so pollute our own water supply and ecosystem? Brilliant move. This plan fails because even though we humans don't live in the water, we still depend on it. So now, instead of tying up just the trading routes as Aquaman intended, we've severely crippled our own water utility, agriculture, fishing, and tourism (because, y'know, beaches) in order to tick off a guy who has thousands of square miles more water to use than we do. Truly brilliant.

Problem here is that Aquaman has reserves. Every ship in the world isn't huge, and are extremely expensive to make and maintain. Furthermore, this (again) only ONE of the resources at his disposal. Sure, Aquaman's killer whales probably wouldn't be able to do anything about the USS John F. Kennedy, but why should they have to? You just said that they can't be everywhere—but neither can these battleships and cruisers you just mentioned. And also, it takes us millions of dollars to create and maintain these ships (ships, by the way, that would need FUEL we can't get because Aquaman's interrupted trading) while Aquaman doesn't need any such thing to summon a giant squid.

How does that make the aquatelepathy less useful on smaller, commercial ships then? Again, this argument fails because it's like saying that infantry is useless because the enemy has a few tanks. Which, I can assure you, is not the case in total warfare.

edited 29th Apr '11 11:11:32 PM by KingZeal

No, you're paying too much attention to my example, and not enough to the meaning, as I'm saying that whatever the authors do is what they choose to do. They can make him awesome or lame all depending on what story they write.

My argument is the contradiction of yours, because you are arguing that the power is inherently one thing or another, I'm making the argument that there is nothing inherent in it, the control is in the writer's capacity. In the examples I gave, they were looking for ways to make an interesting story without the powers/abilities, because well, that's what they wanted to do.

That, of course, is because conflict and difficulty is popular in stories.

edited 29th Apr '11 3:06:13 PM by blueharp

-*sigh*

Daveshan? Can I repeat what I said earlier?

The DCU is a Fantasy Kitchen Sink. Said sink happens to include massive Cthulhu-esque thingies that respond to the aquatelepathy. Thus, no matter how useless or useful fish-control might be in the real world, in the DCU, it lets you control walking WMDs. What part of this is non-awesome? It's like saying Rogue's power of stealing people's powers with a touch is useless because superpowers don't exist in the real world :/

Isn't Rogue's power stealing someone's life force with a touch? So even if there aren't other superpowered folk around, she can still knock out and possibly kill someone just by touching them.

derp

edited 1st May '11 7:59:36 AM by KingZeal

Rogue's power would be much more problems than it's worth in real life. Not being able to touch anyone else ever again just isn't worth the ability to knock people out.