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Well, the blue 'camo' suit and the orange-less shirtless look both tanked, so...
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Depends on the shades used.
See, aside from humorous uses, that trope always bothers me. The ocean is never not boring. Not to mention that "more is known about the Moon than the deepest parts of the ocean". Writers should go wild on Atlantis. How about an epic fantasy/scifi story starring Aquaman?
Then again, my favorite book of all time is Twenty Thousand Leagues Under The Sea, so I might be biased.
The thing is, in the weird world of comic books, almost anything you can have happen in the deep sea, you can also have happen on land, in the air, or in space. However, if you set a story underwater, you've got to deal with the fact that there's water everywhere.
If you make the water completely transparent, it'll look weird, like everyone's on the surface only somehow they can float in mid-air. But if you make the water visible (blue tint, bubbles floating about, ripples around moving objects, etc.), it gets old fast. Imagine if a Planetary Romance was set on an alien world where the atmosphere was full of billowing clouds of yellow gas; eventually you'd get tired of seeing yellow gas everywhere, right? It's the same deal with water; unless there's some reason we should care what the characters are breathing, making the atmosphere around them visible just distracts readers from stuff that's actually interesting.
Of course, this only applies to visual media; prose novels like Twenty Thousand Leagues Under The Sea don't have any of those problems.
edited 5th Sep '13 8:51:45 PM by RavenWilder
On the idea that anything you can do in oceans, you can do on land: I agree with this, and would add that many things you can do on land, can't be done underwater.
It's much harder for non-Atlantean characters to travel to the bottom of the ocean. They need special equipment just to exist down there. You can't have huge, epic battle scenes with non-Atlanteans without risking damaging their outfit, so a lot of the combat is nerfed. Water physics heavily interfere with an actual fight scene. Fiery explosions can't happen. Fire itself cannot be used.
Ultimately, many of the things that go into a typical action scene are rendered void by the simple fact of being underwater at the time, resulting in underwater action scenes being specifically underwater action scenes by necessity.
My Tumblr. Currently side-by-side liveblogging Digimon Adventure, sub vs dub.It's strange, but among my friends, I'm one of the few who actually LIKED Arthur's Conan-like appearance from the '90s (the long hair & beard, cyber-hand, etc.) "Go ahead, make THAT joke againnote , M Fer! I dare you!"
(BTW, if you heard that line in Samuel L Jackson's voice, I wouldn't blame you).
Plus, a lot of non-readers seem to forget what Aquaman actually does for a living. He's the leader of an entire kingdom. In other words, he's got his own private army and centuries of Magitek. Still think he's lame?
Embroiled in slave rebellion, I escaped crucifixion simply by declaring 'I am Vito', everyone else apparently being called 'Spartacus'.@ Tobias - the idea that there is no such thing as an underwater explosion is just ridiculous, and a submarine setting carries with it the most reasonable excuse for Guns Are Useless / Immune to Bullets ever.
I've had a similar conversation before. :P It went like this:
TLDR: OH NO, someone might have to have fun with the setting and be differently creative.
ERROR: The current state of the world is unacceptable. Save anyway? YES/NOThat's why I emphasized "fiery" explosion. Things can explose underwater, but it's nowhere near as visually appealing. You can't have smoldering wrecks, wildfires, flamethrowers, pyrokinesis - effectively the entire spectrum of fire is shut off.
Lightning is unusable too. The two most beloved "badass" forces of nature are completely unusable for creating an action scene. In a genre that thrives on huge, explosive set pieces, this is crippling.
By all means, mermaid romcom, mermaid dramady, mermaid noir, mermaid horror, etc. are all feasible, but it's hard to sell mermaid action film when you have to replace Badass walking away from a fiery explosion with Mermaid swimming slowly away from a mild shockwave ripple in the waters. The fire is what makes the explosion cool. Without that, it's just stuff falling apart.
Writers know this. It's why they so frequently ignore the fact that huge, fiery explosions can't happen in space. Things can explode, but you can't have GIGANTIC INFERNO FIREBALL, which is what people really want to see when they say they want to see things explode. People really like fire. They like fiery explosions. They like people who can create fire. They like volcanic Final Dungeons. Humans love fire.
edited 6th Sep '13 10:41:20 AM by TobiasDrake
My Tumblr. Currently side-by-side liveblogging Digimon Adventure, sub vs dub.Relevant.
Apparently, Mark Waid and Mike Wieringo pitched an Aquaman story back in 2003. It would follow a marine biologist who got caught up with Aquaman, who was quiet but calm, happy and charming. It was going to be an optimistic story about just how fucking awesome the ocean is, trying to draw on the childhood awe we all had of it, dreams of riding on the backs of whales and such. There wouldn't have been "talks to fish" jokes. Just a nice story about the ocean being really cool.
This is comics, not Hollywood. Explosions don't need to be fiery to be impressive in comics. Nor do you need to follow proper physics in the first place.
"That's why I emphasized "fiery" explosion. Things can explose underwater, but it's nowhere near as visually appealing. You can't have smoldering wrecks, wildfires, flamethrowers, pyrokinesis - effectively the entire spectrum of fire is shut off. "
Just use pretty shades of blue and white.
"War without fire is like sausages without mustard." - Jean Juvénal des UrsinsWhat King Zeal said.
Tobias, I don't see your point at all. Yes, heaven forbid that we, I don't know, actually try to be creative with the setting and the characters, and aspire to construct an engaging narrative, instead of relying on tired old tropes just so we can appeal to the Lowest Common Denominator. You severely underestimate the creative potential of comic books. Look, I study comics as an art form, and I know certain writers and artists who are more than capable of very innovative story telling.
Tiamatty: That concept sounds awesome.
It actually really does. I love when comic books embrace optimism like that. When they acknowledge that the world is awesome, and try to bring back the joy we took in everything as kids. That childlike awe is something we need to hold onto more, and superhero comics that do that are awesome.
That's definitely a very good tack to take with Aquaman. I'm not sure how successful it would be, but it would be a very good read.
I can see why Weiringo's art would have been an issue, though. Weiringo was one of the best comic artists I've ever read, but I can't imagine his art bringing out that sense of wonder that Waid was pitching. It sounds more suited to Bryan Hitch or someone else whose style is more pretty and less cartoony.
This. This so much. I'm kinda sick of the "cynicism is cool" mindset. As an aspiring writer, and that spirit is exactly what I'm trying to infuse my work with.
Dammit, now I want Mark Waid's Aquaman.
edited 6th Sep '13 9:41:09 PM by Nightwire
Y'know, something I always wondered about... why does Atlantis need that freaking enormous magitek navy? It can't exactly be cheap to maintain, magic or otherwise, and given what we've seen of Atlantis (most of the time, anyhow), it's gotta take up a huge percentage of their population to man.
... why?
I'm pretty sure there's some story potential there. eldritch horrors from beyond the deep, sunken alien conquerors, other underwater civilizations (Atlantis is hardly the only sunken continent in mythology and literature- there's Mu, Hyperborea, Thule, Rutas and Lemuria, with just the best-known ones for starters), or even some land-based nation that's been waging war on Atlantis for its resources.
... and as a token nod to the original intent of the thread, 'hey look, it's Captain America, who can do acrobatics and throw a big frisbee at you!'
edited 8th Sep '13 1:50:49 PM by TeChameleon
My mother actually had that complain about Cap when watching The Avengers. She said at least Black Widow was good for cover stealth ops, and Hawkeye's arrows were so powerful and plot devicey he was okay (plus he could do stealth too), but for her, Cap was just this brightly colored non powered target who jumped around and could beat a small handful of the same Mooks Thor and Hulk could plow through huge numbers of. She didn't even think there was anything really that special about his leadership either.
