Rockquaman!

“Gotta boogie, Gare,” said Zach. “Going to meet Christine and go to the movies. Gonna try to get her to the Aquaman movie, but guaranteed we wind up at a chick flick. You okay?”

“Okay? Of course. Tell her I said hi. Haven’t been out with you both in a while.”

“Yeah,” said Zach, tactfully not adding that four was company but three was a crowd. “You hanging here?”

“Why not? They got food, and a delightful piquant atmosphere.”

“Pee-what?”

“Exactly. Anyway, I think some of the guys are coming by in a little while. Tony and the others.” This was a lie; their friends and acquaintances might enter the bar in the afternoon, or after ten, but not likely between the hours of seven and ten. It was six thirty.

“Okay, Gary. Take it easy.”

“Say hi to Arthur Curry for me.”

“Who?”

“Aquaman. That was his human name. Or used to be. I can’t keep up with the comics anymore.”

Zach shook his head, grinning. “Dork.”

“You want to see the movie.”

“Yeah, well, ninety-nine percent chance I’m going to wind up at a romantic comedy anyway. See you.”

🔱🔱🔱

The Aquaman movie opens everywhere tomorrow. 

And here's the funny thing about the scene at the top of this entry: I wrote that ages ago. It appears in the first chapter of my novel Cobalt Agonistes (see books at side). I had first started tinkering with this book and its opening chapter more than twenty years ago (!), long before there was a movie about Aquaman in the works -- or the Justice League, or the Avengers, or Iron Man, or even Spider-Man. Batman was Michael Keaton. Superman was Christopher Reeve. Wonder Woman was Lynda Carter. The idea that superhero movies would dominate the box office was preposterous. 

A lot changed about that scene between the time I started playing with the ideas that would become the book and its pub date in 2010, but Aquaman was always the movie that Gary's friend was going to see. I remember my thinking on this. I chose the subject very carefully.

I wanted it to be a superhero movie because the book has dual storylines related to that -- our hero, Gary, dealing with some tough life situations, and his imaginary alter ego, Cobalt, coming out of retirement  when someone tries to kill him. I wanted to establish Gary as a dork who would know Aquaman's birth name, the kind of guy who made up his own comic books as a teenager. So it had to be an unusual hero -- everyone knows who Clark Kent and Peter Parker are, but Aquaman?

I also wanted it to be a hero with whom people were at least a little familiar (and Aquaman had starred in a lot of TV cartoons, including Super Friends). But I didn't want to reference a popular hero like the Hulk, who might actually star in a movie, because it would date the book. So I needed to pick a well-known comic book hero whom I could safely assume would never really be the star of his own movie.

And, here we are.

So you never really can predict what's going to happen, can you? I just thought it was interesting.

Anyway, I like Aquaman and I'm glad he got his own movie. He's been a hero in good standing since 1941.

Crushing the Axis.

People made fun of him, like my pals at IMAO. The very idea of an Aquaman movie (by James Cameron!) was a gag on the HBO show Entourage. Well, I didn't make fun of Aquaman. (Okay, maybe a little.) And hey, he got a namecheck in the Barenaked Ladies' hit "One Week." The Sub-Mariner can't say that, the soggy sack o' barnacles!

Arthur was a pretty powerful character even before they gave him the Trident of Neptune. My only concern is if he picks the fish over us. Since the 1960s there's been a current (so to speak) of anti-humanism running through his stories because of water pollution and war, but he's still one of us -- a New Englander, in fact. Or he was. Like Gary, I can't keep up with the comics anymore. I think they've changed his origin a dozen times.

Good luck, Aquaman! If you see his movie, let me know if you like it. Unless you get dragged to some chick flick instead.