Black Manta is easily the coolest Aquaman villain, in my opinion. His awesome helmet, appearances on Super Friends and the fact that he was created by Bob Haney all made him an early favorite of mine. He was used well in the recent Young Justice animated series, too. His ties to the new Aqualad give him even more depth as a character.
Cool!
ReplyDeleteIsn't he one of those characters, like The Joker - and originally the Green Goblin - where no one knows who he really is under the mask? he's just Black Manta. That's kinda cool too. I liked what Geoff Johns was doing with him in Aquaman lately and his appearance in Justice, the Super Friends homage by Alex Ross and Jim Krueger.
"Scuba Coup" is an awesome title.
I have high hopes for James Robinson writing The Invaders, but instead of it being old school, which I would have liked, it's contemporary and modern, kinda like his updating of the JSA.
@AirDave: Originally, yes. But about ten years after his first appearance, Black Manta finally did remove his helmet. As far as I know, though, we never did learn his name.
ReplyDeleteI'm one of those people who never really cared for Black Manta's helmet. I just don't understand why it has that shape, and I've never seen a drawing that makes it look truly hydrodynamic.
ReplyDeleteOn another note, I just thought of a group that has yet to be featured on this page: The Inferior Five. I think it'd be fun to see a cover with, say, I5 vs. Galactus.
Hydrodynamic, schmidrodynamic - it looks cool!
ReplyDeleteThe I5 have been featured here before, in a MTIO team up with The Thing...
A part of my brain remembered that team-up, but I couldn't find the I5 in the Tags. I'd still love to see I5 vs. Galactus, though (but not as much as Ambush Bug and Wolverine).
ReplyDeleteAnd though I acknowledge that I'm part of a tiny minority with this opinion, I still think BM's helmet looks stupid.
Black Manta was one of those spooky, weird characters I liked; he had that weird helmet, weaponry, and scary robotic voice.
ReplyDeleteHe was cool in the cartoons, but the version I liked was in Justice League Unlimited, Devilray, I think he was called.
A really mean, ruthless supervillain.
They are listed under "The" Inferior Five
ReplyDeleteYeah, the helmet doesn't really look all that practical, but it's supposed to be shaped like the head of a manta ray, more or less.
ReplyDeleteI hate to be a party pooper, but I remember reading a story when I was a kid where Black Manta kills a toddler. The baby dies a cruel death, as he was Aguaman's son, and black manta kept him out of the water for over an hour. This comic disturbed me for quite a long time, as I was about 10 years old when I read it.
ReplyDeleteI also remember in the issue, Black Manta takes off his helmet and he is revealed to be a black man, ranting about how black people should have dominance over the ocean. I think in later issues, they tried to turn him into some kind of amphibian frog creature.
I love comics, but they do have a somewhat racist past. Almost all heroes and villains who were black would have the word "black" in front of their moniker, such as Black Lightning, Black Falcon, Black Panther ect. As an adult, whenever I read a story about Black Manta, I remember his racist beginnings.
@Ed: I think the story you're referencing was a serial that ran in ADVENTURE COMICS in the mid-70's. Black Manta was trying to convince a militant group of alienated black men that he was sympathetic to their cause in order to convince them to submit to a surgical procedure that would enable them to breath underwater (deliberately omitting the fact that they would no longer be able to live on the surface). His intention was to give them no choice but to become his army in an attack on Atlantis once they were converted. When their leader realized they had been hoodwinked, he turned on Black Manta and vowed to establish their own home. I always assumed that the dark-skinned Aqualad who showed up right before New52 kicked in was supposed to be that man's son, even though that was a pre-Crisis story. The thing to remember is that Black Manta was telling them what he thought would make them angry enough that they would act without stopping to question his true motives. He's a villain in the classic mold and probably doesn't care about the well-being of other black people any more than Lex Luthor cares about the well-being of other white people. He didn't have "racist beginnings"; that was just a plotline for one story.
ReplyDeleteYou were right about too many black heroes having the word 'black' in their names, although Falcon was NEVER called "Black Falcon". Black Panther was originally supposed to be called "The Coal Tiger" but before he debuted he was renamed (probably by Kirby, considering his WWII experience) after the Tank Battalion. That to me is more of a pedigree than 'Black Lightning' or 'Black Goliath' (who later became simply 'Goliath'). But the most successful series featuring a black character during the 70's (and 80's) was POWER MAN by a wide margin-- 47 issues and an annual before teaming up with Iron Fist (and adding him to the title from #50 through #125), plus stints in the FF and Defenders and various team-ups and guest spots. He and Falcon were merchandised in ways other black comic characters weren't, especially those identified by their race as much as by their powers.
Wow, that sounds like a shocking storyline, in retrospect. Thank you for clearing that up PBLFSDA. The white guys who wrote these comics back in the 60s & 70s were awefully clumsy at tackling race/social issues but I guess they reflected the larger societies' views. Now we have a NEW generation of writers, editors and artists (the old guard is finally gone! Jeez, all due respect, DC took a while to retire many of them as opposed to Marvel.) and you can see how much better issues such as race, gender and social politics are handled! Its a New Day!
ReplyDeleteI used to hear fans talk about "Black Falcon," and I didn't understand who they were talking about. I knew Marvel's hero was "The Falcon," and besides, they seemed to think he was a DC hero, and I knew there was no such character. After some time I figured out that they had misheard the name "Black Vulcan" on the Super Friends cartoon. He was only on the TV show, and never appeared in the comic books.
ReplyDeleteI could have sworn he was called the Black Falcon at one point, but I could be wrong.
ReplyDeleteIt was the Adventure comics story I remember reading. I don't have it anymore, and I don't think it has been reprinted, and 35 years is a long time. I stand by my opinion that showing a black militant leader killing a small white child has racial undertones, intended or not. Especially if the reader is an impressionable 10 year old boy.
Aquaman's 1970's stories from ADVENTURE COMICS mentioned here were collected as the paperback "Death Of A Prince" a couple of years ago, reviewed here:
ReplyDeletehttp://collectededitions.blogspot.com/2011/10/review-aquaman-death-of-prince-trade.html
here:
http://bullpenbulletinspodcast.com/forum/index.php?topic=13242.0
and here:
http://www.amazon.com/Aquaman-Death-Of-Prince-TP/dp/1401231136
Most of the people discussing the book were equally shocked by a villain targeting a baby, but it's almost universally seen in the context of what was then a decade-long personal vendetta with Aquaman. Unless you're living in the same context now that you lived in when you were ten, it probably reads radically differently today.
Interesting links, here is a little piece I did for Cracked earlier in the year that pertains to the subject.
ReplyDeletehttp://www.cracked.com/article_20202_6-hilariously-failed-attempts-at-making-comics-more-diverse.html