A Brief History of Pop Culture Dumping on Aquaman

Life as an Aquaman cannot be easy. You’ve got all sorts of obligations to the worlds of both land and sea; you’ve got a slew of mommy issues; and perhaps worst of all, you’re a walking (swimming?) punch line. For years, the King of the Seven Seas and his waterlogged superpowers have inspired jokes particularly on television series geared toward a young male audience, e.g. Family Guy and South Park. The gags tend to boil down to the same thing: Aquaman is a lame hero, and also, his costume is dumb. But where did this mockery start—and can Jason Momoa’s muscular, long-haired Arthur Curry get Aquaman the respect he deserves, once and for all?

Before he became most strongly associated with a beaming Momoa shouting “My man!” in Justice League, Aquaman made perhaps his biggest mainstream splash—sorry—on Super Friends, an animated TV series that debuted in 1973. The image of the superhero riding on a chariot made of fish—sporting that classic orange top and green pants—sealed the depths-dweller in public memory as a doofy champion, despite defenders who insist there’s more to Aquaman than talking to fish and riding them places. Those defenders include Momoa himself, who lobbied to flush a few jokes at his character’s expense out of the script for Justice League, which formally introduced the latest version of Aquaman in 2017. Neither Zack Snyder nor Joss Whedon, who stepped into shepherd the film to completion, obliged.

While later depictions of the character emphasized his serious side, Aquaman jokes abounded especially in the 90s and 2000s—largely thanks to a school of young male animators, including Seth MacFarlane and South Park’s Matt Stone and Trey Parker, who couldn’t help but poke fun at Aquaman’s ineffectual reputation.

Aquaman first appeared on Family Guy in May of 1999, and the show has consistently depicted him as useless. In one episode, Aquaman is seen on his TV show trying to talk a fish into bringing him a beer. Perhaps most infamously, there’s an installment in which a woman is seen being attacked on a beach; Aquaman, bound to the water, is unable to help beyond throwing a starfish at her assailant.

That same year, SpongeBob SquarePants introduced its own Aquaman spoof, Mermaid Man. Rather than lampooning the superhero directly, Stephen Hillenburg’s Nickelodeon series imagined an older, extremely senile version of the character—an idol to SpongeBob, despite his obvious cognitive decay. Mermaid Man and his old sidekick, Barnacle Boy, are retired when SpongeBob first finds them, and Mermaid Man’s decline quickly becomes obvious; he becomes hysterical when he hears the word “evil,” running around the room screaming and hurling himself onto a potted plant. Still, Mermaid Man and Barnacle Boy embark on a few adventures with SpongeBob over the course of the series, and if nothing else, their invisible boat mobile is pretty sweet.

South Park climbed aboard the Aquaman Ridicule Train in 2001, with a character named “Seaman.” (If you’ve watched South Park more than once, you can probably guess how most characters pronounce that name.) His avian sidekick’s name? Swallow. Seaman has appeared four times in the series, and made his debut in “Super Best Friends,” which finds Jesus summoning the help of a group of religious figures to help him fight David Blaine. (Seaman is the only non-religious figure in the Super Best Friends crew.) Another memorable appearance finds him fighting with Tom Cruise, climbing on the actor’s back at one point and prompting Stan to shout, “Tom Cruise has Seaman on his back!”

Poor Aquaman didn’t get much respect from Robot Chicken or Seth Green, either. Aquaman, who first debuted on the show in 2005, was frequently the butt of his friends’ jokes on this series. The other superheroes frequently impugn Aquaman’s mettle; they even torture him by eating seafood in front of him. It’s no wonder the poor guy at one point has to shout, “I am the king of the fucking ocean!” Sometimes you’ve got to remind people. But unfortunately, it didn’t seem to make much of a difference.

And then there’s The Big Bang Theory. The geek-centric show has also taken multiple shots at the superhero throughout its run—most memorably, through Raj, who has been forced to dress up as Aquaman for group costumes on multiple occasions during the show’s run. His constant refrain? “Aquaman sucks!” But to be fair, that costume—which comes complete with Aquaman’s purple seahorse, Storm—is pretty hilarious.

But maybe James Wan’s new DC movie can help turn things around for this long-maligned character. Jason Momoa has a fierce presence as the king of the sea—and as V.F.’s own Richard Lawson notes in his review of DC’s new stand-alone feature, Aquaman also doesn’t take its Atlantean lead too seriously. It’s respectful but lighthearted, embracing the goofier aspects of Aquaman’s origins without making the mer-hero himself the butt of the joke—proving that, in the end, it might be even more fun to laugh with Aquaman than it’s been to laugh at him.

Laura Bradley