Aquaman loses his hand

You’ve seen him parading around the oceans with that rockin’ hook of his (part of the Make Aquaman Cool Again Project of the 1990s), but how he lost that limb is just as important as him impaling dudes with a hook.  Almost.  To at least help you sleep a tiny bit easier tonight, let’s go over that fateful moment from Aquaman #2, written by Peter David and drawn by Marty Egeland.  Notice this takes place in the very first arc of Aquaman’s newest volume.  He already has a beard, soon followed by the lost hand, and it wraps up with the whole not-wearing-a-shirt-let-the-nipples-fly thing.  Aquaman became the epitome of ’90 reinvention within the span of a few issues.

Oh, and the story so far: crazy people kidnap Aquaman and Dolphin so they can steal their powers.

Standard evil people stuff, right?  Delusional self-confidence, long-winded monologue, sarcastic comment about their location and other basic monikers of crazy supervillains.  But you have nothing to worry about — the insanity gets full-blown in the next few pages.  There’s no need for subtlety when your costume consists only of shoulder pads.  Watch our bad guy try to talk to fish:

So as you can figure, Aquaman and Dolphin escape, blow up the facility, wreck the baddie’s plans, and tie up all loose ends — all within ten or so pages.  All that remains?  The climactic battle against the evildoer who’s just lost everything, or the final fifteen minutes of Man of Steel.  If you like blaring, sirens-blasting irony, check out Aquaman’s last words of the first page below:

Dolphin pops up with a one-liner and the bad guy loses.  The end.  Except I want you to take a moment and appreciate the pain Aquaman just went through.  Y’see, bruises and cuts heal, but they don’t leave the emotional damage that this surely will.  Dear readers, I present to you some superhero biology — the inside of Aquaman.

Right?  I know I said we’re going to wrap up Aquaman today, but I lied.  One more!  It’s worth it.