Canadian Aqua-News!

Courtesy of CBR, who are reporting on the DC Comics panel of Toronto’s Fan Expo.

A long swatch of conversation was spent discussing Aquaman, of all characters, with Didio recalling a dinner during the Emerald City Con in Seattle where he opened a chat with the assembled creators by saying, “Gentlemen, bring on the Aquaman pitches” as everyone always comes to him with plans to reboot the character and “finally get Aquaman right.” For his part, the editor thought the character’s mainstream cultural identifiability comes from nostalgia for the cartoons of the ‘60s.

As for the problems with the character, Didio proved his point that Aquaman needed major attention when he asked fans to name five recognizable Aquaman villains, and the audience stalled at a questionable fourth pick of the Human Flying Fish. Didio admitted that the sea king is “an incredibly strong character when he appears with the teams. He’s a great counterpoint to a lot of other characters in Justice League and other places,” and he said that the challenge came in giving fans one version of the character that presents the very best elements of the long-running and confusing mythos.

Apparently, step one of solving the Aquaman puzzle outside of the character’s mystery tease in “Final Crisis” will be in the upcoming “Green Lantern” crossover “Blackest Night” as Van Sciver said most of his story will get resolved there.

And later, Dan Didio had this to say:

“What we’re doing coming out of ‘Final Crisis’ " and I’ll say this here, and I’ll say this everywhere " is that we’re locking our characters down. We’re going with a good interpretation, and we’re staying with it. That’s why you don’t see Aquaman right now, because we want it to be clear what it is, who he is and what he’s all about.”

Didio added that they were trying to find the best, most recognizable and most popular versions of all of their characters, including Aquaman, Hawkman, Batgirl and Supergirl, who he noted only really works for readers and for the general public when she is “Superman’s cousin.”

Well, at least we're getting some movement on Aquaman... I'm looking forward to the Blackest Night even more now!