Aquaman

Wired has ten reasons that there will never be an Aquaman movie. I can shorten that list to one reason - he's lame.

He is so lame that I never really followed him. I know a bit about the character but not much. Most of what I know comes from covers, a few episodes of The Justice League, and the Wired article. The only time I ever bought any issues was when there was a three-issue backup staring Deadman written and drawn by Neil Adams.

The character was a rip-off of the Sub-Mariner. Both were mixed-race surface-dweller/aquatic hybrids who could breath under water. The Sub-Mariner got massive strength and tiny wings on his ankles that allowed him to fly and swim very fast. The Golden-age Aquaman had most of these abilities. The Silver-age Aquaman could talk to sea creatures.

The Silver-age Aquaman was little more than an aquatic version of Green Lantern. Where Green Lantern created objects with his power ring, Aquaman called up exotic sea creatures.

Like many DC heroes, Aquaman had a sidekick - Aqualad.

Eventually Aquaman became king of an undersea kingdom (just like the Sub-Mariner) and married a hot redhead (which was highly unusual for superheroes).

The character has been through multiple reboots and version. At one point he grew long hair and a beard. He lost a hand and has worn various attachments since then. The number of different attempts to make him interesting show how lame the character actually is.

The most recent version I have seen was in the animated Brave and Bold. In that, Aquaman is a self-absorbed king who likes to quote from his own autobiography. This was probably a parody of his actual status as a lame second-rate hero.