AMAZON ART #20

I had heard that in recent years DC had been building Aquaman's sidekick Mera as a power in her own right. Still--

The idea that she could send Superman flying with one blow is a little nuts.

Nice punch, though.

YEAR 1963: MERA

Whereas Hawkgirl was created as an integral part of the Silver-Age HAWKMAN feature, Mera-- DC's first Silver-Age character to marry the hero of her feature-- seems to have come about by happy accident.

Arguably, the template from which she derives is not so much Hawkgirl, Lois Lane or Carol Ferris, but that of Superman's nemesis Mr. Mxyzptlk. Although Mxyzptlk remained a perpetual thorn in the side of the Man of Steel, it might be argued that he indirectly spawned a plethora of helpful imps who either regularly or irregularly assisted DC heroes. 1959's "Bat-Mite" was conceived in the vein of a pest who wanted to be helpful to Batman, but others were better helpmates, like "Cryll," a shape-shifting alien who started assisting Space Ranger regularly in 1958. The first issue of Aquaman's 1962 magazine introduced a helpful extra-dimensional imp, "Quisp," who was only made occasional appearances. Quisp would be phased out of the feature as soon as Mera appeared in issue #11, and not only did she take his position, she was also given, via editorial fiat, the same powers Quisp had displayed: the ability to manipulate water much as Green Lantern manipulated his ring's energy, turning water into solid, offensive objects like clubs, fists, or, as seen above, giant monsters.

Mera quickly became a dominant force in the feature, somewhat shoving Aqualad to one side. She married the titular King of the Seven Seas in issue #18, about a year after her debut, and gave the feature a more domestic feel, particularly when she gave birth to Aquaman's first son.

Mera's popularity, like that of many other Silver Age heroines, has waxed and waned many times. At present, she seems to have undergone a slight rebirth, thanks to the "Brightest Day" series. Not surprisingly, I find that she, like Star Sapphire, had her best stories in the Silver Age and never quite made a meaningfuil transition to the current era of DC Comics, as did characters like Batgirl and Black Canary.

TOP 50 FEMALE/MALE FIGHTS IN COMICS: 23

Mera, sidekick/wife to title character Aquaman, had been battling at his side for about six years before this scene in AQUAMAN #46 (1969), written by Steve Skeates, drawn by Jim Aparo, and edited with an aim toward "realistic adventure" by Dick Giordano (who also spearheaded similar orientations in WONDER WOMAN and the SUPERMAN books).

However, for most of her history, Mera's method of combat was entirely confined to whipping up various weapons of "hard water," conjured from whatever ordinary water happened to be about. This rather Green Lantern-ish talent wasn't without its charms, but it did seem to drop Mera into the category of "defenseless damsel" whenever there was no water around.

Thanks to the Giordano editorship, Mera was able to upgrade to basic asskicking status, and from then on, whenever the subject of her fighting-skills came up, she was shown as being a better than average scrapper. Thus the above sequence, which would be an unremarkable fight-scene for Batgirl, has some historical importance for the DC character. Add to that formidability DC's later decision to assert that all Atlanteans had something like super-strength due to swimming around all the time, and Mera pretty much left her early Silver-Age conception eating dust-- or water, as the case might be.