u/BalladOfBetaRayBill

Doodled this at work lol. What if Absolute Aquaman is like an old fishing boat captain? You could do a Call of Cthulhu type story where the Atlanteans (huge eldritch sea gods that live in the deepest darkest lightless trenches) start calling out to Old Man Arthur because they know he’s one of them. Like at first he’s terrified and his crew are being overwhelmed with nightmarish “thalassophobia” visions of the deep. Eventually it becomes more action/horror with Arthur using his abilities to try and counteract the Atlanteans culminating in an escalating series of sea monsters battles, with Arthur himself undergoing strange bodily transformations when he uses his power (weird orange crablike skin, coral armor protrusions, clear secondary eyelids, gills, mermaid tail).

Idk what do y’all think?

Did anyone else feel like the special came out kind of hollow? Like they start with this lofty “wounded veteran’s mental health journey” story and then sorta just... stop? Ma Gnucci shows up, delivers a monologue, and then a thousand guys go after Frank, and after killing them he feels better. Like the actual solution to his mental health crisis was just gettin’ back on that murder grindset.

It’s like if Taxi Driver was about how Travis Bickle needed to keep killing even more people until he felt better. I know there’s something to be said about his choice to save the kid rather than have his revenge, but that felt like something he would have done all the way back in DD season 2. Like the action is really cool, but thematically it was all over the place.

It also feels like reality was bending to his delusions? Like apparently Punisher is actually super necessary because there are literally hordes of evil demonic monster men punching veterans and killing puppies. and trying to eat babies or whatever. How is that not like a hallucination Frank is having? It was like something from Beau is Afraid.

Idk, the action was dope and I almost wish they didn’t try to bite off more than they could chew with the veterans’ mental health stuff, it was handled better in Punisher Season 1. I know we can’t end a story with him quitting again, but I sorta wish there was a more realistic and heroic mission for him to start on rather than “society is filled to the brim with baby-killing orcs disguised as poor people and ***someone*** has got to kill them, why not Frank?”

Absolute Aquaman idea

Issues with the special (Spoilers)