Ridiculous writing

I’ve been picking up most of the 100-Page Spectaculars that DC has been putting out lately. They’re all reprints, but I don’t have all of the issues that are collected. In DC Comics Presents Brightest Day 3 there is one of the worst lines I’ve ever read in a comic. The reprint in question is from Legends of the DC Universe 27 and was written by Steve Englehart. It is an odd story in which Aquaman knows almost nothing about the surface world, yet is in the Justice League. He runs into the Joker underwater, says he’s heard of him from Batman, yet seems to have no idea who the Joker actually is.






He eventually seeks Batman’s help in defeating the Joker, but first he and Batman fight.

Why? They just needed a fight scene where you didn’t have to believe the Joker could hold his own underwater against Aquaman I suppose. Oh, I’m sorry. Batman needed to see what Aquaman was “made of”, despite their being in the Justice League together. Sure, that makes sense.











Then comes one of the dumbest lines of all time combined with a terrible, unintentional double-entendre

Aquaman says “I’m like the ocean, it never stops coming”
What? That’s what you say in response to Batman saying he wants to know what you’re made of. That.
This in a storyline where the event that kicks it all off is that the Joker has used his toxin to give fish “Joker Face”
Some comics are best left buried in the past. I have no idea why this was selected for a reprint.