Aquaman Episode 11: Vassa - Queen of the Mermen

Aquaman Episode 11: "Vassa - Queen of the Mermen" by Oscar Bensol

A giant whale heads toward Atlantis--except, on closer examination, it's not a real whale. It's a mechanical fake, piloted by two mermen and their queen, Vassa!

Mera and Tusky stumble upon Vassa on their way to attack, and a call for help to Aquaman is placed (via a ring Mera wears, which beams to Aquaman's "A" belt buckle, which is super cool). Aquaman and Aqualad take off to stop the invasion:

Aquaman is able to stop one of Vassa's mechanical whales with the help of some finny friends, but the rest continue on and start blasting at Atlantis' dome.

Aquaman commands his finny friends to attack, and two octopi grab one of the whale's mermen pilots, causing it to spin out of control and smash into another one of the whales, destroying both. After destroying a third shift, only Vassa's is left. As it heads back to Atlantis to attack again, Aquaman grabs a nearby anchor:

He lassos Vassa's ship, stopping it abruptly. That throws Vassa off of it, into Aquaman's arms. Nicer than he has any reason to be, Aquaman chooses to elt Vassa go, even though she swears she will return to attack Atlantis again one day. On that troubling note, we have reached...The End!

This whole bit of Aquaman letting the bad guys go at the end is reaching critical mass here: it's one thing to send an invading alien force packing back to their home planet. It's another to let a technologically-inclined evil queen--who swears to try again--just run loose. Doesn't Atlantis have at least one prison?

I love the sequence of Aquaman in the jaws of the giant metal whale--I feel like there was a potential action figure/playset/game there, if some toy manufacturer had just seen this episode.