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Sunday, April 12, 2015

Aquaman Episode 26 - The Mirror-Man From Planet Imago

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Aquaman Episode 26 - "The Mirror-Man From Planet Imago" by Dennis Marks

This episode starts with Aquaman being attacked by three of The Brain's diminutive goons. The Sea King takes care of them easily, and then...follows them into The Brain's ship? For Neptune's Sake, why?


We learn that this is not actually Aquaman, but a perfect duplicate, built by The Brain with help from the beings who live on the planet Imago. This battle was a test to see how well "Aquaman" held up in a fight, which he passed with flying colors!
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The Brain sends "Aquaman" out into the sea, where he issues a telepathic command to the fish of the sea to...fight one another! Aquaman's finny friends do this, and a nasty battle is launched. Back at the AquaCave, the real Aquaman and Aqualad are alerted to the trouble, and head out to deal with it.

Aquaman Prime tells his fish pals to stop fighting, and the conflicting commands confuse them. That forces Aquaman and Aqualad to step in and forcibly separate the battling fish. Meanwhile, The Brain's henchmen attack Aqualad, knocking him out and dragging him away. Aquaman stops them, but then is knocked out himself, and replaced by the fake Aquaman.

"Aquaman" finds Aqualad and they prepare to go home. As soon as he climbs on Storm, the seahorse bucks violently. Tusky, too, senses something is wrong, and is dealt with harshly:
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Aqualad notices something is wrong, but they go back to the AquaCave. There he is told to scram by "Aquaman", hurting the young man's feelings. Now alone in the AquaCave, "Aquaman" calls The Brain telling him that all of Atlantis' defenses have been lowered, and is open to attack!

Meanwhile, Aquaman Prime escapes from The Brain's ship, and gets into a fight with his evil twin. As The Brain approaches, "Aquaman" is knocked out, and Aquaman Prime creates a water wall to defend Atlantis. The Brain insists his ship be piloted full steam into the wall, over the protestations of his crew. The ship is smashed by the powerful water wall, and explodes. The duplicate Aquaman explains that the people of Imago were tricked by The Brain into believing Aquaman and the people of Atlantis were evil, which is why they helped him out. As the duplicate Aquaman fades out of existence, we have reached...The End!


Whew! As you can see, this episode was relatively plot heavy for your average Filmation adventure. The Brain's plan isn't bad, but he stupidly has "Aquaman" reveal his true self almost immediately, tipping Aqualad off. Maybe if he had kept the ruse going just, like, an hour longer, The Brain could have gotten into Atlantis and that would have been a whole 'nother ball game.

The final moment, with the other Aquaman apologizing before fading out of existence, is kinda creepy. Before this moment, you get the idea that this "Mirror-Man" is little more than a robot. But then we see he is sentient in some way, so watching him disappear into nothingness as Aquaman an Aqualad smile is just plain upsetting.



3 comments:

Anthony said...

Wonder why the Brain didn't just zap both Aquamen, vs. "only one and hope it's the right one." Some genius...

"Aquaman Prime"? This doesn't lead Arthur to become a strawman fanboy that changes time by punching "reality"?

BlUsKrEEm said...

Best episode of the show yet. I'm really enjoying salon up on Sunday, popping in the DVD and watching the weekly episode. I'm going to be sad when we're through.

Earth 2 Chris said...

This ending reminds me of the final fate of the Super Sons, although the story is less flippant about it!

Chris