Know Your Villains: The Marine Marauder

Our fifth installment of Know Your Aquaman Villains focuses on what would have been a footnote in the history of the Sea King if not for a new version that came to eclipse the original. We're talking about The Marine Marauder!

The Marine Marauder came to us fully formed as a super-villain, a crook who can command whales via a transmitter built into his costume. After stealing the cargo of a passenger ship, Aquaman gets involved. During a scuffle, MM commands a giant whale to swallow Aquaman and Mera, who get spit out only after the Sea King overrides MM's command.

After talking to the Navy, Aquaman learns that their sonar goes haywire every time Marine Marauder is around. He eventually finds MM's hideout, ending with the green-suited, goggled bad guy commanding a whale to ram the Navy ship which is carrying a valuable vaccine. As Aquaman heads off that disaster, Marine Marauder takes off:

Aquaman succeeds of course, but the Marine Marauder escapes. He essentially gets away with it, because he was never seen again! Okay, sort of--he did appear in the Aquaman back-up feature in Action Comics #520, alongside other Aqua-Villains, but it turned out he and the rest were just robot duplicates:

About half a decade later, Mike W. Barr would introduce a new Marine Marauder, this time a woman. She got her own listing in Who's Who: Update '87, where we learn her connection to the original:

This Marine Marauder (beautifully drawn here by Ty Templeton) has an unnamed brother whose money she used to further her career in oceanography. It's safe to assume this is the original Marine Marauder, but it was left vague.

This new Marine Marauder would end up tangling with Aquaman twice, beating her brother's record by 100% (again, if you discount robot duplicates). The first time was when Aquaman guest appeared in The Flash #66:

There's no real mention of the original MM, so any connection between the two remained vague. This new version returned In Justice League: The Nail #2, she teams up with Ocean Master to take on the Sea King, but doesn't prove to be any more effective than her brother despite outnumbering our hero:

Marine Marauder and Orm are defeated, and that was pretty much it for the character. Unless I am mistaken (always a possibility), the character has not been seen again.

Which is too bad--considering how thin Aquaman's Rogues Gallery is (though there's been some solid additions to it, post-New 52), I've always though the Marine Marauder had real possibilities. I think the costume is sharp, the power set is cool, and the whole idea of a sister taking a villainous cue from her brother is a nice hook from which to hang a back story on. Maybe something happened to the original, post his scuffle with Aquaman, that led the new version on a quest for vengeance. That kinda stuff is always fun.

In any case, the Marine Marauder is still out there, lingering in DC's massive list of copyrights. Any writer could pick him/her up and dust them off. What say you, Dan Abnett? If you can bring back Black Jack, the Marine Marauder ought to be a snap!

 

Marine Marauder I created by Steve Skeates and Jim Aparo. Marine Marauder II created by Mike W. Barr and Trevor Von Eeden.

Marine Marauder Appearances:
Adventure Comics #449
Action Comics #520
Adventures of the Outsiders #s 37-38
The Flash #66
JLA: The Nail #2