He was apparently killed by Aquaman in anger, after causing a disturbance in Sub Diego in which Captain Marley was severely injured. This succeeded and since then Black Manta has returned to the oceans to face Aquaman once again. In later events, Black Manta was used as a test subject to make water breathers, using genetic manipulation. Unfortunately, Manta remained a violent criminal, lulling Aquaman into a false sense of partnership and almost killing the Sea King in the process. In a later confrontation, Aquaman, sporting the Lady of the Lake's Healing Hand, reversed Neron's alterations to Black Manta, and rewired Manta's afflicted brain, making him normal for the first time in his life. Here, he was opposed by Green Arrow and Aquaman. He took to wearing a new costume that completely covered his appearance, and inexplicably stopped tormenting Aquaman and instead indulged in drug smuggling from his new base in Star City. Underworld Unleashedīlack Manta later sold his soul to the demon Neron in exchange for more power, and transformed into a Manta/Man hybrid. Broken and pleading for mercy, Manta was spared by Aquaman who decided that it was not worth compromising his ideals and had him arrested instead. Aquaman pursued revenge with the intention of murdering his nemesis, and Manta almost managed to kill him but was betrayed by one of his disillusioned mercenaries named Cal Durham. The two heroes managed to break free while he escaped, but the baby died and they were too late to save him. Manta placed Aquababy into a chamber where he would slowly suffocate until one of them had killed the other. Aquaman and Aqualad were put into an arena and forced to fight each other to the death. Revealing himself to be African American, he explained that he hoped to create an underwater colony where his people could be free from the persecution they faced on the surface world. This was the home of the pacifistic Idylists, and he easily conquered it with a team of mercenaries. Fighting his enraged nemesis again after Mera and Aquababy had been kidnapped, Manta knocked him out and gave him to Karshon in exchange for information about the City of the Lost Tribes. Aqualad and Aquagirl uncovered one of his criminal operations in Mississippi, and it was revealed that he had been smuggling guns to the villainous King Karshon who had dethroned and exiled Aquaman. Īfter burying him under tons of rubble, Aquaman still managed to escape through a network of underground caves. He also hired a robotics engineer named Weisbogg to destroy the city's dome with a mechanical Bugala, although this plan also failed. He also joined the short-lived Injustice League.īlack Manta began a series of more vicious personal attacks on Aquaman, beginning with an assault on Atlantis' agricultural system. Taking the name Black Manta, he and his masked army became a force to be reckoned with. Īs an adult, he designed a costume (primarily a black wetsuit with bug-eyed helmet that was able to shoot blasting rays from its eyes) and fashioned a high-tech submersible inspired by black manta rays. Afterward, the boy used the syringe used to help him speak to murder the doctor and escape. Using his newfound ability to seem normal, the boy put his doctor at ease enough to unstrap him. One of these experiments was successful enough that he became able to speak in complete sentences. The boy could barely speak, usually repeating a few words, such as "love swim." The doctors began performing experimental treatments on the boy, experiments that seemed to cause him pain. The attendants would strap him to the bed anyway, and to stifle his screams of pain, they would smother him with pillows until he passed out. The boy experienced being immersed in water as sublime ecstasy, while the softness of the cotton sheets of his bed bore for him excruciating pain. Placed into an institution for his mental "affliction," the boy was treated cruelly by his attendants. Hating the emotionless sea (and Aquaman, who he saw as its representative), the boy was determined to become its master. Finally, he was forced to defend himself, killing one of his tormentors on the ship with a knife. At one point he apparently saw Aquaman with his dolphin friends and tried to signal him for help but was not seen. As a youth he was kidnapped and forced to work on a ship for an unspecified amount of time. The boy who would become Black Manta was an autistic youth who grew up in Baltimore, Maryland, and loved to play by the sea.
0 Comments
Leave a Reply. |