In DC Comics’ Justice League, neither Aquaman nor Cyborg are the most popular heroes. However, combining the two didn’t do either of them any favors. Instead of improving the character, making them a single hero just made them utterly absurd, as seen in Superman/Batman #60.
The Justice League and the Teen Titans have had overlapping members, but on occasion DC will take its iconic heroes and villains and combine them into new iterations. This series created hybridized versions of Brainiac and Catwoman, as well as Joker and Lex Luthor. While some hybrids work, quite a few don’t, including Doomstroke – a combination of Deathstroke and Doomsday. Likewise, an Aquaman and Cyborg pairing does no favors to either hero.
Superman/Batman #60 has the creative team of Michael Green, Mike Johnson, Francis Manapul, Brian Buccellato, Rob Leigh, Adam Schlagman, and Eddie Berganza. The series combines the Justice League with the Teen Titans, creating the Justice Titans. One of the team’s heroes is Aquaborg, also known as Arthur Stone. The initial idea already seems rather strange considering water and electronics don’t tend to mesh well. The execution makes the concept even worse, turning Aquaman and Cyborg into a walking robotic aquarium that seemingly would only be able to function on land.
Aquaborg has a robotic exterior that encloses his human body. Instead of being part-man part-robot like Cyborg, he is all-man and all-robot simultaneously. This seems necessary due to the presence of water being held within the robotic casing. Aquaborg takes Aquaman’s ability to control water and limits it by forcing him to exist within water perpetually. He can still control water, but he shoots it out via holes in his hands. He can also shape it outside of his robotic body, frequently giving it the shape of a fist to grasp or punch his foes. He isn’t used very often and only appears within this series, which may be for the best. His abilities appear very limited compared to what Aquaman and Cyborg can typically do on their own. He has a clunky design and doesn’t seem like he’d be as effective a hero as his original counterparts.
Aquaman is often made into a joke by his ability to talk to fish and his terrible scent, but making him have to live in his own water tank really submerges the character to terrible levels. Cyborg is less of a joke, though he can’t salvage Aquaman’s reputation or make him any cooler in this instance. This is a pairing that shouldn’t have happened – similar to the Beast Boy/Hawkman combo that results in Hawkbeast. In fact, shifting up just these two pairings would have been a much more promising idea. DC could have matched Aquaman with Beast Boy, allowing him to not just control water, but also to transform into aquatic creatures in battle. It would have unlocked an additional power instead of limiting the ones he has. The same is true of Cyborg, who could have been granted the gift of flight with bionic wings if paired with Hawkman. As it stands, Aquaman and Cyborg are part of one of DC’s worst hero mash-ups within this iteration of the Justice League – and others.
