Introducing... Oceanus

 


The water-themed hero of the Justice Allies cartoon is Oceanus.  While he has excellent swimming, diving, and breath-holding skills, he is not an amphibian or mermaid-type character.  This should expand the number of stories he can be featured in, in contrast to characters like Aquaman or Namor the Sub-Mariner.     

Behind the Scenes: When I was a kid, I learned about the continents-- the Americas, Asia, Africa, Antarctica, Australia... Instead of Australia as a continent, my children were taught about "Oceania," which includes Australia as well as a variety of island nations depending on the definition.  It seemed ideal to include a character named Oceania as the Aquaman analog.  Eventually I settled on the name Oceanus.  Both names are derived from the Ancient Greek word for ocean, ὠκεανός or ōkeanós.  An Ancient Greek word for sky is similar--in English it would transliterated as uranus, the name of the seventh planet.  Both Oceanus and Uranus can inspire giggles in middle school students, which could be easily remedied by changing the English transliteration to Oceanos and Uranos respectively.  Maybe I would be wise to do just that.... 

Visual inspiration for this character comes from both the character Maui from Disney's Moana as well as the way Aquaman has been interpreted in the movies Aquaman and Justice League.  Interestingly, the depiction of Aquaman's half brother Orm in Aquaman is closer to the way the Aquaman character has traditionally been seen in comic books, with blond hair, blue eyes, and light skin.  In fact, the blue eyes of Aquaman were once an important element of his origin.  With the success of the movies and the popularity of actor Jason Momoa's tattooed look, Aquaman has been recently seen with ink in the comic books as well.  Oceanus' tattoos are kept simple in order to ease the animators' work.              

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