8.4/10. As much fun as The Brave and The Bold is across the board, its take on Aquaman may be its greatest contribution to the D.C. Universe. John DiMaggio's performance is imbued with such a charming, ridiculous bravado that it's almost impossible not to love his appearances.
That makes the sitcom-esque cold open about Aquaman's undersea family hilarious and sets the right goofy tone with all of the throwback humor that the character is perfectly suited for. And that also extends to the main episode, with the back-and-forth between him and Ryan Choi being just as much fun as it was in their Fantastic Voyage-esque prior adventure. Every time the two of them are on screen, with Aquaman pestering his more staid friend and Choi pushing back against his imposing compatriot, the episode works like gangbusters. The show even slips in some thematic material with Aquaman telling Choi that despite his statute, he's the biggest superhero on Earth, and having the adventure convince Choi to end is five-minute retirement and become The Atom once more.
But everything with Ray Palmer dragged the episode down. It was a rushed storyline to begin with, introduced rougly 2/3 of the way in the episode, and the execution felt mostly like an old Hanna Barbera cartoon with a blandly evil, mildly sci-fi bad guy with generic motivations. Still, the moments where Aquaman and Choi (and Batman himself) were doing their thing together, the episode soared. It's just a shame they had to tack on a pretty weak alien story onto the otherwise fun tale they were telling.
Review by Andrew BloomVIP 9BlockedParentSpoilers2016-02-22T19:18:19Z
8.4/10. As much fun as The Brave and The Bold is across the board, its take on Aquaman may be its greatest contribution to the D.C. Universe. John DiMaggio's performance is imbued with such a charming, ridiculous bravado that it's almost impossible not to love his appearances.
That makes the sitcom-esque cold open about Aquaman's undersea family hilarious and sets the right goofy tone with all of the throwback humor that the character is perfectly suited for. And that also extends to the main episode, with the back-and-forth between him and Ryan Choi being just as much fun as it was in their Fantastic Voyage-esque prior adventure. Every time the two of them are on screen, with Aquaman pestering his more staid friend and Choi pushing back against his imposing compatriot, the episode works like gangbusters. The show even slips in some thematic material with Aquaman telling Choi that despite his statute, he's the biggest superhero on Earth, and having the adventure convince Choi to end is five-minute retirement and become The Atom once more.
But everything with Ray Palmer dragged the episode down. It was a rushed storyline to begin with, introduced rougly 2/3 of the way in the episode, and the execution felt mostly like an old Hanna Barbera cartoon with a blandly evil, mildly sci-fi bad guy with generic motivations. Still, the moments where Aquaman and Choi (and Batman himself) were doing their thing together, the episode soared. It's just a shame they had to tack on a pretty weak alien story onto the otherwise fun tale they were telling.