Wundarr the Aquarian

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Publisher	Marvel Comics
First appearance	Fear #17 (Oct 1973)
Created by	Steve Gerber and Val Mayerik

Characteristics
Alter ego	Wundarr
Species	Dakkamite

Wundarr the Aquarian is a Marvel Comics character created by Steve Gerber and Val Mayerik in Adventure into Fear #17.

His first appearance parodied the origin of Superman. Hektu, a scientist on the planet Dakkam, believed that their world was going to be destroyed by their sun going nova. He and his wife, Soja, have an infant son named Wundarr. They placed him aboard a ship that would maintain his life support as long as necessary and launched him into outer space. Hektu and Soja later made flight and were captured and executed by the Internal Security Force to prevent them from alarming the populace.

In July, 1951, the ship crashed in a Florida swamp. An elderly couple known only as Maw and Paw observed the crash from their car. Paw considers checking out the crash site, but Maw insists that it may contain Martians or Communists, so he had better ignore it, so he does. Twenty years later, Wundarr is released, and the first creature he sees is Man-Thing, which he is convinced is his mother. He learns very quickly he has amazing strength and can best Man-Thing in battle, and Man-Thing's continued attempts to be left alone result in Wundarr eventually deciding that Man-Thing is not his mother.

With his great leaping ability, he eventually reaches the base that once belonged to Dr. Hydro, where Namor and Namorita are trying to rehabilitate the population of transformed humans. Namor believes that he is a malicious intruder, and quickly scares him off. Two Dakkam officials, Tuumar and Zeneg, despite their belief that Wundarr is stupid, believe that Wundarr may seek to avenge his father, and send a Mortoid robot to assassinate him. Wundarr's leaps bring him down in New York City, where he encounters Ben Grimm, walking home from a screening of Five Fingers of Death after being abandoned by Johnny Storm choosing to fly home while Ben contemplates his own first meeting with Man-Thing, as well as his alter ego, the man Ted Sallis. Landing in the middle of traffic, Wundarr is hurt, and lashes back as a child, throwing the cars around. Ben pulls no punches trying to stop him, but quickly realizes he is not dealing with a supervillain. Namor and Namorita have followed Wundarr and try to restrain Ben, which leads to fisticuffs between Namor and Ben.

Tuumar and Zeneg use this as the opportunity to kill Wundarr "for tranquility". When Ben and Namor team up and destroy the Mortoid, Tuumar and Zeneg flee, and Ben is left to be "Unca Benjy" to Wundarr, whom Reed Richards determines to be of high intellect, but with the knowledge and experience of a child.

[edit] The Aquarian

Wundarr became the Aquarian during the Project Pegasus saga (written by Mark Gruenwald and Ralph Macchio), in which he was captured by the project in order to test his abilities. He became the Aquarian in issue #58 of Marvel Two-in-One, the comic in which he had frequently been a supporting character.

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This article has been tagged since January 2007.

[edit] Relaunch candidate

In 2005, Marvel.com presented four characters to be relaunched. The Aquarian was one of these choices and took second place to Death's Head. Steve Gerber asked his fans on the Howard the Duck Yahoo! Group to vote against a revival of the character, since he would have neither creative control nor receive financial compensation from such a relaunch.