Lagoon Boy

Lagoon Boy
Lagoon Boy (bottom right), alongside the Titans East. From Titans East Special #1
Publication information
Publisher	DC Comics
First appearance	Aquaman (vol. 5) #50 (December 1998)
Created by	Erik Larsen (writer/artist)
In-story information
Team affiliations	Titans East Young Justice
Abilities	Superhuman strength, speed, and durability Amphibious physiology Sharp claws and teeth Ability to blow up like a puffer fish Control of sea creatures

Lagoon Boy is a superhero published by DC Comics. His name and appearance are references to the title character from the classic horror feature film The Creature from the Black Lagoon.

Publication history

Lagoon Boy first appeared in Aquaman vol. 5 #50 (December 1998) and was created by Erik Larsen.

Fictional character biography

No writer has yet provided an origin story for Lagoon Boy. In his first appearance, he is allowed into Atlantis as part of an attempt by Aquaman to make Atlantis more open to those living outside the city by granting them citizenship. His presence is met with protests by many elitist Atlanteans. Lagoon Boy comes to the citizenship ceremony on the day of Aquaman and Queen Mera's marriage. While there he befriends Blubber, a humanoid whale with a genius IQ, and his assistant Sheeva the Mermaid. Aquaman #54 reveals that the three characters have begun calling themselves "The Land-Lovers" as they were underwater creatures who were fascinated with the world over water. Blubber creates a device which allows Atlanteans to view television from the surface world, and the trio head up to the surface world in order to explore and compare it to the television broadcasts they had seen. Their appearance creates a huge disturbance and the Coast Guard is quickly called. Aquaman rescues the Land-Lovers from persecution and sends them back to Atlantis.

After Erik Larsen's run on Aquaman ended, the Land-Lovers did not reappear in the title. Lagoon Boy was used shortly before the end of Larsen's run by writer Chuck Dixon, who wrote the Young Justice Special #1 No Man's Land story. In the story, the male members of Young Justice (Superboy, Robin and Impulse), head for Gotham City and meet Lagoon Boy. They join together to stop Kobra. Lagoon Boy reappears in Young Justice: Sins of Youth, where he is aged to adulthood. He helps Young Justice against Klarion the Witchboy and Black Manta, and he assists the JSA, JLA and the Titans in ending the wild mixture of science and magic which had been causing the transformations.

Lagoon Boy later displays the ability to command, or at least enlist the aid of, humpback whales in order to cause a riptide on the shores of the rogue nation of Zandia, aiding Young Justice in the process. Robin and Lagoon Boy team up to stop a sea monster from damaging Gotham Harbor and force its return to the sea. Lagoon Boy was briefly shown in Infinite Crisis when The Spectre wreaks havoc on the people of Atlantis. He is shown fighting the Spectre alongside many Atlanteans and their allies. Lagoon Boy is one of the few survivors after Spectre squashes the city.

Over a year after Young Justice disbands, Lagoon Boy is recruited alongside several other obscure teenaged heroes as part of a Teen Titans spin-off team known as the Titans East. Unfortunately, he and the rest of the Titans are severely injured after being attacked by the children of Trigon on a routine training exercise.

In a scene taking place just hours prior to the events of Blackest Night, Lagoon Boy's former teammate Hawk II visits Titans Tower and angrily tells Cyborg that Lagoon Boy is still in a coma.

In the New 52, Lagoon Boy appeared as a member of the Teen Titans five years in the future in Teen Titans: Future's End #1.

Powers and abilities

Lagoon Boy is an amphibious boy. He is small in stature, but strong, quick and durable. His body is covered in green scales and fins and he has sharp claws and teeth. When excited, Lagoon Boy also has the ability to blow up like a puffer fish, which makes him appear to be much larger and more intimidating, and develop quills that can cause great pain to other opponents who cross his path.

Lagoon Boy discovers a conch horn that allows him to call out to his Spotty, a monstrous animal from the undersea trench called the Devil's Deep. Lagoon Boy has also displayed the ability to command humpback whales. At this point, it is unclear just how much control he has over them.

While not a superpower per se, he also has access to wealth acquired from submerged ships and cities.

Other versions

Lagoon Boy appears in Teen Titans Go! #52 as an alternate alias of Robby Reed. Unknown to both Robby and the Titans, his H-Dial borrows power from any hero who's in close proximity to him, and thus becomes Lagoon Boy when Aqualad is close by.

In other media

Television

• Lagoon Boy appears in the Young Justice episode "Downtime" voiced by Yuri Lowenthal. He is shown as a student at the Conservatory of Sorcery alongside Lori Lemaris. In "Happy New Year", it is shown that Lagoon Boy has joined the Team and also is in a relationship with Miss Martian. She refers to him as La'gaan while he refers to her as "Angel Fish". Lagoon Boy often goes out of his way to make romantic overtures towards Miss Martian in the presence of Superboy, her former love interest, resulting in friction between the two boys. When he encounters Aqualad in "Alienated," he is the only one who does not show him sympathy, opting to attack him for betraying his friends. He is prone to use Atlantean slang or euphemisms in regular conversation, usually when caught off guard, such as "Neptune's Beard!" In "Depths," Lagoon is captured by Black Manta's forces defending a satellite where he was knocked out by Aqualad. Aqualad orders Black Manta's men to deliver Lagoon Boy to The Light's new Partner; this is later revealed as an attempt by Aqualad (who is only posing as a traitor as part of an undercover operation) to keep Lagoon Boy from being killed without blowing Aqualad's cover. In "Before the Dawn" he is experimented on by the Reach, who explain that despite his physical differences, he is technically human and therefore a viable metagene candidate. He is freed along with Beast Boy and Impulse but is later knocked out by Black Beetle. His unconscious body is dragged into the Team's bioship and saves Blue Beetle from drowning after the latter is blown from the Reach's ship. In "The Fix" he is ambushed along with Miss Martian by Deathstroke the Terminator and his assistant Tigress (secretly former Team member Artemis), who are targeting Miss Martian on orders from Black Manta. Despite his best attempts to defend his girlfriend, Lagoon Boy is knocked out and his leg badly injured. He appears again in "Intervention" where his leg has recovered. However Miss Martian has come to the realization that she was merely using him and that their relationship isn't fair to either of them. She then breaks up with him. Lagoon Boy assists the Team in their attempt to capture the Light in "Summit" and then to stop the Reach's doomsday weapon in "Endgame." For this, he is paired up with Aqualad who had revealed his true colors and rejoined the Team. At first, Lagoon Boy was not happy about it until Aqualad explained that he had hoped that Lagoon Boy would take his place on the Team in his absence, thus repairing their friendship.

Miscellaneous

• In the fourteenth issue of the Young Justice tie-in comic, Lagoon Boy's name is given as La'gaan.

External links

• Lagoon Boy on DC Database, a DC Comics wiki