Comic Book Questions Answered – where I answer whatever questions you folks might have about comic books (feel free to e-mail questions to me at brianc@cbr.com).

Readers Travis H. and Cy T. both wrote in with this one. Simply put, they wanted to know what was the deal with Aquaman's previous time limit with regards to water.

Interestingly enough, Aquaman's time limit regarding access to water was not something that the hero deal with for nearly TWO DECADES after he debuted in 1941. Honestly, here is an interesting thing about Aquaman that plays a huge role in the character's history in general. After receiving an origin very soon after he debuted, people proceeded to not do a BIT of character development with Aquaman for the next 17 years. He just starred in these short aquatic adventure stories every month. We never got to see him actually having private moments. He was just Aquaman 24/7. In fact, we never got a NAME for him besides "Aquaman." He was just some guy in the water who helped save the day every month.

Well, finally, in the late 1950s/early 1960s, presumably because of the boom in the superhero comics industry that came about due to the re-introduction of the new Flash and Green Lantern (this is now what we think about as the "Silver Age" of comics), writer Robert Bernstein decided to actually do some changes to the sea hero (presumably the editor on the book, Mort Weisinger, who actually co-created Aquaman, had something to do with this change, as well).

Therefore, in Adventure Comics #256, in late 1958, Bernstein and Ramona Fradon decided to reveal that Aquaman had a specific vulnerability to being out of water for too long...

You'll note that the time limit is not actually specified in that first story, just a generic "can't be out of water for too long."

It was very quickly codified as being a "one hour" time limit over the next year, as Bernstein and Fradon also introduced Aquaman's most famous origin to the series (that his name was Arthur Curry and that he came from Atlantis). In Adventure Comics #267, the one-hour time limit is now so famous that other people are very familiar with it...

Yes, Aquaman is, indeed, having trouble with the time limit WHILE IN THE WATER, but whatever, that was a weird inconsistency.

So yeah, for decades, that was Aquaman's main vulnerability. He had to be in water every hour or he would die. The nice thing about that, from a writing standpoint, is that in Aquaman's ongoing series you would just have all of the action take place in the sea, so it isn't really a problem.

However, obviously not everything can take place in the sea and it is fascinating to note that this time limit lasted all the way into the 1990s!

In the 1991 Aquaman series by Shaun McLaughlin, Hen Hooper and Bob Dvorak, issue #5 sees Aquaman given an apartment on land with a special water tank...

And later in the series, Aquaman notes the requirement to be "replenished" with water in Aquaman #9 (Vince Giarrano guest pencils)...

Peter David mocked the one hour part of the time limit in Aquaman Annual #3...

However, the weakness (just no longer specifically an hour) clearly lasted all the way until the 2003 Aquaman series, as the opening issue sees Aquaman punished by being left out, disconnected from water, which he notes will soon kill him...

So, how did that get resolved?

Page 2: [valnet-url-page page=2 paginated=0 text='No more time limit!']

However, in that 2003 issue (by Rick Veitch, Yvel Guichet and Mark Propst), he then gets new powers from the mythical "Lady of the Lake"...

And at the end of the issue, he now has a magic water hand...

Therefore, he is ALWAYS around water now, so he doesn't need it any more. That version of Aquaman eventually died and was brought back in Blackest Night, but then the New 52 happened, and Geoff Johns and Ivan Reis dropped the time limit, even mocking it in the first issue (in this version of Aquaman's history, he lived on land for years before learning his heritage, so obviously he didn't need to get water every hour or so)...

However, under severe circumstances, Aquaman can still get dehydrated, but then again, so could most people, as seen in Aquaman #5...

There ya go, Travis and Cy! Thanks for the questions!

If anyone else has a question, drop me a line a brianc@cbr.com!