When did 'angry guy' become Aquaman's default personality?

[Bored at 3:00AM]

Was it the 90s hook hand era, or was it earlier than that when Aquababy was murdered?

[GlennSimpson]

I'm going to offhand suggest he became more serious in the 70's and 80's, but more angry in the 90's.

[Outside_85]

When he got tired of all the fish-jokes

Joking aside, I think it likely started after DC realized the Superfriends had actually damaged his character and then pulled in the other direction to try and course correct.

[Icefalcon]

I'm going to offhand suggest

Is that a hook joke?

[Agent Z]

edited post.

[SmokeMonster]

Better than no personality

[Vanguard-01]

I don't think it's his default personality. He can be a calm and happy guy when he has a reason to be. We've seen this a lot. He only goes "Angry Guy" when he's in battle, and anger on the battlefield is perfectly appropriate.

[Frontier]

He's pretty calm and reasonable in the comics right now.

Mera's a little more temperamental by comparison.

[Zero Hunter]

I think it was the death of his son and then Mera losing her mind and leaving him that set him on the angry path he walked most of the 90's.

[Icefalcon]

I think it was the death of his son and then Mera losing her mind and leaving him that set him on the angry path he walked most of the 90's.

Quite a lot of heroes were angry in the 90's. It was the in thing

[Atlanta96]

He's not very angry in his current series. He's been very calm and diplomatic most of the time, even in fight scenes he's not seething with rage. I like how they're playing up his diplomatic side right now. In his own comic, at least.

[Rakzo]

Well, the 90's was mostly culprit for that. At the time DC decided that Aquaman needed to be EXTREME! to be more popular and so they decided to give him a beard, hook and of course, an angry attitude that plagued most heroes from that decade.

Mind you, Peter David managed to create more depth to such portrayal by connecting it to Arthur's, sorry, "Orin"'s recent tragedies like the loss of his son and Mera becoming insane due to the grieve, and despite of David's tendencies to add humour that is pretty dated for today's standards, is still a pretty solid story that tried to expand the universe around the universe.

Fortunately, the character is now free from those tropes and is actually utilizing his own position to become more of a diplomat.

[Trey Strain]

About the same time it because the default personality for Bruce Wayne, Oliver Queen and Guy Gardner. And I'm sure I'm leaving out a few.

[MadFacedKid]

When he lost his son, sidekick and wife.

[codystarbuck]

Started in the 70s, when certain writers tried to turn him into Namor.