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It’s not a coincidence that Aquaman and I both have blonde hair. My father, Mort Weisinger, co-created Aquaman in 1941 and he co-created me in 1948.
Before I was born, Aquaman’s father, who my Dad made a famous scientist (a projection of what he would have been if he was a scientist instead of a writer) discovered an ancient city in the depths where no other diver had ever penetrated, the lost kingdom of Atlantis. He made himself a watertight home in one of the palaces and lived there, studying the records and devices of the race's marvelous wisdom. From the books and records, he learned ways of teaching his son to live under the ocean, drawing oxygen from the water and using all the power of the sea to make him wonderfully strong and swift. By training and a hundred scientific secrets, his son became Aquaman, a human being who lives and thrives under the water.
Around 1959, when Aquaman was doing swimmingly well, my father built a pool in our backyard. While most of our neighbors thought it was to enhance our lifestyle, perhaps because it was next to our clay tennis court, it was really his version of Atlantis for the purpose of teaching me Aquaman skills, the ones that would be necessary if I were to do more than swim with the sharks. These would be the skills necessary to rule the shark tank.
Like Aquaman’s father and long before Mr. Miyagi taught Danielson the importance of “mindful” breathing, my Dad taught me the importance of regulating my breathing. Apparently, he noticed that his many artists and staff writers would have trouble breathing when he was giving them an onslaught of criticism because they brought in a poor story or didn’t draw Lois Lane or Jimmy Olson to his specifications. By making swimming to the bottom of the pool to fetch coins, and swimming the length underwater and above water fun, I learned the art of regulating my breathing, and with it, a sense of control irrespective of whether I was in shallow or deep water.
For my underwater swims, he never gave me goggles. “A little chlorine isn’t going to blind you,” he told me. Goggles, he thought, would narrow my vision and thus see only what is directly in front of me.
Aquaman has better vision than sharks, I was taught, because he has peripheral vision that allowed him to see all the creatures of the sea, not just those directly in front of him. Seeing the big picture increases options in the water and out. And seeing every creature makes for better leadership. I often think that if Jaws had peripheral vision, he’d be alive today. He could have maneuvered himself more effectively, making it more difficult for Sheriff Brody to target him.
Under pressure, most people narrow their attention to the extent of losing sight of important “peripheral information” and that often results in making bad judgments. Sharks look straight ahead, the reason some fish instinctually swim next to them, not in front of them. Many companies have learned to succeed by staying on the outskirts until sufficiently strong to make their move.
Perhaps Aquaman’s greatest ability was his skill of being able to communicate with all creatures, no matter what their school. Be respectful to shrimps, strategic with crabs, assertive with sharks, friendly to dolphins, and of course, criticize all of them productively are some of aqua-communication lessons my father's Aquaman taught me that I have since passed on to hundreds of Fortune 500 companies, government agencies, and professional organizations.
My father also used our backyard Atlantis to teach me the value of speed. Aquaman never worried getting caught from behind—his speed kept him in front of all those that might threaten him, including the giant squid. In pressure moments, many people tend to freeze, paralyzed by anxiety and fear. The result is hesitancy, a failure to perform. It is easy to fall behind and be swallowed up by others when you are indecisive and lose focus of your goal.
I have crystal clear memories of how my dad integrated goal focus and urgency: “Hurry up and put the pool chairs away, get out of the pool right now and do your homework, run in the house and get me a towel, go put the chlorine in right now.” At these times I hated Atlantis but I must confess it taught me the importance of being action oriented, anticipating and being pro-active. My dad always forgot to bring out a towel so, anticipating his need, I would bring out several. That saved me a trip back into the house. And I made it a point to put the daily chlorine into the pool before dinner-time, and that saved me a trip that might occur when I was watching a Yankee game or "The Three Stooges."
Inevitably, the summer would end and Atlantis would be shut down. Aquaman was gone. Then, in late October 1960, my Dad gave me a present—an archery set, complete with rubber tipped arrows and a bunch of targets made out of cardboard. That winter, he taught me a valuable lesson: If you want to be successful, you have to arm yourself with “arrows” for any situation—you have to have trick arrows, just like The Green Arrow, another character my father created.
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