Aquaman (vol.3) #2 (1994)

Aquaman and Dolphin have been taken captive by a fella called Charybdis… that’s gotta be tough to say.  Online pronunciation websites say “cherub-dee”… dunno if that’s right.  Anyhoo… he reveals that he is draining them of their powers through an instrumentation process.  He wishes to add their powers to his own.  He reveals that his power-transfusion is only temporary, meaning that his “guests” will be permanently there to be siphoned from at will.

We also meet Charybdis’ wife Scylla.  We learn that they were freelance terrorists who would do the dirty-work for interested parties who couldn’t risk getting their own hands dirty.  Now, his goal is to… well, blow up the entire world by setting off every sunk nuclear submarine on the planet.

In a scene that really shows how disturbed Charybdis is… he blasts “Scylla” through the head with his badass gun.  This woman was just somebody he’d hired to dress up like his wife, who in reality died a year prior “on the job”.

Aquaman uses this moment to break out of his bindings… Charybdis casually pulls a tranq gun off the wall and fires one off into Arthur’s chest.  He then makes light of blowing the head off his “wife” while looking at Dolphin.

We shift scenes to join Garth… who I believe is still going by Aqualad at this point.  He’s been injured and is convalescing in an underwater cave.  A shadowy female figure swims up to guide Garth to where Aquaman is being kept.  Garth believes this to be his former squeeze Tula, who I think we’d last scene during the Crisis on Infinite Earths some eight-years prior.  She swims off before Garth can get a good look at her.  Per her directions, he follows a one-eyed shark called Cron One-Eye.

Back with Aquaman… Charybdis is putting his inherited “powers” to the test.  He drops a mouse into a tank full of piranhas and commands the hungry fish don’t sketetonize the poor rodent… it doesn’t go so well for “Mickey”.

Charybdis walks over and backhands Arthur… demanding to know why the fish didn’t listen to him.  Much to Aquaman’s credit, he doesn’t roll his eyes and say “again with the ‘talking to fish’ crap???”, instead he lays it all out… he can make suggestions… but a fish is gonna do what a fish is gonna do.  Especially a piranha!

Back with Aqualad, he’s trying to cut a deal with a pair of knucklehead dolphins to get inside the fortified structure.  This is a cute scene where we can see what the dolphins think of the frantic “swimmer” standing before them.

Back inside, Charybdis is holding Dolphin’s (not the fish… er, mammals… well, she’s probably a mammal too… er… the “person” I guess) head precariously over the piranha tank… she’s so close to the buggers that her hair is in the water with them.  Just before the baddie can give her a “dip”, the alarms begin to sound.

Outside, the dolphins have helped Garth get the attention of Monstro the whale… who is able to ram through the underwater fort’s door… this causes the facility to begin to flood.  In all the confusion, Aquaman breaks out again… this time Charybdis doesn’t have any convenient tranq guns nearby!

Chaybdis makes haste and tries heading to his armory… only to find that Garth’s discovered it (and the nineties!) first.  Garth starts blasting his newfound BFG causing all sorts of wonderful havoc.

The baddie’s got no choice but to flee.  After an awkward introduction between Dolphin and Aqualad, Aquaman gives chase… ultimately finding his foe on a nearby landmass.

Aquaman and Charybdis enter into battle with neither really getting the better of it.  At one point they are wrestling by the river, and Charybdis grabs Arthur’s left arm and holds it underwater… this just happens to be the same river he’d found his piranha pets in.  There’s a bubbly stirring under the water… that quickly turns red.

Charybdis stands up to mock our man some more, however he is stopped in mid-sentence… by a bullet to the chest.  Across the river, Dolphin is holding a smoking gun.  Before he can act, Aquaman trips Charybdis into the river… rendering him into a mass of bloody bones in no time flat.

Dolphin heads over to Arthur to check on him… and it’s here we learn that during its dip, Aquaman’s hand was gnawed down to the bone.

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