Anyway, in this story, as the title suggest, Aqualad goes to school.

The opening splash panel shows Aqualad naming fish in a fish tank with the kids in his class marveling at how smart he is. Apparently living a nomadic life at sea gives you a large wealth of knowledge of things other than the sea.

The story begins with Aquaman bringing Aqualad to a seaside school, apparently Aquaman has been preparing a "surprise" for Aqualad, that he's been enrolled to go to school. If you ask me, if I was that kid I wouldn't think that being enrolled in a school after years of swimming around fighting pirates and looking for undersea treasure, would be something to be surprised about. Fuck, most kids would be loath of the idea of having to go to school. People often think that Superman is the biggest dick in the comic book

world, but I'm going to have to say the Aquaman is pretty damn close himself. I mean, how can he say something like he was surprising Aqualad by enrolling him in school without some sort of evil intent, I mean, you can't tell me that he used the word "surprise" without the slightest glint of sarcasm.

Inside the school they meet Mr. Tracy, the schools principal, he looks like the kind of guy who runs a school like a prison. You know, the kind of principal that has been doing his job so long, he's so embittered by the youth that he's wasted his life shepherding that he can never be happy? The kind of

principal that probably has an embarrassing sexual fetish that would ruin his career if people found out. I bet Mr. Tracy pays high priced escorts to dress up like Little Bo-Peep and dump live cockroaches down his asshole.

Anyway, before I start reading too much into a six page comic book story from the 60's again let's get into the plot here...

So the Mr. Tracy tells Aquaman that Aqualad can't be assigned to a class until they figure out how smart the kid is since he has never had any formal education. It's very hard not to picture Aqualad getting bumped to the special class.

Aqualad is sent to Miss Pines classroom where Aqualad will sit in and learn school routines before they can test him in two

weeks. Some might think this silly, but I think he's got the right idea here, remember the closest thing to school this kid has to do with a large group of fish, so perhaps it's good to crush his spirit early and make him see that school doesn't mean he get's to swim around aimlessly looking for food and a good fish fuck. As soon as class starts, Aqualad apparently becomes this wealth of knowledge, knowing just how much of the world is land and how much is water.

Now, if you're going to say something like "How could Aqualad go to school full time when if he spend more than an hour out of water he'll die?" The writers at least thought of that much. Apparently each hour class would be interrupted so that

Aqualad could dive into the water. And if this isn't disruptive to the classroom environment, Aqualad apparently has to put on a one-man water show for the kids each time he has to to dive into the water. Because you know how the education system likes to make us understand peoples health problems by putting them under the fucking spot light and telling us not to treat them differently even though that's the very fucking reason they're being displayed in front of the class like a fucking exhibit.

Anyway, later after answering yet another question, Aquaman shows up in the afternoon to see how Aqualad is doing. While the boy is being led off by a bunch of classmates (who I like to think are leading him somewhere to beat the shit out of him, not out of any sort of desire to be friends) Miss Pine tells Aquaman that Aqualad will surely pass the test that she's making him take tomorrow because she was asking him the very questions he'd be tested on that day and he answered them all correctly. Well that's great, you know you've got yourself a competent teacher when they're going to test a kid on material that is taught in the classroom. Gee Miss Pine, what the fuck else are you going to test him on? University level Calculus or something?

The next day when on his way to take his exam Aqualad saves some people who managed to somehow to overturn their boat. During the rescue, Aqualad is knocked on the head with the boat debris and apparently gets amnesia. It's no ordinary amnesia though, but a very specific kind that makes you forget the very things you are going to be tested on that very day. Because you know, amnesia works that way.

When Aquaman tries to explain to Mr. Tracy that Aqualad has amnesia, the principal tells him that they can't postpone the test because Aqualad could be faking it. What a hard ass. I think the awful thing is that none of these grown adults are taking Aqualad to a hospital after suffering a head injury.

So Aquaman decides to hang around outside the classroom window to overhear how Aqualad does on his oral test (Because you know, nobody will have a problem with a grown adult dressed like a fish lurking around outside a school.) Aquaman decides that since Aqualad hypothetically was able to answer all the questions right the day before, he would have been able to answer them all right if he didn't have a head injury and therefore he would use his powers to help stimulate Aqualad's memory.

Now if you ask me, it doesn't matter if he knew the answers before, the fact that Aquaman can find a way to morally justify cheating it's still cheating.

The first question is a history question about which vessel was sunk in a civil war battle between two iron clad ships. Aquaman apparently raises the sunken vessel out of the water with the help of some whales and in seeing the sunken ship Aqualad remembers it's name. The Merrimac. Now, call me an asshole, but I decided to look this up myself, and well while this is technically accurate, the Merrimac was not an iron clad ship. In fact, comparing the historical photographs of the Merrimac to the boat that's drawn in this comic shows at least the artist had no idea what the fuck he was doing. The boat in the comic is a boat that looks like a WW II era boat. It's funny because if you gave a shit about the civil war (which I'm

going to make a guess that kids from the late 50's might be interested in such boring things) would wonder how Aqualad could know the answer to the question by looking at the wrong boat.

The next question is about naming a famed animal of Greek mythology. Aquaman get's a bunch of sea horses to gather near the school, and when Aqualad looks out the window he comes up with the answer, the Trojan Horse. Which would be wrong, considering that it technically wasn't an animal. While there is a myth about a Trojan Horse, it was built out of wood.

The next question was to name a great country on the Mediterranean, Aquaman get's some sword fish to cut a boot shape out of a piece of wood, which prompts Aqualad to answer with Italy. I'll give them this one.

The next one is a music question, Aqualad has to answer how many keys are on a piano, and somehow Aquaman getting octopi to wave their tentacles around gives Aqualad the answer to the question. Aqualad does need to work on his math skills though if he thinks 8 and 8 makes 88. Although he almost blows his cover by saying a piano has 88 tentacles.

The next question is to name a famous indian chief, Aquaman gets a bunch of whales to spray water through the window into Aqualad's face, allow him to answer with Chief Rain-in-the-Face. Which is correct, but man, I think for the sake of native people everywhere, they shouldn't let white-eyes like me translate their names into English. It's hard to take you seriously when I have to call you "Rain-in-the-Face" all the time instead of something cool like Ito-na-gaju. I think it's funny that even at this point Miss Pine hasn't noticed what's going on, it's hard to ignore the fact that there are three large whales outside the window spraying water into the classroom.

The question that Miss Pine next answers is what "world famous portrait" hangs in the Louvre museum in Paris. Apparently the only answer to this question is the Mona Lisa.

Which Aquaman helps Aqualad in answering by being able to find a sunken ship mast that was looks like the Mona Lisa. I think it's kind of insulting that he got eels to coil around the ship mast to make a picture frame. Gee, Aquaman, did you think your ward became a complete retard on top of being forgetful when he konked his head?

The second last question was about who invented the telegraph. Aquaman gets a bunch of flying fish to arrange themselves in a form the SOS signal in Morse code. Now apparently, the amnesia that Aqualad has is so specific that he can't remember how many keys are on a piano, or who the Mona Lisa is, but he knows what Morse code looks like. I'd

also like to point out that flying fish would not be able to fly that high in the air, it's physically impossible. They don't actually fly either, they glide. Somebody didn't do their homework.

The last question is where the word news comes from, which Aquaman gets the answer across to Aqualad by having fish form a compass in the water. Aqualad answers by saying that the word news comes from the compass. Actually, he's wrong, according to Dictionary.com the word News was originally coined in 1382, it was a plural meaning "new thing." So Aqualad, you are wrong.

But this apparently doesn't stop Miss Pine giving Aqualad 100% on his test, shortly after Mr. Tracy comes in and congratulates Aqualad and tells him that he'll be staying in Miss Pines class.

Later Aqualad tells Aquaman how he passed the test, and it's funny how he couldn't put two and two together and figure out that Aquaman played a part in helping him cheat. Aquaman play's coy with the kid, and the story ends with Aquaman and his "finny friends" sharing a wink.

Wait a second... When could fish wink, let alone have eye lids?

And with that final note, I close this edition of Fucking Comics, if you want to read these and many other retarded Aquaman stories, check out Showcase Presents Aquaman Vol 1, published by DC Comics.