| Aquamaria | |
|---|---|
 ' | |
|
Real Name: |
Maria |
|
Gender: |
Female |
|
Color: |
Aqua blue |
|
Element: |
Water |
|
Type: |
General |
|
Series: |
Blood Syndicate |
|
First appearance: |
Blood Syndicate #10 (debut, comic) Static Shock Season 2 Episode 21 |
Aquamaria is a recurring protagonist in the DC comic series Blood Syndicate and an antagonist in the Static Shock animated series. She is first voiced by Erika Velez and in her last appearance, by Yeni Alverez.
Character Overview[]
Born Maria (surname unknown), the former swimmer had survived the eventful Big Bang when she was floating in the James River. However, the mutagen gas had transformed her entire body, becoming a sentient water fashioned into the form of a woman. She joins the Blood Syndicate sometime later, although communications are hard due to a language barrier as she only speaks Spanish with little knowledge of English. In the Static Shock cartoon, she is instead a newcomer to the antagonist group, the Metabreed, a gang of "Bang Babies" recruited by the metahuman Ebon.
Appearance[]
Aquamaria appears as a mass of water with internal bubbles fashioned into the shape of a beautiful lady with wavy hair. Depending on the artist, her body may give off levitating droplets that surround her body and usually keeps a perfectly humanoid shape down to the feet. In her debut in Static Shock, she retained the key traits of large wavy hair and a lithe physique, but her lower body was an amorphous mass, resembling more or less a humanoid blob of water though her body was lightly colored and completely opaque. In her second episode, she was given a darker color scheme to resemble water more with dark ripples flowing from her face to her body and was given a transparency effect.
Personality[]
Due to her language barrier, it is at times hard to discern her personality as she stays silent, although she frequently looks for others in need of help. In the Static Shock cartoon, she appears as very aggressive and shaky when it comes to trust issues.
Special Abilities[]
Being made out of water, Aquamaria naturally controls every aspect of H20, from shape to temperature. While she can exist and resist dehydration when separated from bodies of water, she can use said bodies to expand her powers to create tsunamis and tidal waves or normally fire jets of water from her hands.
Synopsis[]
Aquamaria makes her first appearance in the Static Shock animated series in the episode "Bad Stretch" where she is employed by the metahuman Ebon to specifically deal with Static. Terrorizing a horseback race, she catches the attention of the superhero and thanks to her powers, is able to easily subdue Static and short circuit his powers. She is however unexpectedly interrupted by another metahuman, the Rubberband Man, Ebon's twin brother. Ensnaring her in an elastic bubble with no oxygen or openings, she quickly passes out and is sent to jail afterwards. Following Ebon's impersonation of his brother, Aquamaria is broken out of jail and regroups with his gang. When Static and Rubberband Man ambush their hideout, Static takes on most of metahumans while the brothers duke it out alone. When everyone else is taken, Aquamaria steps in to fight. However, Static had come prepared and performed an attack akin to electrolysis, causing her to evaporate and condensate quickly, knocking her out in the process.
She doesn't appear again for a while until near the end of the final season in the episode "Wet and Wild". In the intervening time, Aquamaria and another metahuman and archrival of Static, Hotspot, had gotten together. Their latest stint was to terrorize the scene of the singer Candy's new record songs and rob the attendees of their money. While they invade the scene and manage to snag some funds, they are immediately interrupted by Static and his now-experienced partner, Gear. While Static deals with Hotspot, Gear tosses a liquid nitrogen grenade at Aquamaria which freezes her entire body. Hotspot however escapes from the ensuing chaos, leaving a hurt Aquamaria behind. She is later taken to GenomaTech where it was announced she would be the first test subject of a cure for the Bang Baby Syndrome. Static and Gear arrive on site to reason with her but because of Hotspot's betrayal, she wasn't willing to trust anyone. However, when Static asks if she had anyone she knew from her normal life, she remembers her mother and her sister and Static promises that she'll be able to see her again if the cure is successful. An hour later, the scientists begin work on administering the cure. At first it seems to work, but a malfunction somewhere causes a fatal error. During the process, Aquamaria's body is briefly restored but quickly dissolves back into water, but with an even worse side-effect. The malfunction had caused her body to start quickly disassembling and with a few seconds, she vanishes into the drain below, presumed to have died.
She however had survived the encounter, but was stuck to a body of water. Aquamaria found herself stuck to a fountain in the park where she is found by Hotspot. In her anger, she blamed the scientists for this turn of events and Hotspot notes that there must have been some mistake. She desires to force the scientists back together to restore her form and needs Hotspot's help to get them. Along the way, Aquamaria discovers that her power was steadily returning but even becoming more powerful as she has become one with the water in the sewer system, not only increasing her mass, but allowing her to manifest anywhere there was a drain and in no time, she captures most of the scientists with Hotspot having gathered the equipment necessary for the treatment. The last one left Dr. Todd, was attending a swimming race with her daughter being one of the contestants. Finding him in the fleeing crowd, she corners him but is once again interrupted by Static and Gear. With her greatly heightened powers though, she is able to ward off their attacks and even stops Gear from freezing her again. With them disoriented, she takes Dr. Todd back to the lab along with a few others. When Hotspot notes that she had been more aggressive than lately, she simply exclaims that all he needs to worry about is hoping that the cure will work. With everything in tow, Aquamaria is once again in the tank and the startup begins. However, the scientists note that it doesn't appear to even work this time. In her pain however, Aquamaria overhears the conversation between Hotspot and the scientists and discovers that it was he who caused the malfunction, saying he did it out of fear of them not being together any longer and further commented that at this point, she gone mad with power, though this was due to repeated betrayals. Incapacitating Hotspot, she then turns her attention to the scientists and floods the entire lab and escapes into a sewer drain, racing past Static and Gear. Maddened beyond reasoning, she intends to flood Dakota and then the entire world, racing to the ocean in order to fuse with it and gain total power over the entire world. However, she is briefly delayed when the sewer system is hacked into and locked, cutting off her path. However, she simply rises to the surface and smashes through the streets, trying to shake off the now pursuing duo and manages to knock them into the ocean. Having finally bonded, she poises to destroy everything. Unfortunately, Static grabs hold of a capsule holding the cure and with a charge, detonates it at Aquamaria's body which successfully cures her and deprives her of her powers, knocked unconscious from the transformation. She is later taken back to GenomaTech where she is treated to a more permanent cure, successfully restoring her human body. It is unknown what happened to her afterwards, though it can be presumed she went back to her family.