
And it turned out there was another wrinkle to his backstory that had been kept a secret: prior to becoming a villain, Manta was a treasure hunter near the Bermuda Triangle. He also designed for himself an advanced submersible vehicle based on the deadly manta ray, his namesake.Īt one point, Manta discovered he had a son. Not long after, he killed the scientist who administered the procedure and escaped Arkham, beginning a life of crime.Īt some point, Manta would gain significant technical knowledge and he designed his infamous helmet, which allowed him to survive underwater depths no surface-dwelling human could, and which could shoot out deadly plasma beams. While it seems his autism was cured, the treatments made him excessively violent.
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The staff at Arkham, not knowing how to cope with his autism, chose to administer an experimental treatment that would cure him. There, he preferred to be immersed in cold water rather than a comfortable bed.

An autistic child, he was, for reasons unknown, placed in Arkham Asylum. Instead of coming from Baltimore, he was said to have grown up in Gotham City. It should be noted that, during this time, Manta had given a different account of his troubled childhood. From that day forward, Aquaman was his enemy. He subsequently killed one of his captors, but never forgot how, in his eyes, the King of the Seven Seas had rejected his plea for help. He signaled for rescue, but was not seen.

Abused by his captors for an unspecified amount of time, he spotted a young Aquaman and a group of dolphins in the ocean. One day, while playing by the water as a boy, he was kidnapped by pirates and forced to work as a slave on one of their ships.

The young child who would take the name Black Manta was born in Baltimore, Maryland, near the Chesapeake Bay.
