I think Arthur's problem is he still carries a lot of baggage from the Superfriends, the way Batman carried baggage from Adam West for the longest time. In his comics he's always been cool, but you ask someone who's not familiar and they'll just be all "haha he can talk to fish, so what" One great thing about the Marvel vs. DC fight between him and Namor way back when was that talking to fish ended up being the deciding factor when Arthur dropped a whale on him! Didio's also the guy that thought killing off Dick Grayson would be a good idea back during Infinite Crisis, so how he sees the characters can be pretty skewed.
And I haven't seen Arthur in Hawkman yet! My LCS was stupid and had trouble with their shipment, so I'll see it later tonight if I'm lucky.