Alan Kistler's Profile On: AQUAMAN

THE NOT-SO-COOL VERSION

Aquaman began much earlier than some of you might have guessed. He was not a Silver Age character. In fact, he began in 1941 and was introduced in MORE FUN COMICS # 73. He was given no real name other than the title “Aquaman” and it was said he was the son of a human scientist who had experimented on him and blessed him with the ability to breathe underwater and survive deep sea pressures.

And that was IT! No communication with sea life, no undersea kingdom to rule, no magical hand. He was amphibious and was a bit stronger than he looked and that was all.

Aquaman had several adventures during the 40’s and 50’s. He didn’t really mingle with other heroes, didn’t join the Justice Society or anything. He swam underwater and fought people who threatened ocean life. Starting in 1956, he was occasionally partnered with a pet octopus named Topo.

The octopus knows archery ... riiiiiight.

And once he also got a temporary teammate (despite his objections) when readers met a curvy blonde in an identical costume who was called, naturally, Aquagirl.

I can't even respond to that last panel above.

I have no problem admitting that THIS version of the character was kinda lame, especially when compared to Marvel’s aquatic anti-hero the Sub-Mariner. Introduced two years beforehand, the Sub-Mariner could fly, had bullet-proof skin, was able to handle powerful bursts of electricity without getting fried, and had enough strength to go toe-to-toe with the Hulk if he wanted to. Aquaman just didn’t seem to match up to this.

KING ARTHUR

The Silver Age began and super-heroes were on the march again at DC comics. Aquaman got himself a new origin and some new abilities. Same costume though, except that he went from yellow gloves to green gloves (at least they didn't clash with the rest of his outfit).

ADVENTURE COMICS #260 in 1959 revealed to us that Aquaman’s real name was Arthur Curry. His aquatic powers were not due to scientific experimentation. Like Marvel’s own aquatic hero the Sub-Mariner, he was actually a hybrid, born of a surface man and an undersea woman. His father had been lighthouse keeper Tom Curry, who had found Atlanna, a woman outcast from the undersea kingdom of Atlantis. Although Atlanna needed constant rehydration, they made it work and so young Arthur was born. He could breathe both air and water, was stronger than humans, had incredible speed and maneuverability under water (dolphins had nothing on him), and could communicate with all forms of sea life. Eventually, he took on the name "Aquaman" and then retook his rightful position as ruler of Atlantis.

Superman had been getting good sales by having stories published about a younger version of himself, under the banner line of “Adventures of Superboy” and such. Aquaman writers decided this was a good idea and showed that Arthur had originally acted as a hero when he was a teenager, calling himself “Aquaboy.” He even had an adventure with Superboy, establishing them both as Earth’s only real heroes at the time (Batman was still training and Wonder Woman was still on Paradise Island). It was also later shown that he also had an underwater “Aquacave” for when he wanted to get away from it all.

1960 was a big year for this new incarnation of Aquaman. He became a founding member of Earth’s new team of A-list heroes, the Justice League of America, alongside the Flash, Green Lantern, Martian Manhunter and Wonder Woman. And he got himself a sidekick named Garth or “Aqualad”, an outcast orphan who'd been seen as a freak due to his purple eyes.
Garth aka Aqualad
As his popularity began to grow, Aquaman finally got his own self-titled book for the first time in 1962 and his supporting cast of characters started growing. He had Vulko, a scientist who also acted as his royal advisor. He met Mera, a woman who ruled an aquatic world in a parallel dimension. They fell for each other and got married a year after their first meeting, even having a baby soon after. The baby was officially named Arthur Curry, Jr., but some folks were silly enough to occasionally refer to it by the nickname “Aquababy.” And later, Garth would get himself a girlfriend named Tula, who was called Aquagirl.
Vulko shows Arthur and Mera his findings.

Along with the new friends and family came new enemies. After all, Aquaman was getting big now and couldn’t just keep fighting evil fishermen, pirates and whalers like in the 50s. So in came Ocean Master, who was really Arthur's evil and jealous human half-brother Orm. Ocean Master was a homicidal maniac with delusions of conquest and power and used science to allow him to breathe and live underwater.

The other major arch-enemy was the Black Manta, who was apparently an undersea treasure hunter with no compunctions about killing anyone who got in the way of him and lost gold. Black Manta was armed with a suit that allowed him to breathe underwater and fire laser beams. He also had various weapons he'd designed and at least a half-dozen henchmen for each scheme.

Aquaman was different from other heroes. Whereas they led normal lives in secret identities, Aquaman used no mask or alias. When he wasn’t out fighting bad guys with the JLA, he was busy ruling the undersea kingdom of Atlantis. Bruce Wayne may have been rich, but Aquaman was a king with an army at his disposal and territories that covered two-thirds of the planet. When he went home to Metropolis, Superman had no one to confide in about his bad battle with Luthor or the stress he felt over his recent war with Brainiac, etc. But Aquaman would go home and have a wife, child and friends whom he could tell all about what had happened and who were there to listen because they weren’t kept at a distance by some secret identity. And could it be a coincidence that underneath the waters, Aquaman was known more commonly as “King Arthur”? The others in the League were super-heroes, but Aquaman was a warrior king who could handle himself in a fight both above and below the waters. And if you think about it, this makes him more formidable than some heroes.

I’m a big Batman fan. But let’s think about this and make a comparison, shall we? Take Aquaman and put him in the middle of Gotham City and send ten street punks against him. He has no weapons or tools on him at all. Guess what? Aquaman wins, because he’s an above-average hand-to-hand combatant with a lot of experience fighting alien would-be conquerors and super-villain killers and because he’s more than ten times as strong as any one of those thugs is going to be. And the same strength/resiliency that allows his body to survive ocean pressures also makes him more resistant to conventional injury. Bullets won’t bounce off him, no, but he’s not going to bruise or bleed immediately from a bunch of punks who have probably never had any training or know how to really throw a devastating punch. Three minutes and he’s got them all down on the ground with cracked ribs and broken jaws if he wants.

Now do the reverse. Take Batman (same scenario, no tools or weapons at all) and drop him in the middle of the ocean. He's underwater, surrounded by ten hungry sharks or ten rogue Atlanteans. Bruce is kinda screwed, no? He may not get killed immediately, but by no means is victory assured, nor will it necessarily happen. That’s Aquaman’s REAL power, folks. Our boy can adapt. Does he stand up to Superman or Green Lantern in terms of power and formidability? No, but hey, not EVERY hero has to be up to that power level to be cool. My point is just that he’s not a wimp, especially THESE days. Recently, Aquaman gained a hand of living water (we’ll talk more about that towards the end) and he can control its density. Meaning, if Superman was bearing down on him, Arthur could command the hand to extend itself and fill up the Kryptonian’s lungs instantly. Man of Steel or not, he still need to breathe, you know? Nowadays, more than before, Aquaman can kick some ass when he needs to.

At the time though, Aquaman, and really all other Atlanteans, couldn’t stay completely out of water for more than an hour without beginning to seriously weaken. If they didn’t get any kind of water on them, they would slip into a coma and then very likely die in a few hours. This definitely was a big restriction on Arthur's formidability.

Aquaman had a fairly good fanbase, but still didn’t have as many fans as say the Flash. Still, he maintained a strong presence in the Justice League. Sadly, outside of comics, people were getting a bad impression of him, thanks in no small part to the SUPERFRIENDS cartoon series. The cartoon was never meant to be complex or deep, as it was intended for a very young audience, but even with that in mind, they treated Aquaman quite shabbily. Unless a story directly involved the ocean, he seemed to have nothing to contribute. And rather than show off his impressive swimming abilities under water, he was often seen instead riding a giant seahorse. This, added to the fact that Black Manta seemed even more useless in the cartoon, led to a stigma against Aquaman by non-comic fans that exists to this day, the idea that he is a guy with no abilities or skills other than being able to speak with fish. The Aquaman cartoon show that came on right after Superman’s adventures didn’t help matters either.

THE DARK TIMES

As comics became more topical and socially conscious in the 70s, an interesting turn came with the villain Black Manta. For years, he had fought Aquaman with no real purpose other than collecting as much treasure, gold, valuables as possible and later developing a revenge fixation on Arthur for constantly thwarting his plans. But during one battle, the Black Manta took off his helmet at last and showed that the term “black” referred to his race and not just his costume color. He was obsessed with paying back the world for the racist attitudes he’d faced all his life and had decided that he would plunder as much as he could so that he could create an underwater kingdom where all those of African descent could retreat and thrive in peace, away from the whites. This certainly added a new touch to the character and Aquaman could not help but understand the Manta’s desires on a base level, even if he didn’t agree with his methods.

But any sympathy Arthur felt for the Manta would vanish later on. During a battle, the Manta took Aquaman’s son and locked him in a water-tight air chamber as a hostage. Aquaman would not save the day in this time around. By the time he got to his child, the boy had suffocated to death. Aquaman had been the only Justice Leaguer who was also a father and now he had to suffer a defeat none of DC’s other heroes had to face: that of outliving your child. This tragedy would cause a rift between him and Mera and the two would later separate.

In the mid-80s, Aquaman got ticked about how many of the Leaguers would miss meetings or not show up immediately to emergencies due to their own lives and heroic careers. After an alien invasion nearly succeeded in conquering Earth, Aquaman pulled rank. The Justice League’s by-laws allowed him to disband the JLA if he believed they weren’t doing their job. Afterwards, Aquaman reformed the team only with heroes who were willing to make the League their number one priority. Joining him in this was the Martian Manhunter, Elongated Man, Zatanna, and four new recruits: Steel I, Vibe, Vixen and Gypsy. Aquaman was now not just a teammate but a leader. He was a harsh commander and was later seen to actually be using his telepathy to influence teammate Steel to follow his lead at times.

The idea that Aquaman’s telepathy had increased to allow him influence over humans would be dropped after he left the team himself not long after that. By this time, Aquaman’s series had been cancelled and soon after he’d just reformed the League he decided he couldn’t stay. His responsibilities in Atlantis had to be his priority now.

After that, the CRISIS ON INFINITE EARTHS happened. The universe, as well as other universes, was in trouble. The Anti-Monitor, the villain behind it all, sent shadow demons to invade Earth. Among those killed was Tula AKA Aquagirl. Aqualad would spend quite some time mourning her.

After the CRISIS, many heroes had their histories re-written and rebooted. Aquaman seemed unaffected by this at first. His history remained intact and his powers remained the same.

BRING ON THE MAGIC

In a mini-series by Neal Pozner, a new direction was chosen for Aquaman. Our Atlantean hero ditched his classic green-and-orange outfit for a camouflage suit composed of many shades of blue, perfect for blending in beneath the waves. The villain was Ocean Master, who was obsessed with gaining control of powerful mystical talismans. The mini-series was well-received and readers enjoyed that it added new magical elements to the kingdom of Atlantis, enhancing its mythical quality. Sadly, sales were not big enough for DC to relaunch Aquaman’s regular series.

Not long afterwards, an AQUAMAN SPECIAL was published. It was so poor and confusing that to this day even those very few who read it can’t really remember what it was about. It is my own theory that the SPECIAL was actually a tangible anomaly in the space-time continuum, perhaps brought to our universe by some vortex that occurred during the Crisis. But, as of yet, I have no evidence. YET! (okay, in all seriousness, the book sucked so ignore it).

Some time passed. DC refused to let go of their character and decided perhaps what was needed to garner interest was a firm re-establishment of his origin and the basics of his history. Originally, this was intended to be in the pages of the regular title SECRET ORIGINS but it was later decided to be shown as its own comic in order to make sure people paid attention.

THE LEGEND OF AQUAMAN, written by Keith Giffen, became the Post-Crisis origin of Aquaman. Several things were changed here and there, starting with the circumstances of his birth (possibly because they too closely resembled the Sub-Mariner's origins). This comic mentioned nothing about a romance between lighthouse keeper Tom Curry and an undersea woman. Aquaman was said to have been born of the royal Atlantean couple but was seen as a freak due to his blonde hair, considered a cursed trait among Atlanteans. He was left to die as a baby on Mercy Reef. When the tide came in, he would drown. But something happened. Inexplicably, he found he could breathe air as well as water. Jump ahead a few years and we find a lighthouse keeper named Arthur Curry. Curry has become annoyed that someone is taking the food out of his crab traps. He finds the aquatic adolescent with fins on his legs. Curry soon realizes this boy is somehow able to live in both water and land and, out of mercy, lets him back into the sea when he realizes he grows weaker the longer he stays completely dry. The boy returns, bringing Curry food as thanks. They begin a strange father/son relationship. Curry teaches the boy English and the basics of reading, as well as some basic human habits and behaviors, such as what a chair was and how to eat with utensils and the like. The boy also learned quite a bit about the art of cursing.

Eventually the old lighthouse keeper died. As a parting gift to the nameless aquatic boy, he told him he could have his own name since he wasn’t going to need it anymore. Thus, the mer-boy, now in his late teens, became “Arthur Curry.”

Jump ahead a few years. Arthur found himself on the outskirts of Atlantis and was immediately captured by palace guards. He couldn't speak their language and so they assumed he was some dangerous blonde-haired savage and threw him in jail. Arthur was given the standard prison uniform (which will later become his costume). One day, Arthur saw a couple of women walking by in robes. He saw one of them, an older woman, and instinctually recognized her as his mother. He couldn’t call to her, he didn’t know the language. A fellow prisoner named Vulko came up to him and saw the problem. He spent quite some time teaching Arthur how to speak Atlantean and the basics of life in the kingdom.

Eventually, Arthur had enough skill to speak and once again saw a group of women in robes come by. But the woman who was his mother was missing. Apparently, she’d just died. Arthur flew into a rage and fought his way out of the prison, displaying he was stronger than other Atlanteans. He escaped Atlantis, not realizing he’d inspired an uprising behind him. For too long the Atlanteans had lived under a tyranny that have usurped the throne from the proper royal family. Now they were fighting back and they saw the stranger called Arthur as their hero.

Skip ahead several months. Aquaman wound up stopping a criminal on the surface world. Because of his outfit and abilities, the media immediately thought him to be another super-hero. Mistaking the Atlantean symbol on his belt for a letter “A”, they called him Aquaman and not long after that he joined the JLA. After being with the team for some time, he journeyed back to Atlantis out of curiosity and found a new government. Soon afterwards, Vulko realized Arthur was the true king, believed to have been killed as a baby, and they crown him immediately. Arthur Curry, an outcast his entire life, now had a kingdom and a home.

The rest of history was intended to be pretty much the same, but notice the major differences in his past. No more family life, thus making him a far more somber and alienated character. And no longer did he grow up alongside Ocean Master.

Kieth Giffen then did a short-lived mini-series of Aquaman. The major significant thing that happened was that Mera kinda went nuts and attacked Arthur before vanishing from the scene.
Orin Shalako
Right after that, Peter David wrote THE ATLANTIS CHRONICLES. Delving deep into the continuity of Atlantean hero Arion, as well as past stories that featured differences between Aquaman’s people of the city Poseidonis and the people of Tritonis who, like Superman’s old flame Lori Lemaris, were mer-people in the strictest sense of the word (fish-tails and all), Peter David crafted a storyline that explained all of this and put it into context. He created a royal lineage of Atlanteans, beginning with the good King Orin who had been responsible for saving the city from death when it crashed beneath the waves. He introduced that Atlantis had been a nation constantly pitting magic against science, faith against reason, and that usually two royal brothers fought for the throne, starting from the beginning with King Orin and the blonde sorcerer Shalako.

David also used this battle of sorcery and science to explain why people of Poseidonis in modern comics were humans with gills whereas the people of Tritonis (such as Lori Lemaris) were literal mer-people. After years of living beneath the waves, protected only by their dome and the air within, King Orin decided his people needed to adapt to their new life. He and his scientists developed a serum which mutated the body to make one amphibious. Also, their bodies could now adjust between air and ocean pressures. After many years, the effects of this serum had a long-term effect in making the people of Poseidonis unable to travel out of water for much longer than an hour before risking death.

Shalako had long before abandoned Poseidonis and used his magicks to escort his followers to the sunken abandoned city of Tritonis, which he had then protected with a magical dome of his own. When Orin later came and showed that the Tritonians could be given the serum too and thus join his people as true inhabitants of the sea, Shalako proclaimed this an abomination. And when he saw his followers actually accept Orin's gift, he grew mad with jealousy. That night, he cast a spell so that all Tritonians who had taken the serum would not just become amphibious, they would grow scales on their legs and fins on their feet. When the Tritonians realized what happened, they killed Shalako for his betrayal. Over the years, the Tritonians evolved so that instead of looking like humans with fish-scaled legs, they actually became merpeople, fishtails and all.

Peter David also showed that an ancestor of Aquaman’s named Kordax, grandson of Shalako had been a fish-man who could control sea life, as well as an insane villain. Like his father and his grandfather, both of whom were villains, Kordax had blonde hair and so Peter David showed why this trait was seen as a curse. It was seen to be inherent in magical/bad side of the royal family. Many centuries later, the royal prince Atlan would be born with blonde hair and strong magic.
Kordax Atlan
Finally, THE ATLANTIS CHRONICLES ended when Queen Atlanna, saddened that her husband seemed unable to produce a child, was seduced in a dream by the blonde sorcerer Atlan, believed to have died many centuries before. Atlan said they would sire a son together and that he would then go off to sire another son named Orm with a surface woman, for two brothers must always fight for the fate of Atlantis. This was Peter David’s way of re-establishing that Ocean Master was Aquaman’s half-brother, even if they didn’t grow up together.

Atlanna gave birth to the youth, but immediately the palace panicked. He had blonde hair, the “Curse of Kordax”, and had to be put to death. Atlanna mourned the death of her son, but as the series ended, readers knew full well just what the boy’s fate would be.

A new Aquaman series started, written by Shaun McLaughlin, putting the hero back in his orange and green outfit. Aquaman clashed swords with the new leader of Atlantis, fought a terrorist, and finally tried to avenge his son’s death on Black Manta. He also met up with Thanatos, a villain who wore a blue camouflage costume that was quite familiar to older readers.

Aquaman was angrier now and tired of all he’d suffered in life. During the series, he met up with Batman who remarked that Aquaman seemed stronger now, noticing he had been out of water for over an hour and didn’t seem to have weakened the slightest bit. Apparently, constant adventures on land had toughened up his already stronger-than-normal system. He was now able to stay out much longer, perhaps indefinitely, without risking death.

Aquaman was making the rounds with guest appearances in other comics as well, such as FLASH and Superman’s comics. He worked alongside Earth’s heroes during the PANIC IN THE SKY story when Earth was invaded by Brainiac’s forces and became part of Justice League Europe, even having a brief romantic thing with Power Girl before he left the team.

Aquaman’s own series failed to garner enough interest though and so DC cancelled it after 13 issues. It ended with Vulko giving Arthur the Atlantis Chronicles. Arthur went off to read them and readers realized he would now learn all the history they had learned not too long ago.

WHAT WOULD HAVE HAPPENED . . .

Among his other storylines he wanted to concluce, McLaughlin said that he was going to do a four-issue storyarc that would redo the origin of Aquaman as the Silver Age tale of Atlanna and Tom Curry, with the added revelation that the sorcerer Atlan had pushed this union together through manipulation. It was also going to reveal that Curry had had a black-sheep brother who had been disowned when he went off to war: Captain Storm, seen in DC's war comics. Since the series was cancelled before this ever came to pass, this story only exists in McLaughlin's imagination now.

TIME AND TIDE

Some time later, Peter David wrote the mini-series AQUAMAN: TIME AND TIDE. As the series opened, Arthur had just finished reading over the Atlantis Chronicles. He then began writing his own addition to the Chronicles, adding in accounts of his own life. He began with the words “My mother was insane.” Arthur had just read the passage concerning how he had been born out of a union between his mother and a long-dead legendary sorcerer and had come to the conclusion that his mother had been delusional, not surprising since insanity seemed to run in the family as evidenced by the evil sorcerer Shalako and the villain Kordax. Arthur then went on to talk about his own life and thus Peter David filled in some gaps that had existed in THE LEGEND OF AQUAMAN.

It was revealed that between the time Aquaman had been left to die and before he was found by the lighthouse keeper Arthur Curry, he had been found by a school of dolphins. One of them, Porm, raised him as her own child alongside her natural son Drin. The dolphins called him Swimmer and, although he lived with them, he was still an outsider. The time came for young Swimmer to leave. But before this happened, his brother Drin was caught up in the propellers of a boat and was mortally wounded. When a man on the boat tried to harpoon Drin (in order to put the dolphin out of its misery), young Swimmer swam up and caught the harpoon before it could reach its target. Drin died and young Swimmer reluctantly handed him over to the sharks, understanding that this was the way of things but also deciding it was not a way he could live with anymore. He left the dolphins to find his own kind, eventually coming upon the lighthouse keeper. He also kept the harpoon forever after.

It was also now said that right after Arthur left the lighthouse keeper and before he found himself in Atlantis, the boy had journeyed to Alaska and met a Native American girl named Kako who lived with her grandfather. Arthur and Kako fell for each other. But Kako had a cousin who was not truly blood-related due to being illegitimate (a fact he could never escape since he was white and both his parents were Native American). This man was named Orm Marius and had been attracted to Kako and was enraged when he saw the blonde kid with fins on his legs “seduce” her. He attacked Kako in revenge and soon after Arthur was forced out of the house by her family, not realizing he’d fathered a child.

As for how Aquaman first became a “super-hero”, it was shown that during a fight between the Flash and the Trickster over open water, our boy Arthur had burst out from the waves and shouted “What the Hell’s going on? You’re SCARING the fish!”

Aquaman met with the Flash (Barry Allen) and took some convincing to help the hero. He didn’t see himself as super-powered, despite the Flash’s claims. He breathed underwater, yes, but he lived underwater so didn’t that make sense? As for talking to fish, well, he’d always talked to fish, so why was it a “power”? After the adventure, Flash called him “Aquaman” to the press, saying that “Curry” was not a very super-heroic name. Arthur later tried to return to the ocean, ignoring the Trickster's attempts to start another fight. When he realized the ridiculous villain wouldn't be ignored, Aquaman slugged him into unconsciousness with one punch and the public mistook this as a great victory by a super-hero. Despite his impatience with the surface people and his belief that he was not a hero, Arthur found himself liking this Flash person and opened his mind to the idea that not all surface people were bad. A couple of weeks later he helped found the original Justice League of America and so started his heroic career.

The final part of TIME AND TIDE dealt with the new Post-Crisis first battle between Aquaman and Ocean Master. Here, it was shown that the day Arthur announced his son Arthur, Jr. to his kingdom, Ocean Master burst in, using his own devices to be able to breathe and speak underwater. He demanded that Aquaman turn over ruler-ship of the oceans to him. Aquaman grinned and said sure he would, just as soon as Ocean Master first introduced himself to every single living creature in all the oceans and got their loyalty. He then laughed, saying that no one ruled the oceans really. Even his power of communicating with sea life did not mean COMMANDING them. He ruled the nation of Atlantis, which only had direct authority over the cities of Tritonis (where mermen and mermaids like Lori Lemaris lived) and Poseidonis (where Arthur and his family lived).

Ocean Master then attempted to take the crown from Aquaman by force but was easily beaten. Arthur practically laughed at him, saying that even if the villain had defeaten him in battle, that would have only meant that his wife and guards would have killed him right afterwards rather than accept his rule. The humiliated Ocean Master was then sent away. Aqualad and Mera thought he should’ve been imprisoned or killed, but Aquaman was sure that the villain was so pathetic that he wouldn’t be a problem again in the future.

That night, Ocean Master attacked Atlantis and Aquaman and Aqualad responded in kind. At one point, Ocean Master had Aquaman captured and explained that he was the one who had attacked Kako years before. He also ranted at one point about how his mother had gotten drunk one night and claimed he was the son of some undersea wizard.

As he recalled this tale of the past, the present-day Aquaman suddenly stopped in shock. When he had heard those words years before, they had meant nothing to him. Now he realized that this was a confirmation of what his mother had claimed in the Atlantis Chronicles, that Atlan had fathered him and someone else with a surface woman. He was suddenly faced with the humbling revelation that his life was not his own, but just another part of a destiny he had no control over.

"He will know joy and sorrow, darkness and light, for the blood of Orin and Shalako will run through him ... He will produce a child with a woman from the world of the dark gods, and they will both leave him. He will battle the inner uncertainty caused by his mixed heritage ... And he will battle his half-brother, whom I shall also sire with a women of the surface. For two brothers must always struggle for Atlantis. This is fate ... And when they battle for the FINAL time, the outcome will determine the ultimate destiny of Atlantis. Either it will rejoin the surface world or be forever destroyed."



A NEW LOOK

A new Aquaman series started, also by Peter David. It began about a month after where we last saw Arthur, who had discovered from the Chronicles that his birth name was “Orin.” He had fallen into a depression and had been isolated from everyone the entire month, not even shaving himself. Aqualad forced the now bearded Aquaman into action as they fought a villain named Charybdis. Charybdis mimicked Aquaman’s ability to communicate with sea life but was upset when he realized he could not command the fish to disobey their nature. Aquaman explained that the media had gotten it wrong, he didn’t CONTROL sea life, he could only speak with sea creatures. It was still up to them whether or not they listened. Charybdis believed this to be a lie and forced Arthur’s left hand into a lake full of piranha. Although he beat the villain with the help of Aqualad and the female aquatic hero Dolphin, he had already lost his hand.

Aquaman had visions of his destiny and was reinvigorated. He went off to the “Aquacave” and found the harpoon that had killed his brother Drin so many years before. As Aqualad entered the cave, Arthur told him how important it was for people to have symbols, such as Batman with his bats. He decided he needed a true symbol now, something to show both that he was of the sea and yet of the surface, and that the weapons of the surface could be turned against those who used them on sea life. Taking his wrapped stump that had once been a hand, he placed the end of the harpoon into it. He then grinned as he turned to Aqualad and said, “What do you think? Too much?”

Since no one had been caring about Aquaman, Peter David was getting people’s attention with the new look. Within a couple of issues, Aquaman ditched the green and orange bodysuit and it would be roughly ten years before he wore them again. For now, he wore plated body-armor on his torso instead. He later had the harpoon replaced with a new one created with S.T.A.R. Labs technology. This new hook could fire outwards on a long telescopic cord and would go in the direction Aquaman mentally commanded. It could spin like a drill and it could completely retract. Later on, it could shift into a robotic hand as well.

Peter David’s run is well-known for his quality writing and long-term subplots. For a time, Dolphin and Aquaman were involved. This caused quite a bit of trouble when Mera showed up from her home dimension again, carrying a young boy named AJ who may or may not have been Aquaman's son. And in terms of old loves and kids, when it rains it pours, 'cause our boy Arthur visited his old flame Kako and found his almost fully grown son Koryak, who later on would try his own turn at ruling Atlantis for a short time.
Aquaman and Dolphin
Aqualad was believed killed for a while but was, in fact, sent to another dimension where Atlan trained him in magic for several years. When he came back, Garth was significantly older, though only weeks had passed on Earth. Calling himself Tempest now, he had new mystical control over water, able to bend it to his will. When Aquaman left Atlantis and Dolphin for a time, the girl began seeing Tempest instead. It was awkward for Arthur at first when he returned, realizing he'd lost a girl to his former sidekick, but he dealt with it and wished them both the best. Eventually, Tempest asked Dolphin to marry him and they later had a son named Cerdian.

Aquaman found Ocean Master and revealed to him that they were half-brothers, a truth which only increased the villain’s hatred for the hero. Black Manta made a deal with the demon lord Neron and was transformed into a true manta-man creature. And for a short time, Atlantis was once again above the surface.

Aquaman also got new interest due to his involvement in Grant Morrison’s new JLA, which restaffed the team with all of DC’s big guns such as Superman, Batman and Wonder Woman.

Erik Larsen took over for a time, giving Aquaman yet another new costume for a short time. I have yet to meet an Aquaman fan who enjoyed Larsen’s stories and none of them seemed to have any lasting effect, other than the introduction of a young aquatic character named Lagoon Boy.

Eventually, the sales started dropping a bit and although some, in my opinion, very good storylines started coming out at the end, the series was cancelled.

DEATH OF A KING

Aquaman continued as a member of the JLA. Then, during the Superman-centric crossover OUR WORLDS AT WAR, Aquaman fought an avatar of the incredibly powerful villain Imperiex head-on. To protect Atlantis, he set up a plan where an ancient spell would be used to send it to “a safe place.” For a while, it seemed as if Atlantis had vanished, replaced with a trench in the middle of the Atlantic, and Aquaman had seemingly died in an explosion caused when he ripped the Imperiex avatar open with his trident.

Aquaman says good-bye to Mera before going to battle Imperiex.
For a while, Aquaman was left alone. No one touched him. He wasn’t to be brought back until a new excited direction could be figured out for his character.

After a long absence, the JLA found proof that Aquaman and the city of Atlantis had been transported thousands of years into the past. The team went back in time and found that the Atlanteans had been enslaved by their magic-wielding ancestors. Aquaman and the JLA fought the evil sorceress Gamanae and were able to return Atlantis to the present day. But in the process, Aquaman had to resink the city in order to prevent Gamanae from destroying the world.

Afterwards, Aquaman planned to resume his roles but found Mera and Vulko had turned against him. In tears, Vulko said that Arthur had resunk their city for the sake of the surface world and had proven some of their beloved history, that the ancient Atlanteans had been good people, had been a lie and so could not be forgiven for such offenses. A new magic-wielding elitist named Hagen was gaining power in the city and influenced Mera to turn over power to him. Hagen exiled Aquaman from the oceans and sent him to the surface to die of a long dehydration.

In his dreams, Arthur was approached by the legendary Lady of the Lake, the same one who gave Arthur of Camelot his famous sword Excalibur. The Lady of the Lake was choosing Arthur to become a conduit between the Secret Sea (an ocean composed of spirits that lies beyond thought and imagination) and the Earth dimension.

When Aquaman woke up, he was free and was now the “waterbearer”, gifted with a new hand of the mystical “water of truth” where once his harpoon had been. The hand could heal and ward off dark magicks, as well as act as a doorway into the Secret Sea itself. By giving Aquaman a stronger connection to magic, he now had more direct visions of the future at times rather than the vague dreams. He could alter the density of the hand and could connect it with the oceans of Earth for some startling effects. During a tropical storm, he caused the some of the waves to actually part rather than hit the ship he was on. And when he met up with Black Manta again, he actually used his healing touch to restore the villain's humanity. Sadly, the Manta still has a dark heart and now only hates Aquaman even more for being in some debt to him.

Aquaman was no longer king of the seas. Now he was an exile, carving out his own life and his own destiny away from Atlantis.

AMERICAN TIDAL

In one new story, DC threw Aquaman back into his old orange and green outfit for the first time in a decade and also gave him a new purpose in life. A portion of San Diego was hit by a huge quake and fell into the ocean. Searching for survivors, Aquaman found that although most of them had died, a few had survived and now amazingly breathed water rather than air. An investigation found that his DNA had been used to create a mutagenic virus that was administered to the people of San Diego that would activate when they were forcibly drowned in water. The mutagenic effect only worked with some people, obviously.

One girl named Lorena was uniquely affected in that she was amphibious now (though being out of water entirely for too long caused her to slowly weaken and suffocate). Lorena became the new Aquagirl as she helped Arthur find the scientist who had done this. The scientist, Dr. Geist, claimed he did it as an experiment to begin preparing human life for when global warming would force everyone back into the sea, but Aquaman later found out there were darker plans behind it all as part of a corporation's scheme to attain power.

In other media, Aquaman showed up in the Superman WB series a few years back. He was dressed in the familiar green and orange, but was quite definitely not the SUPERFRIENDS version. This was Peter David’s Aquaman, moody and not at ease with having his demands questioned. Later, he made another appearance in the JUSTICE LEAGUE cartoon on Cartoon Network. Now he had a beard and was shirtless, resembling his later Peter David incarnation more. In the JUSTICE LEAGUE episode, Arthur had his throne usurped by his brother Orm, who was depicted as just another Atlantean. Orm had Arthur and his infant son chained to a rock that was heading towards lava. Arthur had one hand free, but couldn’t reach his son still. Cartoon viewers were stunned when, rather than let his child die, Aquaman actually cut off his own hand to free himself. In some people’s minds, this version of events was actually cooler than the story in which he’d had his hand eaten off. Although he was never a regular member, Aquaman would continue making appearances on the cartoon show and audience members were pleased to see he was in no way the SUPERFRIENDS version. And no wonder. When asked about their take on Aquaman, the good writers at Cartoon Network said they wanted to depict him as “Conan underwater.” Good for them!

Sadly, due to legal matters, the people of Cartoon Network are no longer allowed to use Aquaman or related characters in the JUSTICE LEAGUE UNLIMITED cartoon. Recently, they had a story that involved Black Manta, but due to the same legal concerns were forced to slightly redesign the character and rename him "Devil Ray", even though true fans would all realize who it was really supposed to be. A shame, but at least we had a cool Aquaman on TV for a while.

Speaking of TV, a 20-year-old version of Aquaman appeared on the TV show SMALLVILLE. In the show, Arthur Curry (or "A.C." as he preferred), was a champion college swimmer who's father had been a lighthouse keeper and whose mother had died when he was young. In regards to his unusual abilities to swim at super-speed, breath underwater, and somehow create mini-whirlpools from his hands while submerged, he joked that he guessed his mother "had the genes." A.C. rankled young Clark Kent, as he was very cocky and a little bit in love with himself, not to mention all too aware that he was found handsome by others. But A.C. was also very concerned with the enviornment and joined forces with Clark to stop a project that could have been incredibly harmful towards ocean life. At the end of the episode, A.C. thanked Clark for his help, telling him "Stay super, bro," and then headed out.

SMALLVILLE'S Aquaman

The WB planned to create a new live-action series based on a young Aquaman, though using a different actor (which I was glad about, because Alan Ritchson didn't thrill me with his performance). The show, entitled MERCY REEF, was to star Justin Hartley as young A.C. whose mother was mysteriously killed while at sea and who, before her death, had called young Arthur by the name "Orin." Years later, A.C. is a boating instructor who often gets in trouble with the police for being a bit of an environmental activist. This often brought him in conflict with his father (Lou Diamond Phillips) who worked for the Coast Guard. A.C. couldn't explain why he cared about sea life so much, saying only that he sometimes felt dolphins "calling" to him, not through speech but through feelings. What's more, A.C. has a secret: he's amphibious, stronger than a normal human should be, and can swim faster than any dolphin he's seen.
Justin Hartley in MERCY REEF
In the show, A.C. was attacked by a siren and saved by a mysterious stranger (Ving Rhames) who claimed that he and A.C.'s mother were from the undersea kingdom of Atlanis. Atlantis had been taken over and the royal family killed. A.C. (who learned his Atlantean name was Orin) was the surviving prince and was now being targetted because the rulers of Atlantis didn't want him to become a rallying symbol for the common citizens. A.C. decided he would eventually free Atlantis, but first his new friend was going to train him, both physically and mentally, for he had to learn how to think and strategize as a true king before he even attempted to become one. For instance, despite his protests, his first assignment was to start reading Shakespeare.

The show was hokey at times but was still interesting and, in my opinion, better done than SMALLVILLE. Justin Hartley was a bit arrogant and headstrong, but came off as much more relatable and sympathetic than Alan Ritchson's take. The show made me interested to see his journey into the hero you could see he had the potential to be (unlike, in my opinion, SMALLVILLE's version of Clark Kent who seems to indulge in self-pity and doubt far more than I think a young Superman ever would). Sadly, before the pilot could air, WB merged with UPN, becoming the new channel CW. This meant some shows had to be sacrificed and MERCY REEF was one of them. Due to fan demand, they put the pilot episode on iTunes for download. To everyone's surprise, it quickly entered the top ten video downloads off iTunes for the next few weeks. Many people dug it.

Rather than let him go entirely, the CW realized they had a charismatic, handsome actor in Justin Hartley and quickly brought him on board SMALLVILLE to play Oliver Queen the Green Arrow. In the later episode "Justice", Justin Hartley and Alan Ritchson got to share screen time when it was revealed that Aquaman worked for Green Arrow. Personally, I really wanted Hartley to just turn to Ritchson in the middle of the show and say "Dude, I was such a better Aquaman than you." :-D

For the past couple of years there has been constant talk in Hollywood about making an Aquaman movie. Several of the people involved have argued for a more campy take on the character, while others have said they want a movie that touches on the character’s mystical and mythic roots. The HBO show ENTOURAGE had an episode in which the lead character was cast into the role of a fictional Aquaman movie and was humiliated at having to play such a “sucky” character. What will become of this movie in real life remains to be seen, but we can only hope that when it’s made it will be given the same time and care that BATMAN BEGINS got.

CRISIS IN ATLANTIS

Aquaman took it upon himself to be both protector and policeman to the residents of the underwater “Sub Diego”, while also trying to find a way to either cure them or punish those responsible for their change. Meanwhile, Vulko and others were tyring to convince him to come back to Atlantis, very apologetic that they were wrong, only to be told by Arthur that he had his own life now.

And then INFINITE CRISIS came. In that story, the Spectre went nuts trying to destroy all sources of magical energies and so Atlantis was on his list. His attack left the city destroyed and Tempest was possibly killed (we haven't seen him since). Arthur's son Koryak and his old advisor Vulko were among the many who died during those last days.

Following the year after INFINITE CRISIS, the people of Atlantis were now more scatttered and formed more isolated communities. Arthur vanished from the public eye and something happened to him along the way. Months later, he returned as a seeming half-man, half-squid creature who can't survive outside of water, his face barely recognizeable and his mystical water-hand the only proof of who he used to be. His mind now clouded, Arthur no longer connected himself to his own memories. His life as Aquaman seemed to belong to someone else and he now became a wanderer of the oceans, known as the Dweller of the Depths. No one connected him to Aquaman, who was thought to have died during the Spectre's attack.

Kurt Busiek took on writing chores for the newly re-titled AQUAMAN: SWORD OF ATLANTIS and started the new era. A year after the events of INFINITE CRISIS, an oceanic research center at Avalon Cay, a small island off the coast of Miami, was destroyed by a terrible storm. The only apparent survivor was a young blonde-haired man who could breathe underwater and was searching desperately for signs of his father. The young man was found by the Dweller and the two of them recruited Aquaman's old enemy King Shark for help. The Dweller said that he'd had visions of this young man, that he was Arthur Curry, the son of an undersea queen, whose foster father had been a humble surface human. What's more, he'd had visions of the future in which he saw that this young man would command the kingdom of Atlantis and take on a queen who originally inhabited another dimension, that he would lose a child and join a team of Earth's greatest heroes and would later be exiled by his own people again, despite all the times he'd saved them.

But the young man told the Dweller that he was not the one these visions talked about. His name was Arthur Joseph Curry and he had no connection to Atlantis. He was a metahuman. The Dweller became disturbed and eventually realized that this particular vision of the future had actually been a vision of the past somehow. But what this meant, he wasn't sure.

Arthur Joseph Curry explained his own story. His parents were Dr. Philip Curry and Elaine Curry. Philip was a research scientist. At the research center at Avalon Cay Miami, he studied marine adaptation and amphibian evolution. Later, his mother went into premature labor and a storm prevented her from being brought to a hospital on the mainland. Elaine died and Arthur Joseph was born three months early, with his lungs not yet fully formed. To save his son's life, Philip Curry subjected him to a mutative catalyst he'd been developing. The boy lived and grew gills. As time went on, his circulatory system and muscles changed and adapted. He could only spend short periods of time out of water, so he lived in the main tank of the Curry-Jonas Oceanographic Center, occasionally being allowed on supervised excursions into the ocean.

Philip divided his time between research and raising his son, while at the same time trying to help Arthur Joseph strengthen his lungs so he could survive longer and longer oustide of water and trying to isolate just how the serum had mutated him. Arthur Joseph learned about most of the world through his father's teachings and through television programs. Although he saw reports about Aquaman, Arthur Joseph was more impressed by heroes such as Green Lantern and Superman.

So basically, Busiek gave us a new Aquaman whose origin was a retooling of the origianl Golden Age version. Now, with the research center destroyed and his father possibly gone, Arthur Joseph was without a home. The Dweller gave him armor that resembled Aquaman's old costume and told the young man, who was barely in his twenties, that it was his job now to become the new Aquaman, the new protector of the lost souls of Atlantis who needed to be united again. With the Dweller as his guide and King Shark as his unlikely bodyguard, Arthur Joseph went around and met up with Mera and the Sea Devils and the ghost of Vulko, who is still hanging out on the Earthly plane.

Vulko was happy to meet young Arthur Joseph and revealed to the young man that Thomas Curry, who had raised Aquaman, was in fact Arthur Joseph's grand-uncle! Why Philip Curry never told his son about the familial connection to Aquaman or if this connection was in part responsible for Philip's research, has yet to be revealed. What's more, Mera has become the only person aware that the Dweller is in fact her estranged husband, though she doesn't know how this came to be.

From left to right: the Dweller, Arthur Joseph Curry and King Shark

Kurt Busiek is leaving the title now and hopefully we'll get out answers soon enough. Personally, while I find Arthur Joseph interesting, I'm not sure if he's cut-out to replace the sarcastic, ornery, entertaining tough guy that Arthur had finally become.

BRINGING BACK THE SILVER AGE

Interestingly, some writers still seem attached to the Silver Age Aquaman origin. Jeph Loeb in SUPERMAN/BATMAN and John Ostrander in a recent issue of AQUAMAN both referenced Arthur as being born of a union between a sea princess and a lighthouse keeper. Likewise, so does Batman in the JUSTICE series, although that comic is not necessarily in continuity.

In Kurt Busiek's issues of AQUAMAN: SWORD OF ATLANTIS, he seemed to imply that while Orin was in fact the son of Atlanna and Atlan, he was not just found by dolphins for years only to meet the human Arthur Curry later. Instead, closer to the Silver Age origin, his mother fled Atlantis and was discovered by Thomas Curry (his name is Thomas again!), who took her in and fell in love with her. They raised young Arthur as their own and it would be YEARS before Arthur learned that Tom Curry was not his real father. The circumstances of his mother's death are still unknown and as yet there's nothing to say for sure that Orin didn't hook up with a family of dolphins at SOME point in his young life.

Perhaps in a couple of years we’ll see what happened with Superman in BIRTHRIGHT happen to Aquaman and will be presented with an origin that merges the best elements of Pre and Post-Crisis, while also including elements of the cartoon and live action interpretations. In truth, I actually wrote my own story that attempts to do just that and I think it's pretty fun, but I’m not a published author or working for DC Comics, so whatever. :-P

And if any of the good folks at DC Comics are reading this (or Hell, even if any of their interns are reading this), I want to urge them to put out more Aquaman trades to help people get caught up and into this character. Considering how well received Peter David’s run was (particularly his Atlantis Chronicles and the storyline in which Arthur got his harpoon hand) and what a great the “American Tidal” storyline with Sub Diego was, it seems ridiculous and sad that the only collected stories are TIME AND TIDE, the initial WATERBEARER storyline and the first SWORD OF ATLANTIS story-arc. If you want readers to get into the new stuff, you need to make at least parts of the past available rather than making them search through back-issue bins. The Sub Diego storylines and several of Peter David's stories should be collected. Just my two cents.

I hope you enjoyed this look back on Aquaman. Write-in your suggestions for other characters you'd like to see profiles on. 'Till next time, cheers!

Alan Kistler is a New Yorker in his mid-twenties who works freelance as a “comic book historian”, a label he got from several of his readers and from articles of Wikipedia.org. He enjoys the title very much and loves the opportunity of writing these articles for Monitor Duty, run by the ever-patient Michael Hutchison. His livejournal/fan-fiction can be found HERE. He would love to write for DC and Marvel some day. He also wants to time travel.
Alan Kistler
Other articles by Alan Kistler, including various other Profiles posted on Monitor Duty, can be found HERE.