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Aquaman
The Silver Age Aquaman
Gender	Male
Publisher	DC Comics
Origin	Atlantis
First Appearance	More Fun Comics # 73 (November, 1941)
Creator(s)	Paul Norris Mort Weisinger
Alter ego	Orin, Swimmer, Arthur Curry
Aliases	The Sea King Dweller In The Depths
Abilities	Breathe under water; telepathy for communicating to sea life; inhuman strength; swims like a fish
Affiliations	Justice League

Aquaman is a fictional superhero character owned by DC Comics. He can breath both air and water, control sea life telepathically, and protects the interests of the ocean and the Earth. His one weakness is that he can only remain on land for an hour without contact with water.

Character History

He has had different revamped origins over the years.

Silver Age Origin

Tom Curry, a lonely lighthouse keeper, rescued a woman from a hurricane. He fell in love with her and the two were married. Their son was named Arthur, and soon demonstrated unusual powers like breathing under water and communicating telepathically with sea life. On her death bed, Arthur's mother revealed that she was Atlanna, outcast of the underwater kingdom of Atlantis. When his father died as well, Aquaman took to the sea where he met Garth, another outcast Atlantean, and the two became a team. Garth takes on the name Aqualad and, together, the two become a legend fighting for justice and defending the weak at sea. It is this Aquaman of The Silver Age of Comics that is portrayed in the 1960s cartoon that we all associate with him. Aquaman would eventually marry Mera, the underwater princess from another dimension, and be appointed King of Atlantis.

Modern Age Origin

Aquaman's origin as of the Modern Age of Comics begins with Atlanna, the Queen of the underwater kingdom of Atlantis (also called Poseidonis), finding herself pregnant after having a strange dream. When the baby is born it becomes clear that it was no dream, but Atlan, an ancient warrior-mage who was actually the baby's father. Atlan has been around for millenia, and is also the current King's ancestor. The baby, called Orin, is born with blond hair and blue eyes, which Atlanteans associate with dark magic and and evil. Recognizing the baby isn't his, King Trevis leaves it to die on an abandoned reef, above the water line.

The King doesn't realize that the boy could breath air and communicate with sea life. Hungry, the infant cries out for help, and is rescued by a dolphin called Porm, who raises the baby along with its own offspring as one of its own. Soon Orin (called "Swimmer" by the dolphins) is considered just another dolphin.

Upon reaching puberty, Orin becomes curious about humans and befriends a lighthouse keeper named Arthur Curry, who teaches Orin how to read and speak English. Eventually, the lonely lighthouse keeper grows to love the boy as a son, and names him Arthur Jr.

The Modern Age Aquaman with his hand made up of mystic water.

When his adopted father disappeares from the lighthouse, Arthur searches for him, living among the Eskimos as Arthur Curry, learning their language as well. One day, guided by a vision of his mother, Orin approaches a vessel from Poseidonis. He is captured by them and is taken before the King. The King of Poseidonis takes one look at Aquaman's blond hair and blue eyes and imprisons him. In prison, he meets Vulko, a scientist and bureaucrat who had been imprisoned for his loyalty to a previous King. Vulko teaches him to to speak the native tongue, and the two become lifelong friends. When Aquaman finds out that his mother has died, he escapes jail and wanders the seas again, becoming a legend as the defender of sea life. It was during this time that he meets the Flash who introduces him to the surface world. Dubbed "Aquaman" by the media, Arthur ends up becoming a founding member of the Justice League of America.

More History

Later, he returns to Poseidonis and finds that Vulko has led a revolt and is now in power. Vulko realizes that Orin's mother was the former queen, and, after a bit of fuss, Aquaman takes his place as the undersea kindom's rightful King, with Vulko as his trusted advisor. He meets Mera, an outcast princess from another dimension. The two fall in love and marry. Arthur befriends a young wanderer named Garth, who eventually became his "Aqualad". He and Mera have a son named Arthur Jr., nick-named "Aquababy".

Aqualad, Aquaman's sidekick.

But the ideal life of a happy-go-lucky hero and ruler comes to an end when one of his enemies, Black Manta, murders his infant son. Since then Aquaman's life has been full of tumult and tragedy. He lost his wife, his kingdom, and even his left hand. In issue #1 of a new series beginning in 1994 and written by Peter David, a villain named Charybdis stole Aquaman's ability to communicate with sea life, and then forced his hand into a pool of piranhas. Fora while, he wore a harpoon as a prosthetic, the beginning of a more violent and "bad ass" look. Aquaman continued to evolve into a pretty dark character with strong ties to old sea legends and mysticism. In his next series beginning in February, 2003, Aquaman encountered the legendary Lady in the Lake in Ireland, who replaced his hand with a prosthetic made of mystic water.

The New Aquaman

The New Aquaman: Sword of Atlantis

There's a new Aquaman now. With Aquaman #40 (2006), the name of the book was changed to Aquaman: Sword of Atlantis, and writer Kurt Busiek and artist Butch Guice have begun a tale of an underwater breathing young man who is perhaps destined to be the new sea king. His name is almost the same as the original, Arthur Joseph Curry, and he seems to have gotten his powers from his oceanbiologist father, Dr. Philip Curry. He was born on a remote island, where his parents were living so that he could continue his research into marine adaptability and amphibian evolution. His mother, Elaine Curry, went into labor months early. They were cut off from civilization by a storm, and so his mother died in childbirth. Arthur was born three months premature, his lungs not fully developed, and it seemed to his father that the infant had little chance to survive without any real medical facilities. Desperate, Dr. Curry gave the infant a serum he developed as a mutative catalyst. The child grew gills, and was able to survive under water. For the next twenty-three years, Arthur lived in aquarium tanks with just a few supervised trips into the ocean. He learned about the world from watching television that his dad installed in the tank. Dr. Curry worked hard to cure his son, and Arthur was soon able to breath out of water for short periods. One day, Arthur awoke, with vague memories of a another terrible storm rupturing his tank, and found that he was floating, lost in the ocean. He was met undersea by a partly human being called the "Dweller in the Depths" who gave him an amulet that allows him to "understand the tongues of the seascape". Instructed by the Dweller to enter a cave and to "don your proper raiment", Arthur came out dressed like Aquaman. The apparently confused Dweller predicts that he will discover that his parents were not who he thought they were, and he was destined to fullfill a great history under the ocean, similar to that of the original Aquaman. According to the confused prophecy, his mother was "a creature of the sea" and his father was not actually his father. Arthur thinks that the Dweller is crazy, but begins a journey of fantasy and self-discovery where he tentatively tries to become a hero living up to the Aquaman name. He encounters Mera, Tempest (who, in younger days, was the sidekick Aqualad), and many of Aquaman's past undersea friends and enemies, as he travels the ocean to discover the truth about his origins and his destiny.

Spoiler Warning: Plot details and/or information about the ending follow. If you wish to enjoy the work first, stop reading here and return at another time.

Later in the series, it is discovered that the "Dweller in the Depths" was actually the orginal Aquaman, who perishes beneath the sea. As the series comes to an end in 2007 with issue #57, Arthur's father reveals that he prolonged his son's life by using the original Aquaman's DNA and mystic water from his hand to restore his son to life. There was something about this process that robbed Orin of his humanity, transforming him into the creature that was the "Dweller in the Depths". Now riddled with guilt, the new Aquaman has vowed to be called only "Joseph" (no longer "Arthur") and to make a name for himself, to perhaps someday be worthy of his predecessor's name.

Media Adaptations

Aquaman has appeared in cartoons in the 1960s, including as one of the Super Friends and his own series as part of the Superman/Aquaman Hour of Adventure which also featured Aqualad. In 2005, the character appeared on Smallville, and made a return appearance as one of the budding Justice League. He has also appeared as a guest star on the Justice League animated series. A pilot for a live-action series, Mercy Reef, was made in 2006, and was a popular iTunes download. In 2005, on the HBO series "Entourage", the lead character, actor Vincent Chase, supposedly starred in a (fictional) movie based on the Aquaman comic book character.