On Writing Aquaman

Originally published September 21, 2001, in Comics Buyer’s Guide #1453

To a great degree, I look upon my time writing Aquaman as a spectacularly ambitious failure.

I took on the series for two major reasons: First, The Atlantis Chronicles remains, all these years later, some of my favorite work. When the series was being produced, DC’s top people—and I mean top people—spoke enthusiastically about it being a perennial favorite, kept perpetually in print a la Watchmen with additional spinoff titles and even merchandising. None of it ever materialized. DC remains resolute in not even offering a trade paperback collection, despite fan request (and with Bob Greenberger over at Marvel now, the only person there who ever continued to spearhead a collection movement is gone.) So I was hoping that by taking on Aquaman, and incorporating storylines and elements which originated in Chronicles, that it would finally spur a TPB collection of that series. Still hasn’t happened. By this point, I’ve given up hope. Ostensibly the project is simply undoable… despite the fact, interestingly, that they managed to collect it just fine in Italy.

Failure number one.

Secondly, I took on the series because I wanted to establish Aquaman as a character who not only would be taken seriously, but would forever be a major player in the DC Universe who could sustain a comic series after my eventual departure.

So I left the series. A couple years later, it was canceled, and then Aquaman was killed off in “Our Worlds At War.”

Failure number two.

Now I have no idea whether Aquaman is really, truly, permanently dead. I haven’t been able to bring myself to ask anyone at the company. I certainly hope he’s not. Aquaman has always been one of my favorite heroes, simply because he’s the only one who might actually exist in some form or other.

Think about it. If there were guys like Superman, Batman, et al running around, we’d know about it. There’d be coverage in every newspaper, every TV station. There’d probably be whole cable channels devoted just to them. But we know they’re not there, and consequently, they remain steadfastly in the realm of pure fantasy that can never be fulfilled.

But the ocean is a vast, mysterious place. There are depths which have never been subjected to any sort of human scrutiny. I can sit on a shoreline and stare out at the waves and think, “Maybe…” Maybe there really is someone out there who can survive at sea and talk to fish. Maybe there really are mer-creatures, or cities of such beings. Not to sound too Criswell, but you say, Prove that it is? I say, prove that it isn’t!

My tenure on Aquaman started with a four-issue arc which was originally intended to be incorporated into the then-running series. I would have been perfectly content with that, but it was decided that the arc, titled “Time and Tide,” should be broken out into a separate miniseries followed by a relaunch. The following is my first written thoughts on Aquaman, produced as part of an overview for T&T.

In which we explore the origins of a hero who, in terms of mythos, has an origin that has an opportunity to be as sweeping as any hero of legend. What is presently known about him parallels such tales as Romulus and Remus, the Jungle Book, and Tarzan of the Apes.

Furthermore, the seas that cover 3/4 of the earth’s surface remain still one of the last, great frontiers that exists in our world. Aquaman is completely at home in that frontier. His ability to communicate with sea creatures is unique. His strength, which comes as a result of his being able to survive the ocean depths, is considerable. If he’s on land, he should be able to move faster, jump higher, be stronger, than any normal human. He has limited invulnerability–after all, his skin, bone and muscles have to be extraordinarily tough. An explosive shell will still kill him, but small caliber fire would merely knock him over or bruise him… as if he were wearing kevlar.

Instead of being one of the more limited characters in the DC universe, Aquaman is–if properly handled–one of the most ubiquitous.

And if he is, indeed, the nominal master of the water environment, then he is… to all intents and purposes… master of the world.

No one else on this planet can do what he does. Many people have super strength. Many are invulnerable. Science knowledge, magic powers, superspeed… there’s overlap in all areas. But there is no one else who can function at super-powered levels anywhere in the world. Whether on land or sea, Aquaman is a force to be reckoned with.

That was always my take on him, which flew in the face of those who believed him somehow inferior to other heroes. My contention was, if you take Aquaman and dump him in the middle of Gotham, and leave him completely on his own, he’ll do fine. If you take Batman, drop him in the middle of the Atlantic with nothing but the cape on his back, chances are you’ll never hear from him again… particularly if it’s shark infested waters.

Speaking of sharks, I consider them to be one of my few true successes with the series. Everyone loved the way I depicted sharks: Big, dumb bruisers with a short term memory of about twenty seconds, and no interest beyond sustenance. A typical shark moment was a shark cruising along with the following word balloon: “Food. Food. Food. Food. Food. Hello, Aquaman. Food. Food. Food.” In their doofiness, they were almost loveable. It was a stark contrast to the rep of “evil monsters of the deep” they’d had since Jaws, and somehow it felt right. I hate the fact that there’s no Aquaman series now; the real-life massing of sharks we’re hearing about these days would be perfect story fodder.

The single most controversial aspect of my tenure was, naturally, Aquaman’s losing a hand and replacing it with a harpoon (not hook, dammit.) People far and wide excoriated the move, even as they bought the book, which naturally was my intention all along. Although I was able to justify it on a thematic basis, the bottom line is that writers aren’t hired onto series in expectations that they’re going to produce a comic that people won’t want to buy. I feel there is some obligation to develop storylines which will make people feel they must purchase a book. Aquaman had a reputation as being a sales lightweight, so much so that when my taking on the series was announced, the response wasn’t, “Oh, boy, we’re looking forward to seeing Peter David write Aquaman!” Instead it was, “Geez, why is Peter David wasting his time on that undersea loser?” With that negative a reputation, I had to do something extremely drastic just to get people to sample it. It wasn’t an easy sell to the DC powers-that-be. I had to jump through a lot of memo-writing hoops explaining it before it was okayed.

Toward the latter part of my tenure, I was repeatedly told that the powers-that-be weren’t happy with sales. It was felt that something as dramatic as the loss of Aquaman’s hand should be done in order to stoke reader interest, which I considered ironic considering the amount of resistance I received to that happenstance initially. In one memo I suggested the following potential developments:

1) Aquaman seeks to free Mera, only to discover that his other-dimensional son has become a monarch of the other worldly realm in which he resides… and now wants to take over this one. (His arrival was actually foreshadowed back in the dream Aquaman had thirty or so issues ago.)

2) Aquaman is reunited with Mera once more and they create their own city.

3) Naiad, the water elemental, is obliterated by Triton, and he enslaves Corona. Aquaman subsequently battles Triton and dies a fiery death defending Poseidonis… and then becomes earth’s new water elemental. He still maintains human form, but has a whole new set of powers (drastically different from Naiad’s.)

4) Dolphin realizes that she completely screwed up, that Aquaman is the one she truly loves, she and Aquaman reunite and they get married.

5) Aquaman is awarded the Nobel Peace Prize.

6) Aquaman is made the Secretary-General of the United Nations

7) Aquaman shows up one day in Poseidonis with his hair cut, beard gone, back in his old uniform, his hand intact, and asking where Mera and Arthur Junior are. When people ask what the hëll happened, he says he has absolutely no idea what they’re talking about, and claims that he was caught in a freakish whirlpool but escaped after a few minutes, and what do you mean Mera’s gone, Arthur’s dead, Aquagirl’s dead, Garth grew up, and I lost a hand? That’s insane!

8 ) Arthur becomes the adopted son of Poseidon.

Another potential story, not listed above, was when Harlan Ellison expressed great interest in the Devil’s Deep, the bottomless crevice I introduced in one storyline which I implied went all the way down to hëll. Harlan proposed doing an extended journey storyline that he and I would write together, would take the better part of a year, and be the DC equivalent of Dante’s Inferno. I figured we could sell a few copies of that, right? The editor came back and said we could do it… as a single issue, twenty-two pages. Of course. Why have a year’s worth of Ellison stories to build up reader interest when you can have a one-off with no extended sales impact whatsoever? Feeling one issue couldn’t do it justice, Harlan said forget it, and that was that.

Of the developments I suggested, the one I was most enamored of was the earth elemental one. I even put the storyline into motion, which was going to culminate in Aquaman dying, Triton endeavoring to flood the world, and then Aquaman returning as the elemental. But that was shot down because I was told that, since Superman had returned after “The Death of Superman,” no one would believe such a cheap, obvious gimmick as Aquaman “dying.” So I had to (you should pardon the expression) scuttle the whole concept. Finally, after receiving one contradictory editorial instruction after another (have Aquaman operate as a loner, but show him as a leader of men; do stories set in Atlantis, but be sure to avoid having Aquaman be in Atlantis) I gave up and (again, pardon the expression) bailed.

And now Aquaman’s dead.

If he returns as a water elemental, you heard it here first.

(Peter David, writer of stuff, can be written to at Second Age, Inc., PO Box 239, Bayport, NY 11705.)