The First Aquaman Was Completely Human, NOT Atlantean

Aquaman is one of DC Comic’s most enduring characters since his introduction. But while modern readers might know him as Arthur Curry, the ruler of the underwater city of Atlantis, and husband to Mera, his ability to communicate with underwater life and breathe water was a bit different. In fact, his comic book debut bore little more than surface resemblance to the half-Atlantean superhero he would later grow to become.

Created by Mort Weisinger and Paul Norris, Aquaman first appeared in More Fun Comics #73, in November 1941. Here, he was one of a series of short stories featuring a plethora of characters such as the Spectre, Doctor Fate, and Green Arrow. His first appearance found the aquatic hero coming to the aid of a boat of refugees who had been targeted by a Nazi U-boat — before detailing the origin story behind his incredible powers.

Aquaman relays to the readers via narration the strange circumstances of his birth and powers. Beginning with his father, and explorer who may or may not have been famous enough for readers to recognize. In keeping with the later origins, Arthur’s mother died while he was still young, leaving him to be raised by his father. But that… is where the similarities end:

His greatest discovery was an ancient city, in the depths where no other diver had ever penetrated. My father believed it was the lost kingdom of Atlantis. He made himself a water-tight home in one of the palaces and lived there, studying the records and devices of the race’s marvelous wisdom. From the books and records, he learned ways of teaching me to live under the ocean, drawing oxygen from the water and using all the power of the sea to make me wonderfully strong and swift. By training and a hundred scientific secrets, I became what you see — a human being who lives and thrives under the water.

Unlike his modern incarnation, Aquaman in his earliest appearance was little more than the result of scientific experimentation and training from his father. At this point in his comic career, the “Arthur Curry” alter ego doesn’t exist either, Aquaman is known simply as “Aquaman”, and he was neither Atlantean nor truly superpowered at all. His communicative abilities with undersea life was likewise limited to certain range, and was not the result of telepathy. But as his popularity grew throughout the 1950’s and 1960’s, his abilities and backstory would continue to evolve, until 1986’s Crisis On Infinite Earths, which wrote this version of Aquaman out of existence.

Aquaman’s current abilities and origin are fairly well set in stone, having evolved and changed over the decades, and he has in recent years become a DC powerhouse. He is one of the most popular DC superheroes, and even made the transition to be a successful, profitable feature film hero to boot. Would that have been the same had his original origin remained canon? It is far easier to accept Aquaman being leader of a race of underwater dwellers, an almost supernatural being, than to be merely trained from birth to have his abilities. Fans seem to agree, and Aquaman’s purely human origin had been relegated to the elseworlds of Earth-2, before being written out of existence completely. We might all be, as well as Aquaman himself, better off for it.