Of all the members of Justice League of America, I think the most tragic is Aquaman.
Born with blonde hair, he was abandoned by his superstitious people, only to be adopted by a dolphin family. His father was in actuality the wizard distant ancestor of the man they assumed was Aquaman’s paternal parent and his mother was a mermaid of nobility. Not that that really mattered much to Aquaman because he was off living with the dolphins.
He was soon discovered by a lighthouse keeper and adopted into the human world. He couldn’t really ever fit in with normal society since he had to keep refreshing himself in the ocean. His father eventually died and Aquaman (who had by then taken then name Arthur Curry) returned to living in the ocean full time and preventing various ocean related disasters.
Being of special ability in the comic book universe meant that immediately the talent get paired with a nefarious foe. Aquaman spent most of his time battling the most annoying villains ever – an underwater villain is very difficult to not take incredulously but Aquaman did have his share of perilous moments.
After saving the seven seas for the bazillionth time without thanks or reward, the Atlanteans who had left him alone as an infant finally accepted Aquaman as one of his own. He met a hot redheaded alien woman and the two of them started a romantic relationship. As he was reintroduced to the Atlantic high society that had previously shunned him, Aquaman discovered he was in fact the heir to the undersea thrown of Poseidonis, capital of Atlantis, but because of his blonde hair, they rejected his legitimacy to the crown.
So with his wife Mera and his plucky young sidekick, Aqualad, another deep sea dweller, Aquaman eventually battled his way into being crowned king. Life seemed pretty good. People respected the oceans, his villains started to be more serious as threats, he was king of a race of see dwelling superstitious jerks. Aquaman (who had been renamed Orin in the atlantean tongue) was a content and proud father.
But then Black Manta, one of Aquaman’s cooky criminal counterparts, killed Aquaman’s son and the poor heroes life went down the tubes. Depressed, Aquaman was habitually infidel with pretty much any woman who could swim. His wife Mera went nuts and left him for his evil brother from a different dimension with whom she mothered another son with the same name as Aquaman’s dead child. He lost his hand to piraña while fighting a villain and replaced it with a hook. His adopted mother dolphin was then murdered leaving Aquaman without any loving parents.
Aqualad was killed but resurrected and then returned only to run off with Aquaman’s current girlfriend. Another son, Koryak, was revealed from an inuit woman who was one of Aquaman’s many flames. She was eventually killed and the son was always trying to usurp Aquaman’s rule before being banished from Poseidonis. All the people abandoned the city and left Aquaman alone before the city was again attacked and destroyed.
Then finally, when nothing worse could happen, the entire city travelled to another dimension in time where they decided wizards are better rules and deposed Aquaman before returning him to their regular place in time and leaving him to die on a reef.
During all this, Aquaman was having problems on the surface too. The world did not recognize his authority over the seas or his political sovereignty. His Justice League co-members were often at odds with his opinions and he left the group several times. His villains became increasingly magical orient due to his association with his father/ancestor, the wizard Atlan. Despite Aqualad’s return as the mage Tempest, he was increasingly bothered by the occult with little ability to combat it.
So Aquaman decided to quit. He stopped being a hero and stopped trying to get his thrown back and went to live by a lighthouse in ireland like where his adoptive human father lived. But fate would not grant Orin/Arthur peace. He was given a mystical water hand and charged with the care of the mystical Secret Sea which is the watery metaphor for the life force of the world which was good because Atlantis was completely destroyed and he had nothing else to go back to doing.
Part of San Diego was sunk by terrorists and the denizens were mutated using stolen DNA from Aquaman. He came to help them adjust to being ocean dwellers and figure out why they’d been made that way. Koryak, his banished other son, came back and they reconciled but then Koryak was killed in true Aquaman style immediately after their reunion.
To save Sub Diego as it was now renamed, Aquaman used the original bones from his replaced hand to cast a spell and forfeited his soul. He mutated into the Dweller of the Deep and lost all his memories. He charged a new man named Arthur Joseph Curry to replace him before being stabbed to death by his resurrected and mutated son Koryak.
So all in all, Aquaman has had a pretty unhappy life. All he wanted to do was swim with the dolphins and explore the seas but rather was forced into a life of tragic leadership and then cruel abandonment and betrayal.
The ocean is a rough place.
-Posted on behalf of Krzysiu
