Aquaman has always had a rough go of it. Bottom line, you've got a princess from a fantasy island, a flying man from the stars, a rich ninja lurking in the shadows kicking ass, and a, uh, dude who swims fast. No one swims faster, that's for sure. But unless you grab a mugger, hurl him into the ocean, then swim out after him, what are you doing? The answer is, what, talking to fish?
Aquaman was originally created by Paul Norris and Mort Weisinger, with the character making his debut in More Fun Comics #73, published in November 1941. In the comic, his origin is narrated by the character himself:
The story must start with my father, a famous undersea explorer—if I spoke his name, you would recognize it. My mother died when I was a baby, and he turned to his work of solving the ocean's secrets. 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.
Not exactly the iteration of the character we have now, nor is it going to be the story we're getting in the film. The film will center on Aquaman as a reluctant ruler of the underwater kingdom of Atlantis who is caught between land dwellers that are always polluting the globe and his own people who are ready to invade the surface. This 5 minute video puts a lot of action out there, plus giving fans a look at Black Manta, Aquaman in his comic book outfit, Atlantis and Dolph Lungren, because hell yeah!
Aquaman stars Jason Momoa, Amber Heard as Mera, Willem Dafoe as Vulko; Temuera Morrison (Green Lantern) as Tom Curry; Dolph Lundgren as Nereus; Yahya Abdul-Mateen II as Black Manta and Ludi Lin as Murk.
Aquaman hits theaters on Dec 21st.
