It’s perhaps hard to believe given Arthur Curry is one of the Big Seven on the Justice League, but he hasn’t anchored (no pun intended) his own, ongoing DC Comics series in 2020. But in 2025, he’s back with a vengeance, with the new, ongoing series Aquaman, which is written by Jeremy Adams with art by John Timms. And yes, this is an ongoing — in fact, Adams, who is currently anchoring Green Lantern, is bursting with ideas for the King of the Seas.
“I’m so excited to be writing comic books,” Adams told Comic Book Club over Zoom. “It’s such a dream come true that, ‘oh, you’re gonna let me do Aquaman? I’m 100% there.’ Like, great. Can’t wait. I have an idea of what I want to do. There’s a story I want to tell in three parts… I may not get to it. I feel like Michael J. Straczynski with Babylon 5. ‘Yes, it’s a five year arc!’ Well, maybe we’ll see how sales do. It could be a 10 issue arc, if it turns out that way. But I have an idea of what I want to do. I’m excited about doing it.”
In the new series, Aquaman is once again King of the Seas, he’s a member of the Justice League, and also a father to his daughter Andrina (and yes, as Adams told us that is his daughter — a coloring mistake made fans worried she has been switched for Arthur’s deceased son). And as a new twist after the events of Absolute Power, Aquaman also has powers similar to his wife, Mera.
With the series debuting in January, we talked to Adams about his take on Arthur, the difficulty of sustaining an Aquaman series, and the surprising place Arthur finds himself in when the issue kicks off.
Comic Book Club: I believe Aquaman hasn’t appeared in an ongoing series since 2020, so why was now the right time to bring back the title?
Jeremy Adams: Why? Well, I don’t know why the higher-ups think it’s the right. The All In initiative actually is working really well, and to a degree, the Dawn of DC was a great way to help people jump on different titles. All In is just kind of an extension that, in some ways, [and] after Absolute Power is a way to go, “Hey, let’s bring out some characters we haven’t seen in a while and see if people are interested.” People are focusing their attention on DC a little more, which is exciting, and exciting to be part of it…
All I know is that I was writing Green Lantern. And then I had done a Brave and the Bold with Jackson Hyde and Miss Martian. I had come up with this idea, and they said, “Hey, that’s too good of an idea for this. You should pitch that to Paul,” my editor. And I said, “Paul, if you ever want to pitch on Aquaman? I think I have an idea.” And he’s like, “Oh my gosh, I was just thinking about you, and we’ve been thinking about Aquaman and what to do.” And so I said, “This is what I wanted to do.” I sent him a pitch, and everybody seemed to get excited about it. And with the shift in continuity, the fact that there are only two universes right now — there’s Absolute Universe, there’s our universe — and the Justice League is reformed, it’s going to be a great way to bring back characters, at least see characters you haven’t seen a while. It felt like a natural on ramp to do this story, if I can get in their heads. Me as a nerd, I’m just like, “Hey, I’ve got this idea. Can I do this thing?”
Let’s talk both generally and specifically at the same time with Aquaman, because from my perspective, he seems such a tricky character to nail down. He’s had so many iterations. The beard gets longer, it gets shorter. He’s got a hook hand, a water hand. What’s your take on him and what draws you to him, in particular?
I think you hit exactly. He’s a tricky character too. It’s a little bit of a white whale. We’re just going to do that the entire time, you know, fish and aquatic animals.
I’m not fishing for them or anything.
[Laughs] So I sit there, and I think: it is hard. It is hard because outside of Peter David’s run, what’s the longest an Aquaman run has gone? And why is it that people don’t connect? Is it because it’s underwater? There’s a lot of people that, it starts out strong and it doesn’t go anywhere. I don’t know. I think it’s hard.
My favorite version of Aquaman is the Brave and the Bold cartoon, “Outrageous!” version, where he’s a blowhard and stuff. I’m not doing that version. I’m just saying there was something for me to grab on to. So oftentimes what I do is, like, oh, it’s it’s hard. Why is it hard? How do I make this something that I really want, that I as a reader? And as a writer will enjoy… What is it that I want to see that’ll make me enjoy this character? Because he wasn’t on the top of my list in terms of characters I followed throughout the years. He was there. And I love different runs at different times. Peter David’s run is so different because it’s a Tarzan version of of Aquaman that was raised in the sea, [he’s] falling in love with a dolphin. I’m like, What’s happening? And then his arm ripped off, and you’re like, oh my gosh. [Peter David] took a lot of big swings, which is great, because you can with a character like this, because it’s not a character necessarily that people follow as intently, and the continuity has shifted so much with him over the years, you’re not entirely sure, what is the continuity?
I’m the “Mikey likes it!” of comic books. I’m so excited to be writing comic books. It’s such a dream come true that, “oh, you’re gonna let me do Aquaman? I’m 100% there.” Like, great. Can’t wait. I have an idea of what I want to do. There’s a story I want to tell in three parts… I may not get to it. I feel like Michael J. Straczynski with Babylon 5. “Yes, it’s a five year arc!” Well, maybe we’ll see how sales do. It could be a 10 issue arc, if it turns out that way. But I have an idea of what I want to do. I’m excited about doing it.
Aquaman is a hard character. For me, I like to get into the life of these characters. Especially with Aquaman… [With] Green Lantern, a big hook of it for me was, I wondered how much money Hal has in his bank account. That was such a base level instinct. I don’t think he’s been saving. Who is this guy on Earth? And the same thing with Aquaman. He spent a huge part of his life above ground, above water. And I’m sure he misses eating a hamburger. I’m sure he he misses the joys of watching wind go through the trees, or basic surface dweller comforts and things. And I wonder what that’s like. I wonder what that means? It sent me down a road of of him having this massive amount of duty to be this person for Atlantis, and yet he is a person of two worlds. And on top of that, now he’s a husband and he’s a superhero and he’s a father and what do all those responsibilities mean? And what does that mean for him? What does he want as a person? What does he really care for? There’s a lot of thought [about his] life that I’m going to explore in this.
Of course, if you read the issue, there’s a task he’s going to have to do, or an adventure he’s going to have to go on, because his entire world is flipped upside down by the end of this thing. And through that journey, he’s really going to have to explore some of, “why is he doing this? What is important to him as a person? And how can we twist the knife in that? It’s just going to be different.
I mean, my run with The Flash, so much a part of my life currently, what was it like to be a father? It was all those things, but it was fun and it was silly, and you can go anywhere with it. And it was a pendulum swing from Wally West being the piñata of the DC Universe for a while, and then Hal Jordan is much more serialized, and there’s much more mythology. And it is cosmic in scope, there is a love story. At least my beginning run, it didn’t lend itself to, “Oh, here’s a fun jaunt that you can take.”
There’s those people that love Aquaman. [This] is trying to capture those people, but also the people that do not care about Aquaman. How do I get you to care about this character? How do I get you to care about this story? It’s not going to be palace intrigue. I’m not smart enough for that… It’s going to be about Arthur Curry and and not just what makes him special, but like I say it in the opening two pages. It’s not a story about this version of Arthur. It’s a story about Arthur as the Godkiller, whatever that means that I can’t tell yet, but it’s about who this person really has a potential to be. I’m excited to see if it works out.
I’m glad you brought up the beginning, because I did want to ask you about that… Beginnings are also tough in their own way… When you’re trying to hit the beginning of something, what is your mission?
I’m always looking for the hook to get me into something. Why? Why should I be excited about this journey? it’s different from from every character. With Hal Jordan, it was, Hal Jordan’s back! Because he hadn’t been back, and he was on Earth, and he was, at one time, the best selling character for DC Comics. So there’s not that heavy of a lift for me to go: he’s back. It’s nostalgic like, look, he’s back. The boyfriend’s back.
With Aquaman, it’s more of like, you’ve been you ignoring him as a character. A lot of people ignore him, but he has the potentiality to be one of the more powerful characters. And now, after Absolute Power, he has hydrokinesis, and he’s trying to learn that piece of it, which potentially makes him more powerful, if he ever gets total control of that. But the beginnings for me, at least with this one — and I think there was an internal fight about it, maybe — that opening scene takes place a year from now. And that’s kind of like, “Huh?”
I love that in movies. I think more cinematically in everything I do. I love John Carpenter movies. I love endings that don’t end. I love Mission: Impossible 3, how it starts… It starts with his girlfriend getting shot. You’re like, “wait, what? What is happening? I have to catch up to this. I have to watch this movie to catch up to this moment.” Which I really like.
I think a lot of people think it’s going to be business as usual for Aquaman. And it’s not. I’m not trying to be grandiose about it. It’s just mostly because a lot of times when I’ve been doing comics, I have to ramp up to those other characters. I don’t have enough bandwidth to go, “Oh, I know everything about Garth or Jackson or Mera or whatever.” I have to concentrate on one character at a time, get very comfortable with that character, and then bring in maybe some other characters and the mythology. This is a story I get to tell that’s very different. It’s not going to be something you’ve seen with Aquaman. Maybe you have? There’s been a lot of Aquaman. I haven’t read it all.
I did want to ask you about Mera and Arthur’s child in the book, who seems to be Arthur Curry Jr, instead of Andrina?
Oh, it’s Andrina. There was a coloring mistake making her blonde. We fixed for the [issue]. Everybody relax, because boy… You always get to see the where the fandoms are at, you know? But somebody had caught it and let me know. And I was like, “okay, cool.” I’m pretty responsive to stuff like that, if I can catch it in time. Continuity is hard! So, yeah, it is Annie and Mera.
This interview has been edited for clarity and length.
Aquaman #1 hits stores on January 8, 2025.
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