In January DC Comics dives back under the oceans to begin an epic new story for Arthur Curry, King of Atlantis, aka the Aquaman. The brand new series finds acclaimed writer Jeremy Adams captaining the ship alongside a blistering creative team featuring artist John Timms and colourist Rex Lokus. Today we’re sitting down for an exclusive chat with Jeremy to talk all about bringing Aquaman #1 to life.
In the wake of Absolute Power, Arthur Curry’s powers have evolved to powerful new heights, and this is one king ready to use them to kick some serious butt. Mammoth water-construct Kaijus have emerged from each of the seven seas, and only Aquaman’s water-warping abilities can stop them—but not if they kill the good king in the process! Enter Dagon, Arthur’s guide on the quest to unlock the secrets of the “blue.” But what deadly secret awaits Arthur on his journey? It’s an all-new era for Aquaman by acclaimed creators Jeremy Adams (The Flash, Green Lantern) and John Timms (Action Comics) that will leave you cheering!
You can watch the interview, in full, in the player below or read on for a transcript. Beware, there are minor spoilers ahead of issue #1 of Aquaman.
GYCO: How did Aquaman end up on your radar?
Jeremy Adams: [DC] had asked me to do a Brave and The Bold one shot with Miss Martian and Jackson Hyde and I had pitched The and different things like that. The editor, Ben Mears I think it was, was like that’s too big of an idea. You need to put that in your back pocket for an Aquaman pitch. I texted Paul, my editor on Green Lantern, and said if you ever want an Aquaman pitch, I’ve got one. You know, I’d love to and he goes oh my gosh, this came at the right time. We’re trying to figure out what to do with Aquaman. You would be great tonally. So it just it just kind of all came together.
I don’t even know why I pitched it. Honestly. I think Aquaman scares me more than anything. Tt feels like an insurmountable hill a little bit. It’s a very hard character to, I think, wrap your head around and for people to get excited about in some ways. Even though there are people that are very excited about it.
There are so many different iterations of the character. I can’t put my finger on what it is that makes him such a tough nut to crack.
I don’t know either. I think that everybody’s trying. Peter David swung for the fences when he did his run. It was very much how about he’s Tarzan and he’s falling in love with a dolphin. Then they chop off his hand. He is just going for broke. But I think being the son of a light house keeper and having this lineage, that’s where I started. I kept thinking, it’s like when they asked me to take over Green Lantern, it was very much the first thing that came to my mind was, how much money does he have in his bank account? There’s no way he has more than $13 or something. With Arthur, he grew up on land and he must miss hamburgers. He must miss riding a bike. What is that duality?
That started me on a journey. What are his internal thoughts like? Now he’s king, now he’s a father, now he’s a husband and all of that. But bizarrely, in my mind it seemed to have happened fairly quickly and all thrust upon him. Obviously continuity and timelines are very strange. He’s been alive for 80 years. But in terms of comic books, it’s like how much [time has past]?
Back in summer you and I spoke about at Comic-Con was how did you get in to Hal’s mindset for Green Lantern. Something which I think is a through-line in your writing is the idea of family. That’s something very important in this book with Mera and Andrina being present. Is approaching that family aspect an important part of finding the character?
100%. I mean, especially when I was doing Wally [The Flash], that was a huge part of it. With Hal, Carol is his family. But he was watching everybody passing by a little bit, like as DC turned its focus on the legacy characters, it was like, okay, what does that mean for these other people? I think about it all the time. It’s the fantasy of the movie Taken where it’s just like if my kids have disappeared or my wife, I’m going to upend everything to find them. Obviously [Arthur] does value those things. I think there’s also an element of weight and responsibility of being a husband and a father and a king and all that stuff. It is weighty. But I think that he’s going to go through a journey, not just like there’s bad guys and there’s bad things and things we have to figure out. But there’s going to be internal thought of who am I? Who am I as a person? Who am I as a character? What do I value?
How do you start issue #1 when you’re trying to say this is what I can do with this character? I can show you how big this can be, but I can show you how much character is in here as well. How do you do that?
I definitely was thinking about some of my favorite shows, the movies that have that kind of [inspired], it’s like Mission Impossible 3 where it opens with Ethan’s wife being shot at. Or more to the point, I did the “One Year Later” and people thought should we take that out? But I’m like that’s the whole point. [It’s] the anticipation of the journey. It’s a way to hook people in. It’s also telling people right away that it’s about him as Arthur. But also it’s about all these thing like who he is and what he’s going to become. I hope people will want to know what that journey is. I want to know how he goes form this to this. We’ll see if it pans out.
The first issue is breathtakingly beautiful.
I’m so embarrassed they have to draw my words and I feel this way all the time. It’s 100% a success because of [John Timms]. I’m in awe of their abilities. I had never worked with [John] before and then I met him in New York. He’s such a nice guy. I’ll put 6 or 7 panels [in the script] and he’ll make them seem seamless and they don’t feel crowded. They feel wide and they feel good. But underwater and the kinetic-ness that he can do underwater, I think is a real special thing that not a lot of people can do.
When you see these pages come in and you see the art team can handle this huge story does it inspire you to push the boundaries?
Oh yeah. I mean that was definitely like the lesson with Fernando on The Flash. I’m like what do you want to draw? What do you like? I’ll put in anything. It makes me excited because I want them to be excited. John is so good, he can draw Aquaman so stoically and then draw these crazy creatures. I don’t generally worry about artists because DC has hired so many amazing artists at such a level. I’m more concerned that my stuff sucks. But I’m grateful that John seems to be game to want to do more. This is going to be a weird Aquaman run. I think it’s going to be different for a while!
What do you want to tease about what’s coming up? What can you say?
Even in issue two there’s going to be a surprise character that appears. There is going to be more investigation of The Blue and about Atlantis. As we get further along my mind is swimming with ideas and there’s a lot of characters, a lot of water based characters and creatures that maybe we haven’t seen in the DCU proper. I want to integrate into the Aquaman universe.
This interview has been edited for clarity and length.
Aquaman #2 will be available in comic book stores and on digital platforms from January 8, 2025. You can also listen to our full interview with Jeremey on all major podcast platforms including Spotify and Apple.
