Aquaman : King of Atlantistakes a different path than most other recent incarnations of the legendary underwater hero — instead of turn him into arough - and - ready badassin the mineral vein of Jason Momoa ’s Arthur , King of Atlantis ’ Cooper Andrews apply us alighter , empty-headed spin . And for series creators Victor Courtright and Marly Halpern - Graser , that was the cay to having some fun with their new serial publication .
Charles Pulliam - Moore , io9 : Talk to me about where this Aquaman exists within the large constellation of Aquamen that people are familiar with from other DC and Warner projects .
Marly Halpern - Graser : If you watch the instalment , you’re able to see that this is definitely our own whirl on the character , and our own sorting of standalone persistence . The means we render to think of it was , we are doing our own take on the character , but we ’re using the James Wan flick as a starting place .
Aquaman: King of Atlantis’ very vibrant take on Arthur Curry.Screenshot: HBO Max
The Brave and the Bold ’s Aquaman , and the Bruce Timm Justice League Aquaman were both corking , but our idea was , instead of looking at all the decades and decades of strip or all of the other cartoons , allow ’s create a world where we can put on that the general beats of the movie happen . So , Aquaman challenge Ocean Master to a dual , Mera and Vulko helped him become king , he became big businessman yesterday , annnd let ’s go .
io9 : Were there any specific things from the grown silver screen you wanted to carry over into King of Atlantis ?
Halpern - Graser : So component that are from the movie — our Vulko face a picayune bite like movie Vulko as oppose to funnies Vulko — we remind multitude of them . We do n’t explicate them too much because we wear that those things are similar to what happened in the movie . Any new constituent of Aquaman that we introduce , and Greco-Roman Aquaman villains , we basically created them from scratch and tried to come up with a totally young musical theme for these characters and introduce them as if you ’d never heard of them before .
io9 : King of Atlantis comes at a time when DC ’s really gone all in on revitalizing Aquaman ’s image in terms of seek to make him cooler and a kind of sexuality symbol . How ’d you go about balancing that overall project that the studio ’s fix in motion with your own fondness for that classic , kind of goofy take on Aquaman ?
Victor Courtright : Our Aquaman form of hopefully come across a balance between that and some of the more Graeco-Roman Aquaman ideas . I mean our fib and existence is pretty fun and light hearted , and our Aquaman certainly comes out of that movie sincerity a little bit more . One of the thing that really pulled me from the classic traditional knowledge was just how how fun and and outlandish the world could be sometimes .
But if you take that sort of more grounded , almost introvert Aquaman from the motion-picture show world , and you throw him into that more extreme and kind of classic Atlantis world , [ it ’s ] this playfulness duality between , like how severely he ’s use up everything and how bonkers his world is .
Halpern - Graser : This probably was n’t exactly how we were thinking of it , but I recall that what ended up encounter is , out of the orotund configuration of Aquaman , that we sort of took the more New , serious Aquaman , and put him in a more Silver Age - y kind of universe , and bounced those ideas off each other .
io9 : I desire to shift to Mera for a moment because she ’s also been go through something of a rebrand herself in terms of her tier of prominence across DC ’s comedian , appearance , and moving picture . Where ’s this Mera at , existentially I pretend , when we match her , and what elements of her traditional knowledge did you want to spotlight in King of Atlantis ?
Halpern - Graser : Our Mera was born into this underwater world . She ’s been a princess her whole life . She always eager to be queen of some kingdom , finally … if she has a fault , it ’s that she ’s so comfy with subaqueous biography , and with just battling sea beast , and using her water supply powers to clear problems , that she needs a little bit of position .
io9 : What is it about the Silver Age in peculiar that works so well for Aquaman ? Because I know what you ’re saying , this Arthur definitely feel like the movie ’s Aquaman , but he ’s … not , and yet it all makes sense , somehow .
Halpern - Graser : I just think Aquaman lend himself so much to the stuff that can seem a niggling silly if if you ’re insecure about that kind of thing . James Wan ’s pic is awing and it ’s taking all the ideas very earnestly , but there ’s still a devilfish playing the drums . People are still razz seahorses . They call them sea dragons , I retrieve , but you know . That ’s a sea horse .
io9 : It ’s a seahorse .
Halpern - Graser : you could take that seriously , and it ’s nerveless , but if you did it without that stuff , it would n’t experience right . It ’s kind of entire to what ’s fun about Aquaman — that he ’s not just a nerveless character with cool powers . He also open up this world of all this interesting kind of out - there world building .
io9 : Even though this narrative ’s centre on Arthur subside into his role as king , it also does a lot more capital - A “ Aquaman ” earth building that feels instigate by the Trench projectthat settle through . How much , if any of that project was specifically weave into King of Atlantis ?
Courtright : Zero ?
Halpern - Graser : Yeah , I think I ’d have to say fundamentally none . We do n’t know what their plan were , but I hope they make it one day , so I can see it . I call up what was go on there was we were taking pool cue from the first Aquaman movie , which were the cues that team was taking for its next project . Also , the comics , you have it off ? I ’ve learn the Trench comics , and I think we were all pulling from the same source material with the same jump - off tip , and we wound up with some coincident intersection .
io9 : You say something originally that I want to concern back on about this almost a sense of embarrassment that sometimes follow not just Aquaman himself , but fan talking about the fictitious character . What variety of conversations did you have about what to do with the idea of Aquaman being unconditionally uncool ?
Halpern - Graser : We take those conversations that happen in veridical life and put them in our account , like Aquaman in our chronicle is a little insecure about how people see him and what kind of a Hero of Alexandria or what form of a king people mean he is . But I think for us , I suppose mass should have the assurance that these characters are coolheaded and that they can stand on their own . The parts of them that some people worry about is also what make them so heavy , and you should n’t run away from that . You should embrace it and lean into it because that ’s what makes them not , like . interchangeable , generic , tops unattackable hands .
Aquaman : King of Atlantis ’ first of three episodes hit HBO Max on October 14 .
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