Aquaman (Arthur Curry)

**Arthur Curry**, also known as **Aquaman**, is one of the major characters from *DC* comics.

Arthur is the son of an Atlantean queen and a lighthouse keeper from the town of Amnesty Bay, Arthur Curry would grow up to become the superhero Aquaman, and later take on his birthright as the King of Atlantis. He is a founding member of the Justice League and is among DC Comics' most recognized heroes.

In the AWA fics, Aquaman is set to appear in a future AWA storyline.

## **Appearance**

Arthur had a long messy blonde hair and facial hair, and he had blue eyes. He wears an orange, scaly muscle shirt, green tight pants with an A-shaped buckled orange belt around his waist, green boots and green arm-length gloves.

## **Personality**

Initially, Arthur Curry was a very conflicted individual, struggling with the fact that he has superhuman powers which he didn't know how to handle, but he was later trained by his mentor Nuidis Vulko. Arthur grew up feeling alienated from both the human and Atlantean worlds, feeling trapped between them, yet having the responsibility of protecting both. In addition, Arthur was very bitter at his mother Atlanna for abandoning him and his father Thomas Curry. Arthur was thus somewhat gruff and reserved, unwilling to accept his place in Atlantean society, and equally unwilling accept Bruce Wayne's offer to join the Justice League at first, as well as getting annoyed with the young and quirky Flash. Surely, Arthur had previously reached an emotional rock bottom during this period in his life, even claiming that he had no concern for the ocean, and by extension, his own people.

Arthur hides his insecurities and troubled past behind a tough intimidating attitude, choosing to alienate himself from others and almost never showing any sympathy towards anyone. However, he can be more relaxed and friendly around those he trusts and is close to, such as his father and Mera.

Despite his somewhat gloomy and fearsome exterior, however, Arthur is ultimately a selfless and compassionate person, indicated by him frequenting an Icelandic fishing village during the winter in order to feed its hungry inhabitants with fish. He is later seen saving an unconscious fisherman found along the shore, bringing him into the shelter of a local pub in the village. However, he casually shrugged it off by stating that his drinks would be on the fisherman. He also notably made it his priority to keep the innocent civilians of Sicily out of harm's way when fighting Black Manta. Arthur also showed compassion towards his half-brother Orm, whom he refused to kill despite the multiple atrocious actions Orm had committed. He also showed guilt over letting David Kane's father die and leading him to become the Black Manta.

When confronted by Mera, Aquaman initially pushes back against her reprimands, but upon learning that his mother Atlanna did not abandon him of her own free will, he begins to have a change of heart. After being unable to stop Steppenwolf from retrieving the Atlanteans' Mother Box, Arthur's mind is finally made up and he joins the Justice League. He still clashes with Batman, Flash, and Cyborg a few times, but otherwise gets along with the team fairly well, eventually befriending them.

Arthur, while outwardly very serious, occasionally demonstrates a dry sense of humor, notably complimenting Batman on the latter's vigilante suit. When failing to intimidate Bruce due to the latter's profound experience in intimidation tactics, Arthur quickly drops his façade, revealing his laid-back and charming self. While he initially distrusted the isolated Cyborg (suspecting that he could be working with the enemy, due to his Apokaliptan cybernetics), Aquaman gradually developed a friendship with him as well, seen when Cyborg assisted him in taking down a group of airborne Parademons. Aquaman is also somewhat of a realist, recognizing that he and the other Justice Leaguers could very well die in a battle against the New God Steppenwolf, and agreeing with Wonder Woman that resurrecting Superman with a Mother Box is too risky.

Despite his gruff appearance and devil-may-care approach to battle, Arthur is quite intelligent and introspective, notably when he quotes Friedrich Schiller's *William Tell* to Bruce when asked to join the League, stating that 'the strong man is strongest alone', thus further emphasizing his preferred isolation from the surface world, and later quoting Jules Verne when describing the extreme unlikelihood of his parents' successful relationship. When bound by the Lasso of Hestia, Aquaman reveals that deep down he is very grateful for the team's acceptance, and even developed a slight crush on Wonder Woman, despite the Atlanteans having once warred against the Amazons. Arthur, upon his release, became dismayed upon realizing the circumstances of his confession and angrily forbade Flash from ever sharing it with anyone.

Following the defeat of Steppenwolf and the return of the Superman, Arthur is ready to finally pursue his place in Atlantean society.

Arthur is clearly a thrill-seeker who enjoys adventuring, displayed when he enthusiastically slew Parademons alongside the Justice League and when he was introduced to his homeworld of Atlantis. He'll often employ words such as "badass" and "awesome" to describe his experiences, and even whooping in excitement when he jumped after Mera from a cargo plane without a parachute.

## **Abilities**

Aquaman has a number of superhuman powers, most of which was inherited from his Atlantean origins and ability to live in the depths of the ocean floor. Although, most Atlanteans possess the same abilities as Arthur, his royal lineage and double heritage makes him superior to any other Atlantean (Aquaman is for all intents and purposes a super Atlantean), allowing him to breathe outside of the water longer than the normal Atlantean and possess great amount of superhuman powers that follows:

#### **Superhuman Strength**

Aquaman possesses great superhuman strength sufficient to toss a tank or punch a hole in a submerged submarine. It is generally accepted that Arthur can lift well over 100 tons, as it's evident when he pushed a tectonic plate downward onto the trench in *Aquaman #4*, towed a boat with the waves pushing down onto it in *Aquaman #7*, and sucker punched Superman in *Justice League #16*. Even before the *New 52* he is depicted carrying really massive objects appearing to have great amount of weight such as an oil rig platform and a city block of Sub-Diego (as shown in picture) which both weighs easily hundreds of tons. His strength enables him to demolish through anything from thick wood to heavy metal and would take reinforced barriers to have a chance of slowing him down. Aquaman's strength is on a category that allows him to defeat and hold his own in a physical fights against brute powerhouse characters like Olympian, Slig, Wonder Woman, Triton, Lobo and Superboy.

In Throne of Atlantis, he has shown to be able to punch Superman, and take on Wonder Woman. He has been shown among other things lifting a transatlantic ocean liner (around 160000 tons) on land, throwing an enormous cargo ship at the Dead King and throwing a nuclear submarine from the bottom of the ocean to the surface. Perhaps his most impressive feat of strength yet would be when he went toe to toe with a legendary hero and held his own.

#### **Superhuman Durability / Stamina / Healing**

Aquaman's enhanced physiology enables him to withstand heavy impacts that would kill any normal human and gives him the ability to function normally on the ocean floor. He possesses superhuman durability high enough to be unaffected by the immense pressure and the cold temperature of the ocean depths (to a greater degree than any other Atlantean), this also makes him tough enough to be almost invulnerable to extreme heat and gun fire. Aquaman's durable enough to the point where he can trade hits with powerhouses like Wonder Woman and Despero. Arthur's capable of taking direct hits from automatic weapons at point blank range, head on collisions with trucks, resist powerful energy based attacks that would harm or kill most superhumans (such as Amazo's heat vision or the continent size Starro's blasts), or even Neutron's nuclear blasts, a fall to Earth outside of Earth's atmosphere and being fully submerged in lava.

His stamina is also far beyond anything human as well as the vast majority of most metahumans. In a Nightwing issue Aquaman's stamina was used as the ideal benchmark for powerful metahumans, which the League of Shadows tried to replicate (and failed). He has been shown to be able to swim across the globe non stop for extended periods of time, fight in a dimension with multiple suns for hours and be unaffected by The Trenches paralytic venom that would incapacitate a normal human.

Aquaman also heals much faster than humans and normal Atlanteans (as shown in Aquaman: Throne of Atlantis #57 or Aquaman v4 and Aquaman v6).

#### **Superhuman Speed / Reflexes / Agility**

Aquaman's said to be the fastest being underwater and capable of swimming at a constant speed of 175 mph for several hours. He's able to swim at very high speeds, having the ability to reaching speeds of 10,000 feet per second (20,000 under stress, Mach 17,7) and is known to have swam through Niagara Falls upstream. In the *New 52*, Aquaman remains possibly the fastest swimmer in comicdom, having been able to severely out-swim The Operative's special plane (The Living Room) which can reach hypersonic speeds (Anything between Mach 5 and Mach 10). Second only to Mera (According to her, something that has yet to be proven), his upper limit is still unknown but at minimum Aquaman can surpass Mach 5. He can also create huge whirpools by moving at super speed or even entire tidal waves by swimming at super speed, or more impressivelly replicate the speed tricks of Flash (such as spinning his hands so fast they create minature whirpools, similar to the ones Flash uses to propel himself through air) or spin so fast he creates a vacumn in water. In Justice League v1 #86, an injured Aquaman even mentions that normally he is faster than Superman underwater. In Action Comics #366 a disguised Aquaman out reacts Superman in saving the lives of numerous swimmers and then swims away at superspeed before Superman can reach him. In Justice league #5 (2016) he travels to the four corners of the Earth Australia (South), Russia (North), Japan (East) and Atlantis (West) and then to Canada in the same amount of time a battle between the Justice League and the Kindred takes place and in Aquaman #9 (2016) he travels from Atlantis (middle of the Atlantic Ocean) to Baltimore in mere moments, both of which require high hypersonic speeds.

On land, Aquaman has displayed his superhuman speed, agility and reflexes against meta-humans like Deathstroke, the Talons, Power Ring, and even Wonder Woman (who he was able to tackle during a fight using his speed) and Superman (who he was able to send flying after charging at him and landing a blow before Wonder Woman who was between them could react), in addition to performing feats such as dodging point blank gunfire, lightning (multiple times against Weather Wizard, after the lightning was fired), keeping up with the Flash in water (multiple times) and being able to surprise him or even cutting the weapons of 2 trained soldiers in half, before they even realized it. and possesses superhuman reflexes 15 times greater than a normal being. While not quite a "super-speedster," Aquaman's reflexes are superior even to metahumans such as Deathstroke the Terminator

#### **Superhuman Jump**

He's also capable of jumping vast distances on land and from out of the water reaching heights of multiple stories tall (nearly appears to be flying similar to the Hulk). His leaps are so fast that allow him to cover the distance between Boston harbor/port and Boston centre/bank district near instantly and land precisely infront of a speeding vehicle (that would make his leaps at least High Hypersonic, Mach 10). In *Aquaman #17*, it was shown that his leaping power was so powerful that he nearly flipped over a whaling ship merely by jumping onto it. Blue whales are on average heavier than 100 tons and whaling ships carry them after killing, so it's fair to assume they already had a few whales on board.

#### **Enhanced Senses / Sonar**

Arthur also has the ability to see, hear and smell at much greater than human capacities. His ability to see through murky waters gives him remarkable vision at night while above water, and is capable of seeing far deep as 36,000 ft below the ocean floor with a clear sight. He also possesses super human hearing, able to hear the heartbeat of a living being through the bulk of a submarine.

Furthermore he has also displayed an innate sonar sense in some occasions, and the ability to feel water in near proximity.

#### **Marine Telepathy**

Aquaman has many powers, but his telepathic ability to communicate with marine life is known most widely. Although this power is most often and most easily used on marine life, Aquaman has demonstrated the ability to affect any being that lives upon the sea or even any being that's evolved from marine life. His telepathy works best on marine life, but that has not stopped him from using mind control on other telepaths. He's such an achieved telepath - having communicated to aquatic creatures all his life - that he can engage in mind to mind communication and mind domination who are non-aquatic life (as seen on Steel, Vixen, Martian Manhunter and even the White Martian Zum). His control was so fine he could even control the bacteria and plankton inside another person's body, making him nigh impossible to beat for any other water based character. However, after the 2011 continuity he has been depicted to only communicate indirectly to marine life and instead try to compel them to alter their midbrain for assistance (although in one occasion he was able to affect a lizard like creature and gave the Trench leader a brief pause during a fight). Although his telepathy has been downgraded in continuity, he is still able to send his message world-wide if he needs to (as shown in *Aquaman #17*) and after some strain control the colossal New 52 Topo in order to defend Atlantis. After the first attempt Aquaman can now control even Topo at will (as shown in Aquaman #43). His telepathic powers have yet to be determined in continuity.

#### **Underwater Adaptation**

He is able to normally function and move underwater, unfazed by the pressure, temperatures or lack of light. Due to his super Atlantean dual origin, he is able off much greater physical feats than any other Atlantean (as seen for example in his fight against the mutated Black Manta, where Dolphin couldn't follow due to the pressure). In Aquaman: Death of King, Tula specifically states that Aquaman has far greater physical powers than any other normal Atlantean.

#### **Poseidon's Blessing**

In new story Arthur seems to gain a whole new grasp of abilities related to or are an extension of this aspect. Using his limited connection of what quite possibly is reminiscent to The Clear/The Blue, Aquaman was able to part an intruding field of thule magic bile in order to infiltrate a different dimension structure showcasing him using some mystic liquid bending capability, later when truly sanctified by Poseidon Arthur had been granted a host of mystical attributes which served to protect him from foul power.

#### **Master Swimmer**

Aquaman is considered to be the fastest being underwater, excelling speeds up to 150 mph at a constant rate for several hours. He is known to accelerate faster in tight situations reaching speeds up to Mach 17,7. He has been trained since he was a child by his father and Dr. Shin (probably the DCnU's premier marine biologist).

#### **Expert Combatant**

Aquaman has trained with the Atlantean army (and at some point he was the one training his most skilled warriors), the Justice League, specifically Batman and Hawkman and various other sources such as the Others (even before the Justice League was formed). It's also revealed in that all the Others, including Aquaman, are trained in team tactics with specific destinations such as "defensive alignment", depending on the situation.He is exceptionally skilled with his trident (and also swords) and excels in hand-to-hand combat with exceptional martial abilities.

#### **Expert Tactician / Leader**

Aquaman has an advanced strategic sense and had natural leadership qualities, having led Atlantis and it's army multiple times, as well as the Justice League and the Others. He has also come up with effective attack strategies against JL opponents such as Darkseid and the Cheetah and even managed to end an alien invasion on his own when he tricked the Hunters/Gatherers in revealing their plans to the entire world, after uniting all of Earth's underwater Kingdoms.

#### **Royalty**

Arthur is Atlantean royalty, thus granted diplomatic immunity on the surface world, as well as the ability to act as a diplomat for his kingdom. He was a natural born leader, having served him well while protecting Poseidonis.

### **Weaponry & Equipment**

#### **Trident of Poseidon**

After the event's of Maelstrom, Aquaman now possesses the weapon of an old sea monarch, given to him by the Greek God himself, further increasing his already impressive powers. The new Trident allows Aquaman to control and channel the power of the storm. Such as generating tsunami's, calling down lightning, conjuring ice and making the earth tremble as well as enabling instant teleportation anywhere using water as a medium, even to different planets (although it happened by accident, due to Aquaman not being completely focused) and enables unaided flight. The Trident is also indestructible, having been forged by Hephaestus the Greek God of Fire and Smithing, creator of Wonder Woman's indestructible Lasso of Truth and Weapon procuring Bracers. The Trident can also shrink down to the size of a Short Sword, making it easier to carry or hide.

#### **The King's Trident**

Aquaman's Trident (crafted by the first king of Atlantis) is his standard weapon of choice. It's indestructible, able to hurt even the toughest of opponents; having been the only member of the Justice League to puncture and bleed Darkseid. He has also been depicted of breaking though the magical ice barrier of Graves that seemed impossible at the time, cut through steel like nothing or even deflect magical blasts back to their source. Said to be the most powerful among a set of weapons created by Atlantean artifacts from the hands of the first king of Atlantis, Aquaman is always carrying it with him as a symbol of his authority and a deadly weapon if the need arises (although any further powers have yet to be revealed).

## **Trivia**

* Initially a backup feature in DC's anthology titles, Aquaman later starred in several volumes of a solo comic book series.
* The character's original 1960s animated appearances left a lasting impression, making Aquaman widely recognized in popular culture and one of the world's most recognized superheroes. Jokes about his wholesome, weak portrayal in *Super Friends* and perceived feeble powers and abilities have been staples of comedy programs and stand-up routines, leading DC at several times to attempt to make the character edgier or more powerful in comic books.
* Aquaman was listed as the 147th greatest comic book character of all time by *Wizard* magazine.
* IGN also ranked Aquaman as the 53rd greatest comic book hero of all time, opining that "even though he'll forever be the butt of jokes thanks to his fishy powers, comic readers have come to love Aquaman as a noble (and very powerful) figure who is forever torn between the worlds of land and sea."
* In a 2011 reader poll, *Parade* magazine ranked Aquaman among the Top 10 Superheroes of All Time.