Aquaman: King of Atlantis’ Creators Want to Embrace the Cringe

Aquaman: King of Atlantis takes a distinct path than most different latest incarnations of the legendary underwater hero—as an alternative of turning him right into a rough-and-ready badass within the vein of Jason Momoa’s Arthur, King of Atlantis’ Cooper Andrews offers us a lighter, sillier spin. And for collection creators Victor Courtright and Marly Halpern-Graser, that was the important thing to having some enjoyable with their new collection.

Charles Pulliam-Moore, io9: Talk to me about the place this Aquaman exists throughout the bigger constellation of Aquamen that individuals are conversant in from different DC and Warner initiatives.

Marly Halpern-Graser: If you watch the episodes, you may see that that is positively our personal spin on the character, and our personal form of standalone continuity. The manner we tried to think about it was, we’re doing our personal tackle the character, however we’re utilizing the James Wan film as a beginning place.

The Brave and the Bold’s Aquaman, and the Bruce Timm Justice League Aquaman have been each nice, however our concept was, as an alternative of all of the a long time and a long time of comics or all the different cartoons, let’s create a world the place we will assume that the overall beats of the film occurred. So, Aquaman challenged Ocean Master to a twin, Mera and Vulko helped him change into king, he grew to become king yesterday, annnd let’s go.

io9: Were there any particular issues from the large display screen you needed to hold over into King of Atlantis?

Halpern-Graser: So parts which might be from the film—our Vulko seems to be a little bit bit like film Vulko versus comics Vulko—we remind folks of them. We don’t clarify them an excessive amount of as a result of we assume that these issues are just like what occurred within the film. Any new parts of Aquaman that we introduce, and basic Aquaman villains, we principally created them from scratch and tried to give you a very new concept for these characters and introduce them as when you’d by no means heard of them earlier than.

io9: King of Atlantis comes at a time when DC’s actually gone all in on revitalizing Aquaman’s picture by way of making an attempt to make him cooler and a type of intercourse image. How’d you go about balancing that general undertaking that the studio’s set in movement with your individual fondness for that basic, type of goofy tackle Aquaman?

Victor Courtright: Our Aquaman type of hopefully strikes a stability between that and a few of the extra basic Aquaman concepts. I believe our story and world is fairly enjoyable and lightweight hearted, and our Aquaman actually comes out of that film seriousness a little bit bit extra. One of the issues that actually pulled me from the basic lore was simply how how enjoyable and and outlandish the world may very well be generally.

But when you take that form of extra grounded, virtually introverted Aquaman from the film world, and also you throw him into that extra excessive and type of basic Atlantis world, [it’s] this enjoyable duality between, like how severely he’s taking every part and the way bonkers his world is.

Halpern-Graser: This in all probability wasn’t precisely how we have been considering of it, however I believe that what ended up occurring is, out of the bigger constellation of Aquaman, that we form of took the extra fashionable, severe Aquaman, and put him in a extra Silver Age-y type of world, and bounced these concepts off one another.

io9: I wish to shift to Mera for a second as a result of she’s additionally been going by one thing of a rebrand herself by way of her stage of prominence throughout DC’s comics, reveals, and flicks. Where’s this Mera at, existentially I assume, after we meet her, and what parts of her lore did you wish to highlight in King of Atlantis?

Halpern-Graser: Our Mera was born into this underwater world. She’s been a princess her entire life. She all the time desperate to be queen of some kingdom, finally … if she has a fault, it’s that she’s so snug with underwater life, and with simply battling sea creatures, and utilizing her water powers to resolve issues, that she wants a little bit little bit of perspective.

io9: What is it concerning the Silver Age specifically that works so nicely for Aquaman? Because I do know what you’re saying, this Arthur positively feels just like the film’s Aquaman, however he’s… not, and but all of it is sensible, in some way.

Halpern-Graser: I simply assume Aquaman lends himself a lot to the stuff that may appear a little bit foolish if when you’re insecure about that type of factor. James Wan’s film is superior and it’s taking all of the concepts very severely, however there’s nonetheless a octopus taking part in the drums. People are nonetheless using seahorses. They name them sea dragons, I believe, however you already know. That’s a seahorse.

io9: It’s a seahorse.

Halpern-Graser: You can take that severely, and it’s cool, however when you did it with out that stuff, it wouldn’t really feel proper. It’s type of integral to what’s enjoyable about Aquaman—that he’s not only a cool character with cool powers. He additionally opens up this world of all this attention-grabbing type of out-there world constructing.

io9: Even although this story’s centered on Arthur settling into his position as king, it additionally does much more capital-A “Aquaman” world constructing that feels impressed by the Trench undertaking that fell by. How a lot, if any of that undertaking was particularly woven into King of Atlantis?

Courtright: Zero?

Halpern-Graser: Yeah, I believe I’d need to say principally none. We don’t know what their plans have been, however I hope they make it someday, so I can see it. I believe what was occurring there was we have been taking cues from the primary Aquaman film, which have been the cues that crew was taking for its subsequent undertaking. Also, the comics, you already know? I’ve learn the Trench comics, and I believe we have been all pulling from the identical supply materials with the identical jumping-off level, and we wound up with some coincidental overlap.

io9: You stated one thing earlier that I wish to contact again on about this virtually a way of embarrassment that generally accompanies not simply Aquaman himself, however followers speaking concerning the character. What sorts of conversations did you might have about what to do with the thought of Aquaman being categorically uncool?

Halpern-Graser:  We took these conversations that occur in actual life and put them in our story, like Aquaman in our story is a little bit insecure about how folks see him and how much a hero or what sort of a king folks assume he’s. But I believe for us, I believe folks ought to have the boldness that these characters are cool and that they will stand on their very own. The components of them that some folks fear about can be what makes them so nice, and also you shouldn’t run away from that. You ought to embrace it and lean into it as a result of that’s what makes them not, like. interchangeable, generic, tremendous robust males. 

Aquaman: King of Atlantis’ first of three episodes hits HBO Max on October 14.

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