While virtually every major superhero introduced by DC Comics during the Golden Age of Comic Books in the 1930s and 1940s would be reinvented at the dawn of the Silver Age of Comic Books, one of the most subtly changed characters would be Aquaman. Visually appearing similar to his Silver Age counterpart on Earth-One, the Aquaman of Earth-Two would actually feature a significantly different origin and set of powers.
Now, CBR is taking a look back at how these two incarnations of Aquaman differ from Earth-One to Earth-Two, and at Aquaman's place in DC's ongoing Earth-One initiative.
The Aquaman of Earth-Two
Created by Mort Weisinger and Paul Norris in 1941's More Fun Comics #73, the Golden Age Aquaman who would later be designated to live on Earth-Two had more mysterious origins than his eventual Silver Age counterpart. The most clear difference is that unlike the modern incarnation's civilian identity as Arthur Curry, the Golden Age's Aquaman doesn't actually have a revealed alter ego. Instead, the superhero introduced himself as the son of a famous undersea explorer without mentioning his father by name. Additionally, his mother isn't cited as an Atlantean but rather someone who died when he was just an infant, driving his unnamed father into deep-sea seclusion.
Without his mixed heritage, this version of Aquaman is raised by his father in the ruins of Atlantis, with the explorer learning the secrets of the underwater civilization from various texts left behind in the fallen city. Aquaman's father used the ancient texts to train his son to survive the ocean depths, breathe underwater, and communicate with sea-life. As opposed to the modern Aquaman, Aquaman communicated with sea-life verbally and could only control them approximately for a minute before contact was lost. As a sign of the times in which he was first created, many of the Golden Age Aquaman's villains were linked to the Axis Powers during World War II.
The Aquaman of Earth-One
The modern Aquaman, debuting in 1959's Adventure Comics #260 by Robert Bernstein and Ramona Fradon, established that the superhero was named Arthur Curry and was the son of a human lighthouse keeper and Atlanna, Queen of Atlantis. Due to his mixed physiology, Arthur could breathe underwater and possessed the superhuman strength, speed, and endurance to endure and navigate the oceans' depths. In contrast to his Golden Age counterpart, this Aquaman communicated with sea-life telepathically and did not have a limit on how long he could control them. However, he also initially had a strong weakness in that he had to have physical contact with water at least hourly or he would weaken and potentially die.
After a team-up with Superboy while the two were teenagers, Aquaman would develop a supporting cast of his own as he entered adulthood, including a teenaged Atlantean orphan named Garth who would become Aqualad. Setting up his primary headquarters in a submerged city named New Venice, Aquaman encountered the exiled princess Mera who would become his love interest and wife as he eventually took the throne of Atlantis due to his mother's royal legacy.
The Earth One Aquaman Original Graphic Novel
Following the restoration of the DC Multiverse in 52, DC launched a line of original graphic novels set on the new Earth One, while the main DC Universe took place in a reality simply known as New Earth. After the best-selling success of the Earth One: Superman and Earth One: Batman titles, DC first announced an Earth One: Aquaman original graphic novel in 2015 to be written and drawn by fan-favorite comic book creator Francis Manapul.
Since the original announcement, there has been little news about the progress of Manapul's story but the artist teased the project with some artwork apparently from it on his Instagram last September. While indicating the planned graphic novel was still very much in the works, Manapul has also illustrated a few covers featuring Aquaman and some of the hero's adventures alongside the Justice League in the Drwoned Earth crossover.