Pop culture is filled with adventurers who looked to the stars and headed out to explore the mysteries of space, but a large portion of our own planet holds just as many mysteries for intrepid explorers. In the animated series The Deep, and the graphic novels that inspired it, Tom Taylor [writer of All-New Wolverine for Marvel Comics and Injustice for DC Comics] and his collaborators show just how fun, exciting, and enigmatic a place the planet's oceans can be. The series, which follows the adventures of the Nektons, a family of undersea explorers, has featured pirates, gigantic sea creatures, and an ongoing plot line about the search for the fabled lost city of Lemuria. Best of all, it's an all-ages adventure series that families can enjoy together.

RELATED: With Netflix’s “The Deep,” Tom Taylor Dives Into All-Ages Animated Adventure

The first season of The Deep debuted on Netflix in 2016, and today the adventures of the Nekton family continue with the arrival of the 13-episode second season on the streaming service. CBR spoke with Taylor about the show, what viewers can expect from Season 2, and the upcoming BOOM! Studios collection of Taylor and artist James Brouwer's The Deep graphic novels.

CBR: Let's begin by talking about what The Deep is: the all-ages adventures of the Nekton family, a team of highly-capable underwater explorers who investigate aquatic mysteries, battle high tech pirates, and deal with giant sea monsters, all while searching for the remains of the fabled lost city of Lemuria. Did I cover everything?

Tom Taylor: I think that's a very good description, though I wouldn't call the pirates high tech. They're certainly underwater pirates, but they're pretty low tech. They wish they were hight tech.

[Laughs] What are some of the things that inspired The Deep?

It often gets compared to The Incredibles and the Fantastic Four. Obviously it's a family story, and I guess what sets this apart from a number of all-ages things is that everybody in the Nekton family is competent. That's certainly true of The Incredibles and the Fantastic Four.

Part of the goal of this was that we didn't want to diminish any of the characters. We didn't want the cliched, useless father or the nagging mother. We wanted everybody to just be great at what they do and all share in the excitement of the adventure that they're on.

That was one of the things I enjoyed about the show, especially when it came to the young characters, Ant and Fontaine Nekton. More often than not in all-ages shows, kids that become part of the adventure end up causing more trouble than they're worth. Here, though, the kids are able to contribute to their family's adventures, and their skills and abilities help solve problems and save they day.

That's absolutely right. The kids have grown up as adventurers on their family's submarine and doing all these amazing things. So they're in their element. They are their parents' children and, they're just as good and just as competent. They all have great skills.

Another aspect of The Deep that I really enjoyed is it features a family that doesn't look like the average family you'd see on American TV.

Yes, it's a Black father, an Asian mother, and their two children. We make sure never to say where they're from, because whoever wants to see themselves in the Nektons can when they watch this show. We have Aboriginal fans in the Outback of Australia. We have fans in India and Pakistan. I believe the show is currently airing in over 130 countries, and a lot of people contact us and say, “This is the first time I've seen my family on television,” which is wonderful to hear.

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The first season of The Deep had more standalone episodes than mythology ones about the search for Lemuria. What kind of balance will there be in Season 2?

One of the things we love about The Deep is that we can tell stories that people haven't really seen before; stories about creatures that have never been talked about in fiction. We bring a lot of real life into stories about colossal squids, megalodons and all these things that truly existed, or still truly exist.

We get to play with all of those, but having said that, the Nekton family's ongoing search for lost Lemuria really does pick up steam in this second series. You'll see a lot more of that, and the repercussions of that.

You left the Nekton family with some interesting revelations at the end of Season 1. What can you tell us about the Nektons and their exploits when you pick up with them in Season 2? Did what they learn about their quest and themselves at the end of season one change them at all?

It gives a whole lot of drive at the very beginning of episode one of this new season. They now have, and I can say this without spoiling things, what looks to be an ancient map that they hope will lead them to Lemuria and certainly leads them around the globe searching exotic sites from 6,000 years ago. So that certainly gives us a lot more drive, and the revelation of what they discovered about themselves is obviously playing on that as well.

Does Season 2 bring The Deep to a definite end? Or is there a possibility for more animated adventures?

It's highly likely that there will be a Season 3. We're already seeing the success of Season 2. There's toys in the works. There are aquarium tours happening across Europe and the UK. This thing is growing, and the fanbase is growing and growing. I think [audiences are] responding to the positivity of the thing.

This show has no violence. All the action is peril-based, and the Nektons never solve anything with violence. They're a very caring family, and I think people are responding to seeing that on TV. They're used to seeing their action heroes punching the bad guy at the end of the episode, and you'll never see that in The Deep.

I think part of the popularity of this show is that it is something a bit different. There's also a mystery to it. It features an engaging family where everybody is confident and happy. I think it's a good antidote to a lot of the bleakness in the world at the moment that we're seeing in fiction and on our television. There's something very innocent about the show. I know a lot of families watch it together, and really that's why we wrote it in the first place.

That's why we wrote the comics. We wanted something that was truly all-ages; something that families could sit down and enjoy together and hopefully everybody would get something from it. Hopefully we succeeded

Finally, do you and James Brouwer have any interest in doing more volumes of The Deep graphic novels that inspired the series?

We absolutely do! It's just kind of hard because he's the art director and I'm the head writer. We've been both working on this show for about three years and we work on it almost every day if not every day. There's also everything else we take on. Obviously I'm writing All-New Wolverine for Marvel. I'm writing Injustice for DC. And I'm writing another comic that I can't talk about yet. We do a lot of things, but we absolutely want to do more Deep graphic novels.

Fortunately we are getting a big collected edition of the whole series to date through BOOM! I believe that comes out November 28. I don't think it made Previews, but it's definitely coming out.