The King is Alive - Long Live the King

If you have read any of my postings here, you will already know that I am a big comic book fan and I especially love good comic book art, although I really consider myself a bit of a "writer"(sort of), I just love seeing purty pictures.

Just today DC released an image with gorgeous David Finch art that tells us that "The King is Back, Long Live the King." Aquaman The King of the Seven Seas is back !!

I have always been a major DC fan and as a kid got in the usual kid arguments of "Who's better DC or Marvel" and although many fans often think of Aquaman as the superhero with the silliest power ever (dude, he speaks to his fishy friends) I always thought if handled properly he had the potential to be a star.

In the early 90s Peter David was tapped to chronicle the adventures of Aquaman and a star was born. David infused the character with a real personality and purpose and populated the series with interesting characters that complimented and also provided conflict for the main character. King Orin was a leader of his people and his bearing took on the arrogance of a King and the excess baggage and problems that went with such responsibilities. He also radically changed Orin's personality and had his hand eaten off by piranhas (ouch) and replaced with a hook (Arhhhh, me maties), got him involved with Dolphin ( a girl named dolphin, not a real one) and had him communicating with various aquatic lifeforms fishes, dolphins, etc. (the dolphin Pom - his adoptive mother, and sharks - damn, they are pretty dumb you know)

Fans either loved it or hated it, they accused David of making Orin a carbon copy of Marvel's Namor the Submariner, but David just seemed to gleefully go off on plots that stretched for issues on end and plot twists that had fans laughing menacingly like evil dictators trying to rule the world.

Eventually irreconcilable creative differences between himself and the editor (was it Dooley or Raspler) led to his departure and a wretched 12 issue run written by Eric Larsen, followed by a wonderful under-rated run by Dan Jurgens and Steve Epting could not prevent the series being cancelled against the doldrums of low industry sales in 2001.

Since then Aquaman fans have had to get their thrill from Orin's appearances in books like JLA and on Warner cartoons. There was a revival of the series in 2003 by writer Tom Veitch which ran for 39 issues before morphing into Aquaman:Sword of Atlantis which gave us a blond blade wielding Aquaman who was certainly not the original character (if you dont ask, I promise not to tell), but the series fizzled and really couldnt hold on to its readers.

Aquaman was eventually killed of in some silly "event series" that DC and Marvel seem forever wanting to heap on fans every couple months, and it has taken Geoff Johns' runaway hit Blackest Knight and the upcoming Brightest Day to restore a character that has so much potential, but which nobody seems to be able to get a proper handle on (except Peter David).

I have been on a break from buying comics as I try to get certain things in place for 2010, but rest assured I will be following the adventures of one of my favourite character to see how he's being handled and whether someone/anyone has finally gotten a proper handle on him. (PAD ! Where are youuuuuuuu ?)

The Aquaman covers shown were all accessed at the Grand Comic Database and are the copywrite of DC Comics Inc.