DC Comics' Aquaman has changed drastically, this is why it matters

Historically, Aquaman has been a blond-haired white man, an image largely iterated by white creatives behind the screen and page. But that’s begun to change in the recent years, as what ‘Aquaman’ is and can be has become more varied, and less fixed. For a whole generation now, ‘Aquaman’ means Jason Momoa, the brown-skinned Native Hawaiian and Polynesian star. This iteration has been mostly shaped by James Wan, an Asian-Australian director, with the Aquaman film being the first and only post-Nolan DC effort to cross a $1 billion at the box office.

The sea change isn’t just limited to film. Over the past two years, Aquaman, largely written by white writers for decades, has been exclusively handled by Black and Brown writers.

And the results have been fresh and quite interesting, as they complicate the ideas and thematic interests of the enterprise. So, we’re going to dive into three fantastic modernizations of the world of Aquaman and consider their implications. For these are all books filled with ideas and evolutions that ask us to reassess our assumptions of what Aquaman stories can be.

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Aquaman: The Becoming is a 6-issue series starring Jackson Hyde and his journey to becoming Aquaman, as told by the creative team of Brandon Thomas, Diego Olortegui, Adriano Lucas, and Andworld Design.

Black Manta is a 6-issue series starring David Hyde and his journey as he comes to terms with his legacy, as told by the creative team of Chuck Brown, Valentine de Landro, Matthew Dow Smith, Marissa Louise, and Clayton Cowles

Aquaman: Andromeda is a 3-issue prestige series at DC’s Black Label imprint starring Arthur Curry and Black Manta as they deal with an undersea disaster, as told by the creative teams of Ram V, Christian Ward, and Aditya Bidikar

Aquaman: The Becoming and Black Manta are ‘mainline’ titles that are both written by Black writers, whilst Andromeda is an ‘evergreen’ title written by an Indian writer. And they all offer rich, varied views and lenses by which to understand what the very word ‘Aquaman’ entails.

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The bridge between worlds

Jackson Hyde first debuted as Kaldur’ahm in Brandon Vietti, Greg Weisman, and Phil Bourossa’s Young Justice animated series. He was an update of the classic ‘Aqualad’ idea for a new generation of the 2010s, and a long due expansion of the Aquaman mythology. Jackson was a dynamite concept: ‘What if Black Manta, the ultimate nemesis of Aquaman, had a son? And what if that son was Aquaman's heir?’. This concept suggests countless dramatic possibilities, as two men are caught in a cycle of eternal hatred, with a boy trapped in-between.

Aquaman, as an idea, is about being a bridge between two worlds.