Aquagirl
13 years ago - Lorena Marquez is born in San Diego.
2 years ago - 11-year-old Lorena is one of the first subjects of Thorne's experiments as he begins developing the mutogenic catalyst to release into San Diego's ecosystem, secretly mutating the population.
now - 13-year-old Lorena's advanced Atlantean mutation allows her to help Kaldur'ahm protect San Diego when it sinks in Thorne's experiments.
The original character Aquagirl dates all the way back to 1967, an adopted princess of the Atlantean royal family, clearly designed to give Aqualad a love interest. Those classic Aquaman stories have a far more massive scope that most casual readers might be aware of, and she was in a lot of it, making appearances in most Teen Titan series, right up until her death in the Crisis in 1987.
It was only after the extensive revamping of Aquaman's stories in the 90's that someone got around to introducing a new Aquagirl, and when they did the character they came up with had a pretty wild origin, but was such a likeable standalone character that, given the choice, this is the one we decided to include in our timeline.
It was only after the extensive revamping of Aquaman's stories in the 90's that someone got around to introducing a new Aquagirl, and when they did the character they came up with had a pretty wild origin, but was such a likeable standalone character that, given the choice, this is the one we decided to include in our timeline.
Aquagirl's Comic HistoryMost comic writers are walking a tightrope between innovation and adhering to the existing lore, but it's even tougher for Aquaman writers, since they're always fighting the uphill battle of trying to overcome the idea that one of the most epic, constantly changing characters in comics is somehow 'boring'. One of my favorite takes on this particular task was the 2003 storyarc 'American Tidal' by writer Will Pfeifer and artist Patrick Gleason. In it, the city of San Diego is sunken into the ocean and portions of its population are mutated into water-breathers, giving Aquaman a whole new territory to protect. As wild and weird as that story was (The DC version of the San Diego Comic-Con is now understood to happen inside an aquatic dome), one of the best parts of this story was the introduction of a new teenage sidekick for Arthur; Lorena.
Lorena was a tough, scrappy teenage girl that had lost her parents in the sinking of the city, who happened to take to her mutation better than most of the other survivors, and who quickly became a valued ally to Arthur as they worked to protect her home. |
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For a good chunk of those early stories, Lorena didn't even wear a costume, she just kicked butt in her street clothes. She eventually got an Atlantean costume of her own, but as the book expanded to include more of the larger Aquaman mythology she was featured less and less.
In 2006, the series 52 told the story of the year missed during the One Year Later continuity skip, which featured Lorena as a member of the Teen Titans, now officially using the name Aquagirl. At this point the Aquaman series had changed gears to the much less interesting Aquaman: Sword of Atlantis story which, if i'm not mistaken, got wiped out of continuity pretty quickly, so soon Lorena's appearances in the Teen Titans series proper represented her only appearances that actually mattered. Sadly, at this point the series was running mostly on the momentum generated by it's early popularity, and Lorena was an unfortunate victim as her characterization never really caught up with the way she was depicted back when she was created. The series continued until 2011 when DC reset everything in the New 52, and she has basically never appeared again. |
Our Aquagirl StoryWe're going to focus our version of Aquagirl almost entirely on the way she was depicted in those original stories by Pfeifer & Gleason. Lorena was a tough, streetsmart kid with a cool punk energy whose eagerness to dive into adventure made her such a fun part of a very cool book. Pfeifer also managed to draw her in a way that really made her seem interesting; she was clearly being draw deliberately sexily, but also tough and fun, and unmistakably Latina. Later, when she became a main member of the Titans, she lost a lot of those qualities. She was skinnier, paler, and less dynamic; essentially just a generic pretty brunette who punched things and appeared in the back of group shots, so we want to make sure we remember who she was originally conceived to be.
Another big change we're going to make is to actually take the whole story of Sub Diego and make it about Aqualad rather than Aquaman. It's more of a traditional superhero tale than what you'd usually associate with Arthur, whose stories tend to be broader in scope, so it works way better as an adventure for Kaldur'ahm as he steps up as a hero in his own right. In this way, Lorena is actually HIS sidekick rather than Arthurs, which I really like. |
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Aquagirl & the TitansOur future Teen Titans are being designed so that there are lots of different character archetypes and relationships we can use to explore Damian's potential as a hero, and how he deals with his own influences. We've kept Lorena pretty young in our timeline, because we want her to only recently have joined Kaldur in protecting Sub Diego, so that she's a prime age to join the new Titans.
We've already talked about how Lorena as she appeared in the Teen Titans was pretty watered down, but the spunky streetwise teenage sidekick from Pfeifer & Gleason's story will bring way more to the group. She's tough and always ready for a fight, but she's also incredibly loyal, always ready to stand up for people, and I actually think that's going to resonate with Damian in a very profound way. Also, it wouldn't be the Teen Titans if there wasn't some soap opera romance, and we need a character like Lorena to set up some potential love triangle drama. |