Atlanna
64 years ago - Atlanna is born, the Crown Princess of Atlantis.
56 years ago - 8-year-old Atlanna is promised in marriage to Orvax Marius, the decorated mariner captain of the Atlantean Naval Fleet, making him the future king of Atlantis.
46 years ago - 18-year-old Atlanna is married to Orvax Marius, who begins using his authority as King to sink surface ships.
42 years ago - 22-year-old Atlanna barely escapes Atlantis with her life when a coup by followers of Orm Marius is staged, murdering her husband Orvax Marius. She makes her way to the surface, almost dying in the journey, but is saved by Tom Curry, who nurses her back to health. They fall in love, and are married.
41 years ago - 23-year-old Atlanna and Tom Curry have their child, Arthur Curry. Atlanna gives him a King's name, in the tradition of her people, but a King's name from the surface.
39 years ago - 25-year-old Atlanna is found by agents of Orm Marius, and they are attacked by Atlantean Shock Troops. Atlanna & Tom Curry fight them off, but it appears that Atlanna is killed. In truth Atlanna, believing her husband and son dead, flees into the ocean depths & finds her way into the Hidden Sea. She begins building a refuge for other lost souls.
Atlanna is of course, part of Aquaman's origin story. She's very rarely depicted as being alive in current continuity, almost always appearing in flashbacks. Because Aquaman's origins have been retconned a few times, this means that her story has changed wildly, sometimes fulfilling vastly different roles in continuity.
What we've discovered is that Aquaman's backstory has fantastic potential to set up amazing stories in the present, and Atlanna is actually the core element in getting them just right. We've gone back and pieced together a sequence of events that gives us an excellent framework to use, but in the process we wound up finding a fantastic character in her own right. There are stories that suggest Atlanna is still alive which we are including because she is absolutely fascinating.
What we've discovered is that Aquaman's backstory has fantastic potential to set up amazing stories in the present, and Atlanna is actually the core element in getting them just right. We've gone back and pieced together a sequence of events that gives us an excellent framework to use, but in the process we wound up finding a fantastic character in her own right. There are stories that suggest Atlanna is still alive which we are including because she is absolutely fascinating.
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Atlanna's Comic HistoryAtlanna appeared for the first time in 1959 in an issue of Adventure Comics. In a segment called "How Aquaman Got His Powers", Aquaman's origins were retconned for the very first time, establishing that he is the child of a lighthouse keeper and a mysterious Mermaid Princess. This story was retconned out of existence several times, most notably in the 1994 miniseries The Atlantis Chronicles, which fed into Aquaman's stories for most of the 90's and 2000's.
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I talk up Peter David's influence on Aquaman quite a bit. He's responsible for the huge infusion of scope and drama in the character's mythology. To this day, the best Aquaman stories are always tied into the epic scope of Atlantean history, and that's largely David's influence. Among the sweeping changes made to Arthur's origin, he established that his mother, Atlanna, was an Atlantean princess who was visited in the night by Atlan, a character from Atlantean history that featured heavily into the history of Atlantis that David had crafted. Personally, I always thought it was a good story.
Looking back on it now, though, it actually doesn't hold up as well as I once thought. It's intensely over-sexualized; their liason is pretty graphically depicted, and it is in fact very hard to find depictions of Atlanna from this era that feature her both clothed and not referencing sex. She dies in childbirth in this version of the story, and while that might have made the story focus more heavily on Arthur, it doesn't really give Atlanna herself very much agency. More than anything else though; the romance between Atlanna and Tom Curry is just obviously a better story. This is absolutely what we're going to use. |
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Our Atlanna StoryThere are some really great story ideas for us to use here if we can just get them to all work together properly. Nothing here is original, but we had to work a little bit to make sure they fit together in the way we wanted. Atlanna is actually a major key to make it work. We needed to establish her relationship to the throne (she's the crown princess, and therefore her biological children are first in succession), to the King (she does marry Orvax, who is killed in a coup.) to Ocean Master (He is not in fact her son, but the illegitimate son of her first husband), and Tom Curry (she is with him for several years, and only leaves because they both think the other is dead.)
The comics also introduced the idea that she is in fact still alive and ruling over settlements of survivors in the Hidden Sea. This story is picked up in the movie, and used to set up the reunion of Arthur's parents, which I am 100% in favor of. |