Arthur Curry, Orin Ap Thomas

Aquaman, The Golden One

Born of Two Worlds; 1953-1955
A man born of two worlds, accepted by neither, shunned by all while he struggles to find his place in this life. An outsider, a waylander, a freak, a man who's only home is the one he makes for himself, through his own blood and sweat and tears. That is Arthur Curry of the surface world, also known as Orin Ap Thomas of Atlantis. Jokingly referenced as 'Aquaman' by the American media, given the ironic title of 'The Golden One' by the ocean-dwellers.

Sixty-three years ago Atlanna Ep Orvax, princess of the underwater kingdom of Poseidonis, fled her home upon discovering her father meant to marry her to a prince from the rival kingdom Lemuria. She was a fiery one, Atlanna, and refused to countenance a world where she was forced into a marriage that didn't suit her, no more than a pawn in someone else's games. With no destination in mind she fled, wandering the seas while staying well clear of any of the Seven kingdoms of Atlantis, of anyone who would force her back to her old life. It was during this roaming that she, by sheer happen-stance, met lighthouse keeper Thomas Curry.

Tom Curry. Over six foot tall. Broad shouldered, golden haired, muscled like a maidens delight, Tom Curry. It's really no wonder that Atlanna, even with generations of bred-in distrust of humans, fell for Mr Curry, hook, line and sinker. She engineered a meeting with Tom, and the two fell almost immediately into a relationship. While it began as a purely physical pairing feelings did grow between the two, feelings that became even stronger when, to their surprise, Atlanna fell pregnant.

Until that point Atlanna had kept her Atlantean heritage a secret from her paramour, but she realized the time was upon her to reveal the truth. Tom was skeptical at first, but quickly came round after the princess remained underwater for over half an hour as way of evidence. After some serious soul searching the lighthouse keeper decided that this new information, while a shock, didn't actually change the way he felt about Atlanna. Their son was born, and they called him Arthur.

The family lived in peace for almost two years, but that all changed when a cadre of Poseidonis soldiers, led by Atlanna's father the king Orvax, came knocking at the Lighthouse door. The king demanded that she return at once, a demand that the princess promptly refused. However she was then informed that because she had failed to do her duty to her home full scale war threatened to erupt between Poseidonis and Lemuria. Under such dire circumstances she relented, agreeing to return to her home, a decision that hurt Thomas deeply. Arthur she left with his father, Orvax telling her that Atlantean's would never accept a bastard human child as one of their own, even a royal one.

Accepted by Neither; 1955-1970
And so Arthur grew up motherless. It wasn't long, though, before he realized that wasn't the only thing that marked him out as different from all the other children growing up in the small town of Mercy Reef though. For one he was stronger than any of the other boys his age. Stronger than adult men too. So strong that it soon became necessary for Arthur to be banned from playing with his peers, in case he ever inadvertently hurt them. Instead it was Arthur who was hurt, hurt and confused by his forced segregation. He asked his father why he was so different, and all Thomas could tell him was that his mother was an Atlantean. When pressed for what that meant Tom could do nothing but admit to his ignorance. Atlanna was gone, after all, and in all their time together she had rarely discussed her people or their home with the father of her child. In a last desperate bid to get his son the answers he craved, Thomas turned to Dr Stephen Shin.

Shin was a marine biologist, once reckoned one of the leading minds on all things related to the sea. However his reputation had been tarnished after he published a paper detailing his belief in a realm of underwater men and women who ruled the oceans, a people he called 'Atlanteans'. Unfortunately the doctors claims was unaccompanied by anything even resembling hard evidence, and so he quickly became the laughing stock of the scientific community. Shin, upon hearing of Arthur's unique condition, jumped at the chance to ingratiate himself with the Currys. Here was something resembling the proof he so desperately needed to repair his standing amongst his peers. Under Shin's tutelage Arthur developed and refined his fledging powers. They tested his limits and probed at his weaknesses, and bit by bit discovered more and more of the secrets to Atlantean biology.

It wasn't enough for Shin and Arthur though. For them nothing short of seeing the lost cities themselves would be enough. However neither knew where those cities could be found, and had no way of finding out. It seemed their dreams of discovering Atlantis were merely that, dreams. That was all before they met Robert Phaydon though. Phaydon was a maritime treasure hunter who claimed to have laid eyes on an underwater city, and was willing to take Arthur there in exchange for payment. Perhaps Arthur should have been more suspicious of Phaydon's true motives, or the seeming fortutuious timing of his offer, but at the time the young man was just overjoyed to be so close to finding out who he really was.

I'd Like to be Under the Sea; 1970-1971
Phaydon was true to his word, transporting Arthur, his father, and doctor Shin upon his submarine to the city of Poseidonis. The Atlantean's are a distrustful people, especially of surface-dwellers, and were poised to attack before Arthur revealed himself as one of them. While confused, the Atlantean's brought the strange young man to their Queen; None other than Arthur's mother, Atlanna.

Atlanna was overjoyed to be reunited with her son and her first love,Thomas. She announced to her people that the 'Prodigal son had been returned to them', declaring he was now apart of the royal familly of Poseidonis. She then introduced him to his younger half brother, Orm, son of the then deceased Marius. Orm received Arthur with cool grace, and while Arthur thought this meant his brother didn't like him, Atlanna assured him that the cause was merely that Orm was a 'deep thinking man', and would need time to order his feelings on this new development. Celebrations were arranged in honour of Arthur's arrival.

Not everyone in Poseidonis shared Atlanna's feelings though. A group of irate nobles stormed the celebration, claiming that they cared not if the outsider was the Queen's son, they wanted him and his companions out of the city. Tempers flared and it wasn't long before things got violent, though the Royal Guard quickly restored order. However it wasn't until afterwards that they all realised the true extent of the damage went beyond split lips and hurt feelings. In the confusion Robert Phaydon had stolen the Zodiac Stone of Capricornus, a mystical gem of incredible power that powered the forcefield domes that housed the great buildings of the city. It took little more than an hour to discover the theft, but even in that short time the barriers had weakened considerably, wavering under the strain of holding back millions of tonnes of water. Atlanna led her greatest Mages, amongst them her advisor Vulko and son Orm, in supplementing the barriers with their own mystical might. However the mages power could not hold indefinitely. It was at best a stop gap solution, a holding pattern while the Drift, an elite Atlantean commando unit, tracked down Phaydon and retrieved Capricornus. When Arthur asked how he could help he was told that he had already done enough. It seemed that the nobility was right, that he was considered little more than an outsider.

Despondent, he went to the rooms set aside for his father, hoping for some sort of guidance. When he got there, though, he discovered the worst. Phaydon hadn't only stolen the Stone, he had also kidnapped Thomas, hoping to use Atlanna's and Arthur's feelings for the older Curry as leverage to make good his escape. When Arthur took this information to his mother she told him there was nothing she could do about that now. Arthur, furious, accused her of abandoning his father for a second time. However Atlanna calmly explained that as the ruler of Poseidonis she couldn't risk the fate of her city for the life of one man, regardless of how much he meant to her. It was the kind of cold arithmitic a Queen had to deal with daily, she told him, and she hoped he would understand her choice one day.

Arthur refused to accept this though, exiting the city to confront Phaydon himself. In his haste to save his father he hardly noticed when he easily outstripped the Drift on his way to the thief's vessel, arriving upon the submarine long before the commandoes did, despite their headstart. Boarding the vessel, he began a room by room search for his father, hoping to find Thomas without alerting Phaydon to his presence. He should have known better though. That's not how these kind of stories work out. Phaydon was waiting for Arthur, his father held close at hand, 'for safe keeping'. Arthur begged for his father's release, but the thief refused to let him go until they were on dry land. At an impasse, Arthur attacked, but Phaydon had studied all of Dr Shin's research notes on the young Atlantean, and had prepared for this encounter. He subdued Arthur, but not easily. It was then the Drift attacked, though they too fell for Phaydon's traps and preparations. However the Drift did manage to critically damage the sub, though they gave their lives to do it.

It seemed nobody was getting out of the mess alive, until Phaydon revealed he had an escape pod. As a parting shot he wounded Thomas, knowing Arthur would never chase him down while his father lay injured in a sinking submarine, and left with the Zodiac Stone. Arthur felt himself wishing that someone, anyone, could stop Phaydon, but knew there was no one left. He found himself facing a similar decsion to the one his mother faced earlier. To save his father he would be damning the entire city of Poseidonis. In then end Thomas made the choice for him, instructing his son to chase the thief and retrieve the Capricornus. Arthur left his father as the submarine slowly filled with icy cold seawater.

As Arthur came upon Phaydon's escape craft he realized he wasn't the only one after the thief. A pod of blue whales were ramming the craft, while a frenzy of sharks barred it's path from going any further. As he approached the marine life retreated slightly, and looked almost like they were waiting on Arthur's orders. It was with some surprise that he realized that was exactly what they were doing, though he had no time to dwell on this new development. Instead he had an idea to save his father. He directed the whales to divert the escape crafts course, pushing it back towards the sinking submarine. If they could just get back in time they could load his father onto the escape craft and bring him back to Poseidonis. Surely a city possessed of such advanced magics would be able to help him?

The point was a moot one though, as even with Arthur urging the whales on they arrived all to late to help Thomas, the submarine long since having filled up with water that choked the life from a man that had lived his whole life around the water. Enraged, Arthur destroyed Phaydon's craft, before leaving the man himself to the mercy of the sharks. The surviving Curry took the Zodiac stone and returned to Poseidonis.

For his return to the city he was escorted by all manner of sea creatures. Sharks, whales, dolphins, fish, octupuses, squid. The sea around Poseidonis was thick with them. Even in a place as thick with mystery and magic as Atlantis, this scene was marked in it's uniquness. All save Arthur seemed to be mystified by the phenomenon, even the great Mages who struggled to keep the barriers up, or the Queen who stood speechless as her son silently handed her the Zodiac Stone before back into the sea, swimming into the distance and taking his mismashed horde with him.

Lost to the Deep. Lost to the Dark; 1971-1976

Arthur's never been a man to really recognize borders, perhaps because he's never felt like he's belonged anywhere before. He considers wherever his boots stand at the moment to be his 'stomping grounds'. For posterity's sake though, let's say the ocean, but he ain't adverse to stepping on dry land neither. . . regardless of what some of the more slurrious tabloids say about him.

To my mind there's two kinds of Aquaman that writers try to push. One who's an utter joke, no better than a fish whisperer who regularly gets trounced if the villain is wielding anything more powerful than a hair dryer, and the other an Über-badass who's trying way to hard to compensate for the other interpretations wussiness. I'm gonna try and strike a happy medium between the two, having a tough lad who's also not afraid to crack a joke or two while punching folk in the teeth. On top of that there's a few other aspects of his character I'd like to highlight. Namely; being a man from two worlds, inhabiting a mostly alien domain, having far more weighty responsibilities than most other heroes, and his being a warrior among costumed heroes. Finally I'm going to chart his story from being a lowly half-human bastard, to becoming the very King of the Seven Seas.

Shoals of Trench flesh rippers, eager to sink sharp little teeth into unprotected Atlantean flesh. Hordes of Tritonis' screamers, mad as hell and baying for blood. Organised Lemurian Cohorts, a slow and unstoppable juggernaut of martial might that promised doom to their enemies. Parademons from fiery hell-worlds, self-declared God's, monomaniacal would be conquerors, alien invaders, petty crooks, highly trained mercenaries, undead sorcerers, corrupt business officials, and on one noteworthy occasion an extremely irate ex-girlfriend. Arthur Curry had faced them all, and conquered on every occasion. It was a source of no small measure of pride to him in fact, that his name was quite possibly the most feared in all the Seven Kingdoms of Atlantis, that when Atlantean warriors sat in their circles at night to eat their supper they all told stories of 'The Golden One's' achievements, or that when the people of earth ranked their greatest heroes his name regularly featured among them (Or at least the title 'Aquaman' did, but Arthur chose to ignore that.)

He would have quite happily given up all that hard one, grudging respect from both the bottom and surface-dwellers at that very moment though, if only to escape his current unenviable task; escorting Mera of Xebel, his newest - and quite possibly to date greatest – rival, towards her destiny.

Becoming his brothers bride.

When Arthur had first been handed this job he had thought to himself lucky. A mission that didn't involve him risking life and limb fighting some soulless monster of the deeps? Fantastic! Just carting some spoilt rich girl from one cushy palace to a slightly different cushy palace? Easy, just load her into the back of the reef-raider, hit the cruise control, then put his feet up and relax. It was gonna be the first thing resembling a holiday he'd had in almost four years! He shoulda realized at the time it was too good to be true, that there was a reason no body wanted this gig. After all, why else would Poesdonis send it's resident dogsbody to fetch the princess of Xebel, if not because every slopey-shouldered noble with a lick of influence, surely better suited for such a delicate diplomatic task than a bruiser like him, knew better than to take the damn job on!

Ever since he had collected her from her father Nereus in Xebel - and tense meeting in itself, considering that Arthur had disfigured him years ago in a duel - she had been nothing but hassle. Whatever pain Nereus might have felt since losing to Arthur's hands was nothing compared to the constant headache caused by Mera's constant complaints, criticism's and cutting barbs. It seemed she couldn't even look at Arthur without spitting venom. At first he had thought it was just her pre-wedding nerves, perhaps a frightened girls way of dealing with the fact that in a few short weeks she would be marrying a man she had never before met, purely to strengthen the links between two kingdoms that liked nothing better than to declare war on each other. Now though, now he wasn't so sure.

Now he just reckoned it was because she was a bitch.

The sliding doors behind him opened with a whoosh, the fragile peace Arthur had in the cockpit in danger of disappearing. Luckily it wasn't Mera come to berate him for some new infraction, instead it was Vulko. The old Scholar had joined Arthur in his task on the pretence that he desired a break from hectic life in the capital, though the blonde Atlantean suspected that the truth was that Vulko's divisive personality had angered the wrong noble, and he was merely making himself scarce while the heat died down. Never one to rest on his laurels, the old advisor had set right to the task of arguing the odds with the Princess of Xebel whenever the opportunity presented itself. No subject was too big or too small for that pair, and it seemed that Orm Ap Marius' inherent dislike for the Scholar was a trait his bride-to-be passionately shared. Not that Arthur minded. If she was screaming at Vulko then she wasn't screaming at him.

Vulko looked flustered, heavy black brows arched in a furious frown, mouth clenched in a grim line. The doors had barely whispered shut behind him before he was getting down to bitching.

“That fool of a woman, she is infuriating in the extreme!” He said, throwing himself into the seat next to Arthur.

“You don't say?” Replied the Prince, his sarcasm a touch too mild because the Scholar didn't notice it. That or he chose to ignore it and forge on anyway.

“I do say! I do indeed! She vexes me at every opportunity. If I say up, she immediately set's her self to not just saying down, but left, right, sideways and backwards too. Anything, as long as it runs contrary to whatever I have said!” Vulko had leapt back up from his seat, his face going from a deep crimson to a deeper violet, Arthur half wondering if the older man was mid-heart attack.

“What'ya wanting me to say Vulko? She does the same thing to me, or she did leastways, till I realized the trick was to ignore her. I reckon she only does it for the rise she gets outta us. No rise, no fun. No fun, and what's the point?”

“So your advice, as roundabout and littered with grammatical errors as ever, is to take the high road?”

“Pretty much.”

Vulko seemed to think about it for a moment, before scoffing loudly.

“Hardly a suitable option for one such as myself! I mean, really, I have tutored some of the greatest statesmen and orators our fine city has ever borne witness too! For one such as I to cede an argument to one such as her, well it's preposterous! Incredulous even! It would be like a warrior of your calibre submitting to a child armed with a stuffed toy! I shan't, nay, I can't do it!”

Arthur chuckled softly. The old bullshit merchant always did have a knack for making him laugh, even if it was rarely intentional.

"You're a glutton for punishment Vulko, and that's all there is to it."