Aquaman and the Matter of Atlantis: A Brief Review

Aquaman and the Matter of Atlantis

Guest Post by Carl B. Sell

 

James Wan’s Aquaman is firmly entrenched (no pun intended) in its source material, even while it makes changes and shifts to the established DC Comics’ “canonical” versions of Aquaman’s history and his rise to the throne of Atlantis. Wan’s film is based on the DC Comics runs of Geoff Johns, who even assisted in the writing of the film. Johns’s story arcs for DC’s New 52 version of Aquaman, notably The Trench, Throne of Atlantis, and Death of a King are all condensed and adapted for the filmic version of Arthur Curry—this includes the Arthurian aspects of Johns’s runs and the links between Arthur, King of Atlantis and the (arguably) more famous Arthur, King of the Britons. 

 

The Arthurian connections begin almost immediately in Wan’s film and continue throughout the 2 hour and 23 minute run time of DC’s latest entry in its cinematic universe. Aquaman makes no attempt to hide its borrowing of Arthurian themes—nor does its comics source material—and in fact seems to desire an explicit as well as implicit connection between the two Arthurs. Tom Curry, Arthur’s father, suggests that he and Atlanna, the escaped Atlantean queen, name their son Arthur, as Tom recalls the power of the mythic king. Arthur Curry, like that famous king of legend, is to serve as a uniter of warring peoples, though instead of various tribes of Britons, Aquaman must unite the seemingly disparate Atlantean factions as well as the people of the land. No mean task for a man who feels like he truly belongs to neither world, the human nor the Atlantean.

 

However, all seem to be aware of his role, none more so than his mother, Atlanna. She tells the young Arthur a story about the trident of Atlan, the legendary king of Atlantis, and that only the rightful king, the true king, can find it and wield it in service to his people. If this sounds similar, it should: this is an obvious connection to the sword in the stone motif of Arthurian legend, and one that Johns and his predecessors in the Aquaman comic title, Peter David and Rick Veitch use heavily. The notion of a “bastard” being the rightful king of Atlantis is also called into question, another clear parallel with Arthurian legend. With these themes of rightful kingship, questionable parentage, and monarchial love relationships, Johns and Wan draw inspiration from Malory. Johns is no stranger to the Arthurian themes and characteristics of Le Morte Darthur; in fact, his Aquaman: Death of a King story arc is a near-perfect parallel to the rise and fall of the legendary King Arthur—albeit with adapted revisions and reimaginings that fit with Jason Tondro’s explorations of the categories of Arthurian comics. While the film carries on with these parallels, it remains, of course, a new vision of Aquaman which is adapted from the New 52 comics and not meant to be a complete rehashing of Johns’s former work with the character.

 

As in Le Morte Darthur, Aquaman’s king is conceived by a royal figure who may or may not be married at the time of Arthur’s conception and birth: the film never explicitly reveals if Tom and Atlanna were married, which adds the ambiguity of Arthur’s birth which is also present in the early life of Malory’s Arthur. Of course, the gender reversal of the royal figure from whom Arthur claims his birthright—the line of his mother, Atlanna, versus the primogeniture line of Uther Pendragon for King Arthur—is a difference, but not a major one for Wan’s film, as in Atlantis it seems that kings can be made from either side, the mother or the father. Atlanna, fleeing an arranged marriage, still parallels Malory’s Igraine, who flees the unwanted advances of Uther; yet, like Igraine, Atlanna does eventually marry the new king of Atlantis, and conceives another child, Orm, who will take the place of Morgan le Fay in both the comics and the film. 

 

Like Malory’s Arthur, Arthur Curry is hidden away from his birthright. Kept from the political machinations of the sea kingdoms, Arthur is raised by his father, who teaches him the system of honor and duty that will guide Arthur’s life both as the Justice League member Aquaman and as the eventual King of Atlantis. The Māori culture to which he and his father belong—a change, of course, modeled on the fact that lead actor, Jason Momoa, is of Māori decent. This change does not feel out of place, however, as it adds to the differences between human culture and those of the various peoples of Atlantis, which only serves to heighten the importance of Arthur Curry’s unification of land and sea when he becomes king. Arthur Curry is also taught by Vulko, his mother’s trusted advisor, who functions as a Merlin figure in the life of young Arthur (perhaps in a nod to T. H. White’s Merlyn, who trains “Wart” to be a good king). Why Vulko trains Arthur in the ways of Atlantis is never really made explicit, but it can be assumed that he, like Merlin before him, knows that Arthur will unify nations and ardently believes that the young king-in-waiting must embrace his destiny. Vulko’s role seems to be much smaller in the film than in the comics, which perhaps comes from the necessary shortening of the film and the condensing of the various story arcs from the comics into a single, cohesive narrative, but Vulko feels a bit wasted in Aquaman. Perhaps, like Batman vs. Superman before it, Aquaman will eventually see an extended version that answers some nagging questions—particularly about how and why Vulko finds Arthur when no one else seems to be able to, or the fact that no one questions the time Vulko remains on the surface to train the young prince, or when and why those lessons stop—but, for now, we may only guess at the reasons and attempt to fill in the gaps with not only Johns’s runs of Aquaman comics, but also with our understanding of Malory and other Arthurian stories.

 

Orm, Aquaman’s brother and King of Atlantis (at least before Arthur himself proves his worth), hates his older brother, whom he sees as the reason Atlanna was banished by her Atlantean husband to The Trench to die. Orm functions as a Morgan le Fay character because of that hate: he blames his brother for all of his ills just as Morgan blames Arthur for the death of her father, her political marriage, and nearly all else in her life. Also like Morgan, Orm has a chance at redemption in the end. In Malory, Morgan is one of the queens who carries Arthur away to Avalon to be healed, proving that she is no longer out to see her brother dead; in Aquaman (the film as well as the comics), Orm cedes the throne to Arthur when he defeats him in combat with the trident of Atlan—and at the urging of their mother, also returned from The Trench. Orm’s hatred of the land stems from Arthur’s birth and his mother’s exile, and, in a way, could also be considered a kind of Mordred figure; whichever we chose to see him as, however, he remains alive and will likely play a vital role in any Aquaman sequel.

 

Without spoiling too much of the film, Arthur’s worthiness is proved when he claims Atlan’s trident in much the same way as Arthur Pendragon’s claim to the British throne is proven when he draws the sword from the stone and when he claims Excalibur from the Lady of the Lake (see the image above for an even more blatant connection between Excalibur and Atlan's trident). Atlan’s role in the film is significantly shortened and changed from Johns’s Death of a King story arc, though his importance as the last king of a truly unified Atlantis—an Atlantis that had yet to sink—creates yet another Arthurian parallel: Atlan left his kingdom after it fell and his trident was hidden away until Arthur reclaims it. The reference here is, of course, to King Arthur’s journey to Avalon and crafts Arthur Curry as a returned Arthur, a new Arthurian king that will once again unite the disparate peoples into a united front to combat evil. While I still hope for Atlan’s return and the revelations that come with it—Death of a King remains my favorite of Johns’s stories, and pits two Arthurian figures against each other—I can at least be glad that all of Johns’s arcs are used and referenced in the film (Arthurian content, of course, included).

 

Wan’s Aquaman—with more than a little help from Geoff Johns, it seems—continues the tradition of Aquaman-as-Arthur established by DC comics and the more recent iterations of Arthur Curry. While adaptations are necessarily different than their source material, Aquaman holds its own, not just as a superhero film, but also as an Arthurian film. While Arthur (Curry) rules, Atlantis-as-Britain has a strong leader. But, while Orm and Black Manta live, Atlantis will never truly know peace—especially as it is pulled into the conflicts of the land with its king maintaining membership in the Justice League. I, for one, hope that the Matter of Atlantis will continue on the screen, and, of course, in the comics.