Everyone’s favorite oceanic hero is coming back next year in Aquaman is coming back for a brand-new adventure.

In the Before Aquaman hits the shelves, Screen Rant sat down with writer Jeremy Adams, who spills all the details on what’s next for the king of the seas.

Screen Rant: Jeremy, you made your mark on The Flash, you've been crushing it on Green Lantern, with Green Lantern Corps coming down the pipeline. What's the allure of writing an Aquaman book?

Jeremy Adams: I think it's more of a challenge in some ways. It's also on my Geoff John's checklist as I jokingly call it. I told him that the other day I was like "So, evidently, I'm just following a path.". You know, Aquaman, I had a good idea, or at least I thought it was good idea. And I see where I am in the industry, I'm trying to have a realistic expectation of where I am as a writer, especially in DC. I'm looking at the books that aren't being done, and I'm thinking "Oh, man, it would be really cool to get another book, and it'd be fun to do something that I quantifiably think is hard." I think Aquaman is hard, you know, I think it's a hard character, right? I think the continuity of the character has been many different things over the years, like Peter David's continuity. I don't actually think is in continuity, but you know, he took his huge swings. And so it is a character that existed for a long time, but I could never put my finger on, like, what's his personality? You know, other than stoic, so that is interesting to me. And it's interesting just in of the challenge of it. Like, I think I'm taking a diversion from what is normally Aquaman, and taking them into a different arena that maybe work. Maybe it won't, but I'm giving it a shot.

I think with a more general reader audience, Aquaman has this perceived lameness to him thanks to a cartoon from 50 years ago. Is it hard working with a character that's got the deck sacked against him like that?

Jeremy Adams: A little bit? That in particular is interesting to me. I know we joke about it, but between the Brave and the Bold cartoon, which did a great version of Aquaman to Jason Momoa, to Geoff Johns' Aquaman, who really pushed into "Oh, you thought I was a a loser, but I'm awesome.". I feel like we can push beyond it. I think it's hard. There is a weird perception thing, and I don't know if it's just the otherness of Aquaman being in water and Atlantis and that whole other thing. I'm hoping that this will be a version that people can connect with. I don't shy away from the hardness. I think that's kind of a fun thing to play with. I'm definitely, like, a huge nerd. So it's, it's a little bit like "Here's Wally West. He's been abused by for years. Good luck.". The same thing with Aquaman, trying to find those hooks of what would make Aquaman fun to me, because I'm a superhero fan. But it was never like I was reading everything that had Aquaman in it. I think it gives me some perspective. Like, what would make me a guy that would be like "Oh my gosh, I love this character."? So it's fun to dive into that.

Jeremy Adams: And it's also fun to think about the life of this kid that grew up near a lighthouse. And I've said, I've been saying this a lot, but the only analogous thing is, like, when people don't acknowledge that Spider-Man is super strong, you're like "He has super strength too.". You know, it's sort of like, Aquaman lived on the surface for a long time, he grew up on the surface, he probably likes hamburgers. There are things that he probably misses or enjoys and just exploring those dimensions to him. And I say it in the first issue, this isn't about him being a boy, a king, a lover, a superhero, or whatever. It's about him being this other thing that we're going to go into, but he is all those things as well. And what does that mean as a character? I think he has probably more responsibilities than a lot of superheroes do, because he has all these things. And how does that weigh on his psyche, and how does that weigh on him as a person? It's interesting to me, so it'll be interesting to explore.

Let's dive into the meat of the story. You're building off the ending of Absolute Power, which had this big power swap among heroes. Aquaman's one of the biggest characters we've seen deal with this. He's been affected by the power swap. How's that inform your story?

Jeremy Adams: So interestingly, editorial was like "Hey, we're doing this power swap thing, so could you figure out something?". And it ends up adding a neat little wrinkle to Aquaman in of a power set that maybe he's not used to, but he isn't going to be as elegant as maybe Mera was with it, but he's incredibly powerful. I mean, he's a metahuman, right? So he's super powerful, and he gets this thing that he's not as elegant in of intricate water constructs, but he knows how he can make a tide rise. You know, you can use it to smash into people. Especially in issue two, he starts to use it in a peculiar fashion. But that's just a byproduct of "Hey, this is happening in the universe." And they asked me to do it, and I was happy to figure out how to make that an integral piece of him as a character. And it's been fun. It's weirdly like a superhero just getting a power for the first time, so he's exploring it in a way, like, if this was a book about Mera, then I would be doing it that way too. Probably I'd be having her explore that power in a different way.

Jeremy Adams:Even with Green Lantern, I very much at first, I was like, "What constructs has he not done?". I want to see him do something that he's never done with a construct. That was kind of a fun task. And it was like a dare to myself. And so here, it's like, here's this hydrokinesis. And because I've never really written hydrokinesis, it's been fun to be like "Well, what other things can you do with it? What other interesting pieces of this can you do? And that's been fun to kind of mess with. The second one has him doing a lot of wild things with it, which is interesting.

This is an element that I don't think we see in the first issue, but we've seen this idea of the Blue brought up in the solicitations. Obviously, the Green is probably the most well known force, the Red to a little lesser extent. But these are elements that we've seen a lot of. The Blue is a little bit more mysterious. What is it? What are you doing with it in your story?

Jeremy Adams: There was a there was just a mini eries of Jackson Hyde and Aquaman's kid, where they were going through the Confluence, which was kind of like an interconnected sea through the universe. And I was like "Oh maybe they're all under the umbrella of this thing called the Blue. You have the Speed Force, you have the Green, you have the Red. It makes sense to me, and it's probably because I'm steeped in the Emotional Spectrum, that there would be something called the Blue that connects all water throughout the universe, and also water being this kind of magical element that is the reason for life, you know, the reason for anybody existing on Earth. So that degree, those threads of the Blue, and the fact that there's a water kaiju, the fact that this pearl opens a gate and things happen to Atlantis. It's like somebody's using it, something's happening with it. And Aquaman, part of his journey is going to be exploring that and find out who is 'down the drain' (laughs).

You did bring up the pearl, which I find interesting because it came up in Flashpoint Beyond, The Flash, and recently, Batman: Brave and the Bold. Has the pearl evolved in a way, or is it something that you've been planning for a while?

Jeremy Adams: That's a good point. I think it's evolved in a way. Initially, in Flashpoint Beyond, it was a bit of a MacGuffin. It was this thing that I added that I thought was mysterious and interesting and put it in there with the Flashpoint Aquaman. And then, in The Flash...I'm a creator hoarder, you know? If I create something, it's never gone forever. It's sort of like making Gold Beetle. She'll appear again. And even with this, I wasn't even thinking about Aquaman. And then suddenly, The Brave and the Bold is where it all kind of clicked. It was I had mentioned "Hey, there should be this thing called the Blue, and we got this pearl..." and they were "That's too good of an idea for this issue. You should pitch Aquaman." And I did. I literally texted my editor, like "I gotta pitch for Aquaman." And he was "Oh, thank goodness, we were thinking about Aquaman".

Jeremy Adams: I think they understood it and I also think that they're putting a lot of faith in me to let me have a little more free reign with this and just kind of go a little wild with it, because it's not your traditional Aquaman story. It's not "Hey, can we just get Aquaman saving people on boats?" And I'm like "You've had 50 years of that.". Right now, I just wanted to do something a little different in the interim, and to see if I can pull it off. Because again, I think Aquaman is a hard character, and I really want to get to know him as a character before he goes back and saves a cat from a swimming pool.

One of the things I think you do really well is family dynamics. And obviously, Aquaman has his own family, but you're doing something different with your book. Talk about that a little bit.

Jeremy Adams: I think that's probably why I'm trying to stretch myself as a writer as well, and not fall back on it at the same time. It's the same thing in Green Lantern. It's like, I start with Hal, but then I start putting in a lot more characters to where we now have the Green Lantern Corps coming out and it is like family, and there is those pieces of it. And I really enjoy that. And I think there will be a time, hopefully in the future, to be able to explore that with him, potentially. But I always have to start first with a way just to get readers and new readers involved. I don't want to throw like five characters you're not familiar with. I want to concentrate on this one character so that you get invested in him enough that when and if that happens later on down the line, a big if, that you're there.

Jeremy Adams: I want people to really get an idea of who Aquaman is, to me, at least in this run, so that they're more invested when those other pieces of his life show back up. Like I said, it's a departure for me. So in that way, it's a bit scarier, because I was so emotionally invested in The Flash that it wrecked me so. And Hal is a totally different dynamic that I really enjoy, but it's gotten so cosmic and so big. I want to make sure that I get back down to the humanness of it and the same with Aquaman. I want to start in a very human place, where you get this thing ripped away from you, and you're gonna go through hell to get it back. But in that, that journey, you're gonna learn a lot about who he is.

We're still in this amazing, cohesive era with DC All In. What do you want to say about what this book means on the larger, grander scale of All In and what it represents?

Jeremy Adams: Oh my gosh. So what's really fun is, if you read the All In Special, there's a lot of happening with Darkseid. You've got the Absolute Universe. Obviously, the end of our first issue really like hints at things. The second issue is going to bring about a prophecy that might have something to do with that. And so it's really fun. I think for me, as a nerd, is just being able to be involved in a continuous universe like this, and being able to play on those themes that are happening in other books in this book, because whereas Aquaman won't be maybe front and center in our world at the moment, it'll still be taking part in what's going on in the All In universe.

Aquaman #1 is available from DC Comics on January 8th, 2025.