Exclusive DC Preview: Aquaman Launches Into a New Storyline In #19, H2.O

DC has provided ComicBook.com with an exclusive preview of Aquaman #19, the first part of the new "H2.O storyline."

You can check the preview pages out in the attached image gallery and the solicitation text below.

Since the launch of the Rebirth-branded Aquaman series by writer Dan Abnett, the titular hero has been torn between the worlds of land and sea, with nobody totally happy with him at any given time.

In recent storylines, he's found himself thrown in prison by the surface world and experienced an assassination attempt by Atlantean radicals.

It's those radicals he now finds himself forced to team with in "H2.O."

"When you're embarking upon a book when you remit is not to change the status quo anymore than necessary, there is also a way of looking at what is already there and seeing how far you can go with that," Abnett told ComicBook.com back when the series was about to launch. How interestingly you can develop and explore those things. We already know who Aquaman is, we know what he does, we know what his role is in the world. We know that he's not only a superhero, but he's also a man of dry land and of sea and he's also a king, and therefore has the responsibilities of a nation. That nation is in a sort of state of permanent tension with the surface world. Those elements are already established."

"One of the things we're doing right off the bat is to see how far we can go with that and actually turn our focus. Rather than make that part of the landscape existing, to make that part of the driver of the story, so that those things are issues that he wants to get his hands on and deal with and grapple with," Abnett added. "In purely logistical terms, for instance, we worked out that Aquaman actually seems to be a much more popular character when he is - to use a terrible pun - a fish out of water. That is to say, put into a dry land situation where he is encountering the real world. Somehow that makes him more impressive than when he is in his oceanic surroundings where we expect to see him."

"H2 POINT O" part one! A new storyline begins when Aquaman must forge a tense alliance with the very people who‑ once tried to assassinate him: the super-military team called the Aquamarines! They need his expertise when an Antarctic research base goes offline with blood in the water.