10 Best Aquaman Storylines in DC Comics, Ranked by Impact

Aquaman has been both the Justice League’s most powerful hero and the butt of many jokes, thanks mostly to his portrayal in the old cartoon, Super Friends. However, when creative teams take him seriously, Aquaman is one of the best, most nuanced characters in DC Comics. While the joke is that Aquaman just talks to fish, he is a powerhouse on the level of Superman and is just as majestic as Wonder Woman. He is a warrior king, a refugee, and a tragic monarch, and his stories often play into all of those themes. After years of jokes, it was Peter David who reframed Aquaman as a tragic fallen king in the 1990s, and that is just one of his many great stories over the years.

From sunken cities and dethroned kings to cosmic horror stories in the ocean, Aquaman has been the lead in some of DC Comics’ most ambitious epic stories.

10) Aquaman: Andromeda

Aquaman had a series in the DC Black Label line called Aquaman: Andromeda. This was a three-issue miniseries from 2022 by Ram V and Christian Ward that was a sci-fi cosmic horror story featuring the DC hero. The crew of an experimental deep-sea submarine called the Andromeda descends toward Point Nemo, a graveyard of sunken spacecraft in the Pacific Ocean, while Black Manta hunts the same site. This leads Aquaman to investigate a reality-warping structure tied to the Darkworld that awakens and shapes itself from the minds of those around it, blending psychological drama with Lovecraftian dread. This was a huge change for Aquaman stories, and delivered a mature, prestige-format miniseries that showed Aquaman at his most contemplative.

9) “Underworld”

“Underworld” is an Aquaman storyline from the DC Rebirth era, and it played out in Aquaman Vol. 8 #25-30 by Dan Abnett and Stjepan Sejic. The evil Corum Rath overthrew Aquaman and took the throne of Atlantis before sealing the city behind the Crown of Thorns barrier and persecuting all impure Atlanteans. However, Aquaman wasn’t dead, as Rath believed, and he went underground, joining a resistance movement in the slums of Atlantis alongside Vulko, a disgraced Mera, and the mute Atlantean Dolphin. This showed Aquaman as the king working as an outsider, fighting to reclaim his throne.

8) Aquaman: Sword of Atlantis

DC Comics relaunched Aquaman with a new title in 2006-2007, changing it to Aquaman: Sword of Atlantis from issues #40-57. The new creative team here was Kurt Busiek and Jackson (Butch) Guice. This was during the “One Year Later” jump, and it introduced a brand new Aquaman in a young Arthur Curry, a person genetically engineered to breathe underwater, who is mistaken for the missing original Arthur Curry. This was a swords-and-sorcery reinvention that played into Atlantean myth and magic, and it was nothing like anything that came before. If anything, this introduced Aquaman as a role, rather than as a single hero.

7) “American Tidal” / “Sub Diego”

These two interconnected storylines ran from Aquaman Vol. 6 #15-22 (2004) by Will Pfeifer and Patrick Gleason. The story begins when a massive earthquake sinks the western half of San Diego, killing hundreds of thousands and leaving the rest of the city’s survivors mysteriously able to breathe underwater thanks to scientist Doctor Anton Geist. Aquaman then shows up as the city’s protector and leader, which offers him a larger kingdom than just Atlantis. This is also the story that introduces Lorena Marquez as the new Aquagirl. This was great storytelling in grounding Aquaman amidst an American disaster story.

6) “Death of a King”

“Death of a King” is a New 52 storyline that ran in Aquaman Vol. 7 #17-19 and #21-25 by Geoff Johns and Paul Pelletier. This was the direct follow-up to “Throne of Atlantis,” and it sees the UN refusing to recognize Atlantis. Meanwhile, Atlantean weaponry surfaces worldwide, and the villain Scavenger makes his New 52 debut, hunting Atlantean relics. Aquaman tries to find the lost relics while Atlan, the original ruler of Atlantis, returns to reclaim the throne. This storyline was very important as it shows Aquaman was not the descendant of Atlantis’s original leader, but of Atlan’s xenophobic brother Orin, who killed him.

5) “The Trench”

“The Trench” was the first Aquaman story of the DC New 52 relaunch. This ran in Aquaman Vol. 7 #1-6 (2011-2012) by Geoff Johns and Ivan Reis. The series sees Arthur and Mera move to Amnesty Bay, Maine, and then encounter carnivorous, insectoid sea creatures called the Trench that surface to abduct humans as food for their hive queen. The Trench ends up as a lost tribe of Atlanteans who plunged into the Mariana Trench when the original Atlantis sank, and evolved into monsters by hunger and darkness. Johns smartly had characters mock Aquaman as the hero who talks to fish, only to turn the comic into a horror series and show he was so much more important than that old joke.

4) Atlantis Chronicles

Atlantis Chronicles is a prestige-format, seven-issue miniseries released in 1990 by Peter David and Esteban Maroto. This was not an actual Aquaman series, but it was instead a story that showed how Atlantis formed over the years, leading to Aquaman returning to claim the throne. This is a multi-generational epic chronicling the rise, fall, and exile of Atlantis through historical manuscripts narrated by a series of in-world chroniclers across centuries. The series centers on warring brothers Orin and Shalako and the rise of Kordax, the first Atlantean to control sea life, founder of the curse that haunts Aquaman’s bloodline. While David’s 1994 series is his best, Atlantis Chronicles is his forgotten masterpiece.

3) Aquaman: Time and Tide

Aquaman: Time and Tide is a four-issue miniseries by Peter David and Kirk Jarvinen from 1993 that works as a post-Crisis on Infinite Earths retelling of Aquaman’s origin. The series reveals Arthur was abandoned as a baby due to his blond hair (the Curse of Kordax) and was raised by dolphins before a lighthouse keeper named Tom Curry adopted him. This showed how Aquaman first met other heroes, starting with Barry Allen’s Flash. This was a hugely important series, as it helped David set up his landmark 1994 Aquaman series that would change everything about the King of Atlantis in DC Comics.

2) Aquaman: Death of a Prince

“Death of a Prince” is one of the most surprising and notorious Aquaman stories ever told. This originally ran in Adventure Comics #435-437 and #441-455, plus Aquaman #57-63, starting in 1977, before it was collected as Aquaman: Death of a Prince. Black Manta is on a mission of vengeance against Aquaman and murders Arthur and Mera’s infant son, Arthur Jr., in one of the most shocking “death of a child” storylines in comic book history. This destroys Arthur and Mera’s marriage, and it cemented Black Manta as Aquaman’s most hated archenemy.

1) Throne of Atlantis

“Throne of Atlantis” is a 2012-2013 DC crossover series that played out in Justice League #13-17 and Aquaman #14-16 by Geoff Johns, Ivan Reis, and Paul Pelletier. When a United States Navy missile drill misfires into Atlantean waters, Aquaman’s brother Orm (Ocean Master) uses war protocols Arthur once helped draft to launch tsunamis on Gotham, Metropolis, and Boston as an act of war on the surface world. Aquaman both fights the Justice League and his own brother as he tries to reclaim the throne. The twist here is that Aquaman’s advisor, Vulko, engineered the entire conflict to restore Arthur to power. This Aquaman storyline was turned into an animated movie and directly inspired the 2018 Aquaman movie.

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