With such a massive cast of characters, Aquaman's cinematic outing only had time to splash the
surface of some of these characters' incredibly detailed backstories.
As it turns out, a lot of the names and faces in Aquaman have far greater importance than
you might've realized.
Spoilers ahoy.
It probably came as a surprise to non-comics fans that not all Atlanteans are created equal.
For example, only the high-borns can breathe air, and practically nobody can talk to fish.
For her part, Mera's unique power is the control of water.
In Aquaman, we saw some hints of that power when she held back a tidal wave to save Aquaman's
father, but that only touched on the true strength of her ability.
In Justice League #24, Mera went head to head against the entire Justice League, and she
H2-owned them without breaking a sweat.
And remember that time Frank Miller had Superman come within inches of death after a nuclear
bomb filled the atmosphere with dust?
Mera went up against a nuke and saved herself and Aquaman by putting them both in a bubble.
Easy.
Then in the Mera: Queen of Atlantis storyline, she became you guessed it the queen of Atlantis
after throwing down against Ocean Master for the throne.
Kind of like what Aquaman did, but a whole lot easier.
Hail to the Queen.
Aquaman the movie was largely inspired by the Geoff Johns run on Aquaman the comic,
but the film made one major character change.
In the comic series, King Nereus isn't Mera's dad he's her fiance.
Or at least, he is until she falls in love with Aquaman, at which point he becomes her
lifelong enemy.
Surprisingly, ol' Captain Redbeard hasn't been a fixture of DC comics for very long.
His first appearance was in the same Geoff Johns-penned storyline, and he later emerged
from the comic book depths again to work with Atlan to destroy Atlantis in the "Death of
a King" storyline.
Despite being more of a sidekick to the villains than the main villain himself, Nereus has
spent a lot of effort trying to get rid of Aquaman.
Guess that whole thing about having his fiance leave him really got under his skin.
For all the screentime Black Manta got in the Aquaman trailers, the black-suited villain
showed up for precious little of the actual film.
After spending much of the beginning focusing on Black Manta's origins and the start of
his quest for revenge against Aquaman, the movie shifts gears to the main Orm vs. Arthur
plot, sidelining Black Manta as merely the main bad guy's flunky.
The film doesn't come close to exploring the true relationship between Black Manta and
Arthur.
A dig through comics history reveals that Black Manta has been terrorizing Aquaman since
1967, concocting schemes up to and including collapsing the Earth to create his own underworld
kingdom.
If there's one character we would have loved to see more in Aquaman, it would definitely
be Black Manta.
Oh well, there's always the sequel!
This big-daddy Atlantean lived on-screen mostly through flashbacks that showed the rise and
fall of Atlantis, but like just about everybody in a comic book movie, there's a lot more
to him than that.
In some of Aquaman's comic book origin stories, Atlan is actually Arthur's biological father,
but even if you ignore all that and focus on the Geoff Johns run on Aquaman, Atlan is
way more than a mere prop that holds a shiny trident.
As the Dead King, Atlan spent thousands of years in hibernation before rising again to
destroy Atlantis.
There are a lot of similarities between that story and what we saw in the movie Aquaman
uses Atlan's trident to summon the Trench and save Atlantis, and Arthur takes his rightful
place as king.
Like most comics characters, Orm has gone through a lot of changes over the years.
For the most part, his story mirrors what we saw in the film he's Aquaman's half brother
who wants to be king of Atlantis, and he hates garbage.
Pretty standard stuff for the fish people.
But travel back a few years to the comic books, and things get a lot more fun.
In 2005's Retroverse storyline, for example, Orm uses some of Arthur's bones to cast a
spell that reverses reality and turns Orm into Aquaman.
That's right Orm has magical powers, and he's not afraid to use them on his half-brother's
disembodied hand.
In the earlier Underworld Unleashed story arc, Orm goes even further by selling his
soul to a demon in exchange for a magical trident.
The Joker, we should point out, sells his for a box of cigars.
That's the version of Orm we would have loved to see, but apparently it was all too crazy
for the movie where people go to war riding on fish.