My DC: Aquaman

The ocean world as I imagine it is not so much a superhero world, but fantasy . . . a place of epic heroism, knightly chivalry, and dark magic.  A place of many warring kingdoms.  The merfolk.  Lemuria.  And greatest of all, Atlantis . . . jewel of the seas.  This book would be more King Arthur than superhero fiction.

It begins as so many tragic tales do with a forbidden love.  In this case between the Atlantean princess Atlanna and a surface dweller, a lighthouse keeper named Tom Curry.  Enraged upon hearing that his daughter was pregnant with the child of a surface man, the king exiled her to spend her remaining days cut off from her people.

The child they named Arthur, called Orin in the Atlantean tongue.  A man caught between his loyalties to the surface, and the unending draw of the ocean.  Able to swim as a fish, breathe underwater as well as on land, and commune psychically with aquatic life.

Atlantis is a treacherous place.  There was a coup and the king was assassinated.  The only rightful heir to the throne was an exiled bastard, viewed as an abomination by the Atlantean people.

But the traitors who murdered the king were tyrants.  Their rule is a bloody one, and soon the voice of the ocean seems to cry out for a savior.  For a lost prince, who may be the only one who can save a people that fear him.  The sea life itself has anointed Arthur Curry it’s champion, even if his own people will not.