Aquaman’s Love Interests
Aquaman and Mera are one of the long running couples in superhero comics. But Aquaman has a number of ex-partners.
First married in the sixties, Aquaman and Mera are credited as the first married superheroes in comics. Their relationship has preserved over several decades and their family continues to grow. But as we might expect from any story spanning five decades, the couple have encountered a few detours.
Not only did Aquaman have a couple of relationships before he and Mera started seeing on another, there are a couple of other romantic encounters in Aquaman’s life.
The First Love
In the Aquaman stories by Peter David, a reimagining of Aquaman’s origin story leads to a surprising first love. David’s story from the 90s presents Aquaman as a deserted child who is raised by dolphins.
Living with the dolphins leads a very young Aquaman to have romantic feelings for a dolphin. We probably shouldn’t be too harsh on the young Aquaman, he had never even seen another person let alone had any interactions with women.
The First Relationship
Growing up, Aquaman ventures onto land and ends spending a good deal of time in Alaska. Apparently impervious to the cold and willing to take on a polar bear when necessary, Aquaman meets Kako.
After living with Kako and her family for a while, Aquaman is forced to leave. He never knows that Kako was pregnant when he leaves.
The Sidekick
Getting involved with people you work with is never a great idea, but Aquaman took the plunge with his sidekick named Dolphin. She was actually a person, really. Dolphin was a human who had been genetically altered and really liked cut off shorts.
The intensity of their adventures followed by the relief of escape created a situation where they started a relationship, but as you can imagine there were problems. Mera and Dolphin didn’t exactly see eye to eye.
The Journalist
When San Diego is submerged and becomes the underwater city Sub Diego (did you catch the play on words), Aquaman has a brief relationship with a journalist named Ester Maris.
While the Sub Diego storyline titled American Tidal is a largely under rated storyline and not available in a collected edition, the inclusion of Ester Maris seemed like an excuse to try and put Aquaman on equal terms with Superman and Batman. Both Superman and Batman had been involved in challenging relationships with journalists (Lois Lane, Vicki Vale respectively). Unfortunately, Ester had a great deal to live up to.
Wonder Woman
There have been many rumours about Aquaman’s romantic interest in Wonder Woman. If you’ve watched the Justice League movie and have seen the hilarious clip where Aquaman is sitting on the lasso of truth, he very clearly show romantic interest in Wonder Woman.
Unfortunately, when the Flash travels back in time and saves his mother, he creates the Flashpoint timeline where Aquaman is at war with Wonder Woman. Their relationship had been discovered by Mera, leading Wonder Woman to end her life and wear her helmet as a trophy.
The Alien Queen
Aquaman’s romances have been the focus of other toxic situations. Maxima, Queen of the planet Almerac, arrived on Earth looking for an equally powerful mate. She declared Aquaman her intended (she also looked in on Superman as a possible candidate). Aquaman politely declined.
Aquaman and Mera remain a married couple with a growing family. They have overcome conflict and tragedy. While reboots and retcons have added characters and relationship, Aquaman and Mera are a happily married couple (most of the time).
For the 90s version of Aquaman’s youth, romantic interest in a dolphin, relationship with Kako and relationship with his sidekick named Dolphin, check out Peter David’s Aquaman Volume 1 and Aquaman Volume 2. For the Flashpoint storyline with Aquaman and Wonder Woman in a war destroying half the planet, check out Geoff Johns’ Flashpoint. (these are paid affiliate links and as an Amazon Associate I will earn a small income from qualifying purchases, but won’t cost you any more).
Originally published at https://neuromyths.substack.com.
