What Geoff Johns Can Bring to Aquaman Series: Mythos



There are comic book characters who are near impossible to make click for readers and then there are those that seem impossible, but they’re just tough cookies.

Aquaman is one such tough cookie.

So here comes Geoff Johns who thinks he can work the same magic he’s worked on Flash, Green Lantern, and Flash (again) to the King of the Sea. Can he do it? Well, this is going to sound cliché, but if anyone can do it, he can.

And the proof is in his six-year successful run on Green Lantern, a book that quickly brought the character to A-list status. This was not just about Johns bringing the character back to his former glory and writing really wonderful superhero stories—he did that for sure. But the success of this book, the thing we will talk about and refer to for years to come is this:

Mythos.

Since bringing the character back in Green Lantern: Rebirth, Johns began a sprawling space epic that has introduced an even more expansive and colorful universe than the book had ever explored. In the events leading up to the “Sinestro Corps War”, Johns established that there was far more to Sinestro’s power than a single yellow ring. There was a yellow force in the universe to be reckoned with and it was prepared to rain destruction upon anything that got in its way. It is here that we begins to learn that there are other lanterns, outside of just the green and the yellow.

We got a new Aqualad in Brightest Day. Expect Aquaman's universe to expand,
in much the same way GL's has (above), in the pages of his new series.

At the end of Sinestro storyline, Johns teased something called “Blackest Night”—the words taken from Green Lantern’s famous oath. Readers, probably a bit spent from a year of Sinestro, were treated to the writers re-envisioned take on GL’s origin in the “Secret Origin” storyline. In it, Hal Jordan is introduced to and eventually battles Hector Hammond while joining the Green Lantern Corps where he is trained in part by Sinestro.

Black Manta has continued to be a formidable
foe for Aquaman. Expect him to become even more so.

After “Secret Origin” Johns began counting down to Blackest Night by introducing all of the other colored lanterns—and giving them their own unique identities and motivations.

So, for the readers, Johns has continued to build upon all of these ideas and establish this wonderful and ever-expanding universe. But what he is also doing is laying groundwork for the writers who will eventually follow. For as much as Johns has told in the pages of Green Lantern, he’s really only scratched the surface of what can be done with all of these characters and their individual stories.

The success of Green Lantern has already begat two ongoing series, two DC Universe movies, an ongoing series on the Cartoon Network, and a new movie this summer (which, incidentally, has been said to use “Secret Origin” as its source of inspiration).

I believe it is  this sprawling epic approach that Johns will bring to his run on an ongoing Aquaman series.

For fans of the character, while I expect Johns to tinker with certain elements of Aquaman’s history, I think he’s going to bring a richness to what is already there. He’ll use the good, discard the bad, and then add a whole lot of the unexpected as he begins the development of his expansive Aquaman.

With a heaping help of mythos.