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dankovskaya · 2 years

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I beseech you for your Garth insight, wht personality of his do you like? Bc every version of him I've read is a little alienating to me (part of the reason why I prefer Jackson is bc Idk which Garth I'll get or wht even his backstory is now) so if I started to try and get invested in him wht stories or version would you recc?

Okay for absolute full disclosure here I’m currently getting into Aquaman comics chronologically. Primarily through the lens of Garth. And there are some things I had already read at some point, but in my current venture I’m just a little bit post-Crisis, so my knowledge of the Aquaman side of things in general is still relatively limited.

But I can definitely talk about Garth.

First things first, absolutely anything featuring a man calling himself Garth from any point later than the year 2011 is a completely different person. I can say that with full confidence even having read, like, no more than 2 comics including the Rebirth iteration of his character. It’s just not the same guy on seemingly any level, which can definitely account for the alienation aspect, and it’s very disappointing.

But on the topic of OG Garth. Let’s discuss his personality.

Something that stands out to me immediately about Garth is that he is very emotional. (Apparently a common theme among the characters I like.) But more than that, he’s emotional in like a shockingly healthy way? He does not bottle things up, if something hurts or upsets him he makes it known, if he feels betrayed or disrespected by someone he takes it up with them, and he’s not at all afraid of direct confrontation if it’s warranted.

But despite that, he remains consistently reserved, sensitive, and gentle, which is kind of a miracle among male comic book characters. He can have a temper too, but it only really comes up if something is stopping him from helping someone in trouble, or if he feels mistreated past a certain limit, and it never really feels like he’s lashing out unnecessarily. His continual willingness to stand up for himself in spite of his “softer” personality sticks with me.

And tying into all of the above he’s textually acknowledged for his talents in communication and later diplomacy, which, again, not usually traits emphasized in Superhero Men. This example is very cute:

Not that he doesn’t enjoy fighting. He definitely does. In fact, a few of his notable outbursts have been explicitly about his beef with pacifist philosophies LOL. Although he notably doesn’t go out looking for fights or starting them without good reason by any means. (I think this is a point of diversion between him and his imposter-self. Maybe. From what I’ve heard.)

Now backpedaling a bit, part of why all of his fairly healthy emotional and communicative traits are so charming to me is that he definitely is NOT without his issues. Idk how much you know about his backstory but for starters, he was abandoned and left to die as a baby, initially thought to be due to an Atlantean superstition regarding his purple eyes, surviving (mostly) on his own for a while and eventually being found by Arthur. Due to this, as well as the ambiguous and changeable state of his relationship with Arthur (whether they see each other as friends, brothers, or a father-son duo is. Complicated to say the least. It’s almost like a Jedi-Padawan type thing if you’re into star wars LMAO), Garth is kind of a walking hotbed of abandonment issues, theoretically at least. Like I said, he’s pretty healthy when it comes to expressing his needs and feelings. He's definitely more well-adjusted than Arthur ends up being.

Loneliness and a lack of belonging/identity are also huge themes with him as well. This is why the Titans are so important to Garth, even if his responsibilities and limitations prevent him from being a consistent member of the team. During maybe the first period where he genuinely doesn’t know where he stands with Arthur anymore, he goes off on his own to seek out his (purple-eyed) people and try to find his parents to give himself some sense of personal identity and find out who he is--as it turns out, he has immense trouble relating to them or even being civil with them at points, and ends up feeling like as much of an outcast with them as he does in Atlantis, ultimately realizing that his identity and who he fundamentally is are things that only he can decide for himself! Go Garth!

Some other issues he deals with are general insecurity and anxiety--these are mostly shown within the context of the Titans, where he’s often the odd one out as an Atlantean and severely limited in his abilities and effectiveness outside of the water (i.e. nearly suffocating to death all the time.) At the end of the original Teen Titans, Garth quits the team because he felt so deeply inferior and useless to them that it was making him actually severely physically ill to the point of passing out multiple times and people genuinely worrying he was going to die. That is a lot of anxiety. Though he doesn’t have nearly as much insecurity when he’s in the water, he's still shown to be A Worrier, and Tula makes fun of him for being too vigilant or in his own head, unable to loosen up and so on. Also, in his very first appearance, he is deathly afraid of fish!!!!!

Now for recs. First of all, if you’re insane or plan on being so in the future, this is a link to a complete reading order, which is what I’ve been loosely following. More specifically, Garth’s first appearance is in Adventure Comics #269. I would also recommend Adventure Comics #270 and #278. It’s some of the cutest shit ever, but it has little bearing on his later appearances.

From then I would go to Aquaman v1 (1962). Specifically #17-18, #23, #25, #33 (Tula intro!), and #40-47 (this arc is really drawn out and silly and Garth’s segments are mostly separate from the rest of the plot so after the first one you can honestly just skip through most of it until you see Garth or Tula LOL). He’s also in Teen Titans v1 during this time, I would read the first issue and then skip to #19, #28-29, #30, #40 (kilt moment), #45-53. Also, The Brave and the Bold (2008) #10 is a very cute story that focuses on Garth and takes place during this era.

Sort of concurrent to the Titans appearances is maybe the first major Aquaman storyline which you can find as a trade paperback (on readcomiconline lol) called Aquaman: The Death of a Prince. Basically Arthur is put through a meat-grinder of facing a bunch of his villains back to back, being deposed as the King of Atlantis, losing Arthur Jr., and as a result, becoming estranged from Garth and Mera. This is where you also find the first real expansion of Garth’s backstory.

Then he pops up in New Teen Titans (1980) #23 and #33. Tales of the Teen Titans #45-47 + #50. New Teen Titans (1984) #6. And then Crisis on Infinite Earths happens wherein Tula is killed. It’s very minor and not worth reading the whole thing just to see that if you’ve never read it before. He sticks with the New Teen Titans (1984) team for a spell when almost everyone in the usual team is gone and/or going through a mental breakdown from #19-26 I believe, and the grief makes him very quiet and distant, but he breaks through it by the end. Basically right after that are the events of Teen Titans Spotlight #10 with a very odd psychedelic story where he has like a telepathic battle with Mento lol, and later in #18 of the same book.

Congratulations, you are now caught up with me. This has also gotten disturbingly long, so I’m going to cut it off here. If you actually make it through all this and would like more recommendations for Garth past this point feel free to ask again. Or if you get sick of reading these older comics and don’t care about skipping ahead/potentially not understanding shit, he shows up pretty consistently in Aquaman v5 (and the excellent Tempest (1996) miniseries where he makes the moniker-switch takes place after I think #25 of that), and Titans (1999).

#I may have something wrong with me.#dc #garth #garth of shayeris #dc comics #reading list #aquaman #arthur curry #aqualad #tempest #I spent a while on this im throwing it in every tag imaginable.#teen titans #new teen titans

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onafaarm · 2 years

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Important discussion being had down at the JLA headquarters

#justice league #zack snyder's justice league #i'm starting to think i could do one with the end scene as well #i should probably tag them all #bruce wayne #barry allen #victor stone #diana prince #arthur curry #mine #wooo i'm back baybee #here to give you shitty stuff again #sorry if this has already been done i don't go in tags anymore

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avatarskywalker78 · 3 months

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It's Work-in-Progress Wednesday and I've been working on a couple of them! First up is, of course, from the first part of my Aquafam AU, this time from Arthur's POV, just after the revelation about what Orvax had been telling his brother (Arthur is...very pissed off, and very worried)

Orvax had been a bastard. Arthur had known this, even before he knew of Orm’s existence, and he’d been well aware of how pervasive his influence was, knew he was the reason Orm had turned out like he did, and it had been a real battle at times not to insult the man, because despite everything, Orm still got very defensive. And Arthur didn’t want to jeopardize their relationship so he’d been waiting for the day when his brother admitted he’d been a shitty father. But this. The fact that not only had Orvax sacrificed Mom to the Trench in a jealous rage, but had then turned around and convinced their son that Arthur would come to kill him— It made him angry. It made him furious. Not once had he ever considered killing his little brother, and it was a good thing that Orvax was dead, because…what kind of parent did that? One who didn’t deserve to be called a parent, that's for damn sure – the fact Orm had tried to deflect, had visibly tried to stop himself crying, had told him everything. Bastard. He hoped Orvax was rotting in whatever the Atlantean equivalent of Hell was.

(All the Currys hate Orvax, by the by - Maia and Arthur both voice this thought later on)

I also started working on my Firefly AU. This part is from Mal's POV - it's his kid's birthday, but he thinks she died on Shadow as a seven-year-old, so he's feeling awful and very guilty about everything.

Sophia would've been eighteen today. Mal always remembered her birthday, had known this particular milestone-that-wasn't was coming and had been feeling steadily worse about it for several weeks, and as he sat up the grief hit him like a freight train, as it always did. Eighteen. His daughter would've been eighteen. She'd have been taking her first steps into becoming a young woman down whatever path she'd chosen for herself and Mal knew he would've been so proud of her in whatever field she'd chosen, knew in his heart that she'd have succeeded... But she'd never gotten the chance - hadn't even gotten the chance to grow up, and as he reached inside the cabinet for the only image he had left of her, the guilt threatened to swamp him again as he looked at the bright, smiling six-year-old. It had cost a lot to get the camera, all those years ago, but he'd wanted to preserve the memories, be able to keep the memories of his kid and his best friend. If only he'd known. If only he'd realised how much danger they'd be in- This was, Mal knew, an utterly useless line of thinking. Point was, he hadn't known, and he hadn't been there, and no amount of wishing would get them back.

(Sophia and Xiulan turn out to be alive, but that doesn't erase the years worth of grief).

Tagging (let me know if you want to be added or removed): @shrinkthisviolet

#work in progress wednesday #wip: aquafam au part 1 #Arthur Curry #Orm Marius #wip: sophia reynolds au #Malcolm Reynolds #OC: Sophia Reynolds #she doesn't appear but she's mentioned a lot so I'm tagging her

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theofficialdailyplanet · 10 months

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jason mamoa an awful person but i'm really gonna miss having him in the dcu if they recast. having not only a proper polynesian aquaman but including the culture and practices in film? absolutely beautiful. and i doubt if dc does recast that we're ever getting that again

#like we NEED to keep aquaman either polynesian or hawaiian #aquaman #arthur curry #aquaman 2018 #dcu #dc comics #comic rant tag #shaza talk

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orange-s-mario · 2 years

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These are all different characters. You could probably make some case that the 2nd and 4th one are the same but still both Arhur Currys are different. Arthur Orin Curry has lots of history that the 2nd one (Arthur Curry) has but due to retcons they are different characters The 1st one is the only one whose name is literally Aquaman (He has an alias named Mr. Waterman, but that is not his name) None of these are to be confused with Arthur Curry Sr (the post-crisis Tom Curry), Arthur Curry Jr/III (rip), AJ (Arthur Joseph Curry), or Arthur Joseph Curry Arhur Joseph Curry and AJ are not to be confused with each other Also of note is that Earth-One Orm is full human, New Earth Orm is half-Atlantean and Prime Earth Orm is full Atlantean

#Aquaman #Mr. Waterman #Arthur Curry #Arthur Orin Curry #ocean master #guess I'll have to tag the three orms separately when i get there...#idkramblings #comic continuity and idenity ramblings #Aquaman Waterman #Human Orm #Half-Atlantean Orm #Atlantean Orm

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submarinerwrites · 1 month

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you know. it still fucks me up that the dc extended universe’s swan song was a two hour-long ode to sibling incest and ecofascism. and misogyny. like ok.

#i mean whatever but what the fuck.#dceu #arthur curry #orm marius #still dont have a relationship tag for them lol

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ormymarius · 4 months

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I like how Arthur didn’t give a fuck about Manta once Orm was in trouble during the possession, Manta tried to swing and Arthur was just focused on Orm the whole time.

#it can be something so personal #aquaman 2 spoilers #aquaman and the lost kingdom spoilers #< if you don’t have those tags filtered do it otherwise sorry for the spoilers #orm marius #arthur curry #dceu

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caterpillarinacave · 3 months

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A single chlorinated pool could end the royal bloodline of Atlantis

#Stole this from my own tags from my last post #Because it’s hilarious and it’s been making me laugh my whole shift #Imagine Arthur in middle school thinking he’s going to DOMINATE the swimming unit #Cut to his attempt to breathe chlorinated water. Cut to an excellent parent teacher phone call #“Yeah need to come get your son… he’s been screaming for forty five minutes… uh he says the “water burned to breathe in”…#“Perhaps we could offer you the number of a counselor…”#Aquaman #arthur curry #aquaman and the lost kingdom #aquaman 2 #orm marius

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reiignonme · 8 months

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🌊 YM'ERA XEBELLA CHALLA TAG DROP!!

#🌊 𝐑𝐎𝐋𝐄𝐏𝐋𝐀𝐘 ——— mera.#🌊 𝐅𝐀𝐂𝐄𝐂𝐋𝐀𝐈𝐌 ——— mera.#🌊 𝐀𝐄𝐒𝐓𝐇𝐄𝐓𝐈𝐂 ——— mera.#🌊 𝐀𝐁𝐎𝐔𝐓 ——— mera.#🌊 𝐃𝐄𝐒𝐈𝐑𝐄𝐒 ——— mera.#🌊 𝐑𝐄𝐋𝐀𝐓𝐈𝐎𝐍 ——— arthur curry.#🌊 𝐒𝐇𝐈𝐏 ——— mera x arthur.#👑 𝐎𝐎𝐂 ——— tag drop.

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fuscorooni · 1 year

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…

Hey, you.

Do you say Aquaman (like arctic, or abomination) or Aquaman (like apple, or attack)?

#dc comics #aquaman #arthur curry #orin #Atlantis #I don’t know how to tag this

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pluckyredhead · 6 months

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Character Profile: Koryak

And so we come to the last (but never least, not in my heart) Lost Titans profile: Koryak! My terrible, damp boy.

Look at him pout! How I love him.

Koryak debuted in the 1994 Aquaman series. (Note: I'm not sure what his last name is - his mother's is never mentioned, and even though I sometimes tag him as "Koryak Curry," I don't think he would use Arthur's last name, especially since even Arthur didn't use that name very much at the time.)

As I've mentioned before, Arthur has had a lot of different origins, but in the post-Crisis era, which the only era Koryak appeared in, Arthur's mother was the queen of Atlantis, and his father was Atlan, an ancient Atlantean sorcerer who impregnated her in a dream. Arthur was abandoned at birth because of the infidelity/his blond hair, was raised by dolphins (yes), and briefly lived with a human man named Arthur Curry who taught him English and gave him a human name to borrow.

Then Arthur - still a teenager at this point - went to Alaska, where he immediately rescued a teenage girl named Kako from a polar bear. Kako and her family took Arthur in in gratitude, and he and Kako fell in love. (Kako's family is sometimes said to be Inuit, sometimes Inupiat.)

Anyway, Arthur and Kako lose their virginities to each other. IN THE SNOW, FOR SOME REASON:

This is such an infuriating racist, sexist trope (the WOC with the broken English throws herself at the white hero, logic be damned - why isn't she wearing anything under her coat??? - but of course she will never be his wife, or anything more than a footnote in his story).

Immediately after this, tragedy strikes Kako's family, Arthur is blamed (it's not his fault), and he's thrown out. He returns to the ocean, and eventually goes on to become Aquaman, king of Atlantis, etc.

Years later, he returns to Alaska for plot reasons not worth going into, and that's when he meets Koryak, THE MOST NINETIES BOY OF ALL:

The shirtlessness, the swords, the hair! Truly a man of his era. (Boy? I always assumed he was about 18 here, but a Secret Files issue claims he was 16.)

Koryak is not Arthur's biggest fan, but after Kako turns into a fire elemental because this is the DCU and these things happen, Koryak decides to go to Atlantis with Arthur. Or, well, technically the city was called Poseidonis at the time, which will be important later.

Anyway, the Poseidonians are a little wary of a stranger at first, until Koryak saves a child's life and suddenly they love him. Koryak, who didn't really fit in in Alaska, is basking under the attention, but it doesn't go over well with the current king, Thesily (Arthur had stepped down a while back for Reasons), who is wildly jealous of Arthur, and fears Arthur is looking to take his throne back and now comes complete with heir.

So Thesily leads Koryak into a side room and tries to stab him to death. Luckily, a sudden earthquake causes a pillar to topple over and trap Thesily. Koryak gloats and leaves him to die. What a brat! I adore him!

The earthquakes aren't stopping, and the people of Poseidonis want to flee. Arthur tells them not to because a prophecy said they should stay, but Koryak leads the Poseidonians out of the city and to their sister city, Tritonis, which is where the merpeople live. There, the Poseidonians immediately proceed to be huge assholes to the Tritonians, using up their resources and being racist to them. (Introducing Koryak, an indigenous man and literally the only character of color underwater at this point in time, and having him lead a bunch of racist colonizers was...maybe not Peter David's best choice.)

Anyway, Koryak decides to open up some forbidden tunnels because he feels like it, and they turn out to be forbidden because they were imprisoning Kordax, Arthur and Koryak's evil immortal blond lizard man ancestor. Naturally.

Arthur rolls up with his crew (his girlfriend, his dad, and Garth) and Koryak and Garth throw down. It doesn't go well for Koryak:

I LAUGH EVERY TIME.

Anyway, Arthur's side wins, Kordax is killed, the Tritonians are freed, and Arthur decides that to make it up to them, the Poseidonians are going to serve them as slaves indefinitely. That...seems like compounding human rights violations on top of human rights violations, but okay. Anyway Koryak volunteers to stay and serve the Tritonians as well, because he feels guilty about what he's done.

...for a little while. Then he gets bored and decides they should leave. The king of Tritonis is like "Says who?" and Garth shows up out of nowhere and is like "Says me" and the king's like "Oh shit, okay" and lets them go, leaving Koryak both grateful and resentful towards Garth. I am eating this up with a SPOON btw.

Koryak returns to Tritonis, where he immediately falls back into old habits of resenting his father. Vulko, an advisor of Arthur's who is currently mad at him, sees this and decides to use it as an opportunity to overthrow Arthur:

(The scar across his nose is from Kordax. Later artists forgot it and I wish they hadn't.)

Vulko and Koryak plot for like...a really long time without anything coming of it. Arthur knows perfectly well that it's happening but doesn't do anything about it, even though he could put a stop to it by simply, like...showing Koryak five minutes of positive attention, ever, in his life. Because it's really, really obvious that Koryak just needs positive reinforcement, and would be fully Team Arthur if Arthur would just give him a reason - at one point when Arthur briefly dies (he gets better), Koryak is willing to die to try to avenge him and save Garth and Dolphin from torture. He's not all bad! He's just drawn that way!

Anyway, Arthur comes back to life and Poseidonis decides to make him king again. Just as he's about to be crowned, GARTH tries to overthrow him and steal the throne - but that's just because Garth has been holding Arthur's magic trident and was possessed by him. Arthur overpowers him, and then tells him that he's not mad and in fact, he's proud of Garth for holding out as long as he did.

Then Koryak tries his hand:

And like...yes, Garth only tried to steal the throne because he was possessed and Koryak did it willingly, but Koryak also tried to help Arthur when Garth went rogue. Again, it is so, so clear that Koryak's loyalty was Arthur's for the asking, but Arthur never asked. Instead, he praised Garth for trying to overthrow him and then told Koryak to his face how much he sucked.

Arthur is at least merciful enough to commute the normal sentence for treason from death to banishment, and Koryak is kicked out of Atlantis. Arthur then literally never thinks about him for the next SEVEN YEARS. (Okay, Koryak shows up very briefly for three issues in 1999 and Arthur thinks about him while he's looking directly at him, and then forgets he exists again. But then, Arthur also repeatedly forgets about his own wife. Arthur is terrible.)

Anyway, seven years later, Arthur has also been banished from Atlantis, and is now living in Sub Diego, which is what happens when half of San Diego inexplicably falls into the ocean and a small percentage of the traumatized people discover they can breathe underwater. Koryak, meanwhile, has returned to Atlantis to fight with Garth some more:

Love this for them!

Koryak, btw, is arguing that the survivors of Sub Diego should be allowed to move to Atlantis, and Garth's like "Uhhh they wouldn't fit in" and Koryak's like "Wow, racist." Ahem. In general, Koryak during this period is a lot calmer and more mature than he used to be, and also a lot more willing to forgive Arthur for All the Bullshit:

Also, there's a joke that implies Koryak might be queer?

Literally that's the joke here: Koryak is talking about a guy named Malrey (half-shark, half-cop, and no I am not kidding), and Lorena, who has a crush on Koryak, is clocking that she may not have a chance. I don't know if this was just a throwaway gay joke, which happened all the time in 2005, or if it was going somewhere, but we'll never know. (For the record, even though Garth says Koryak has a crush on Lorena, that doesn't appear to be true, especially since Lorena is underage and Koryak is definitely an adult by now. I don't think we should take Garth's line there as anything but dismissive of Koryak's outreach to the Sub Diegoans. Also, back in the 90s, Koryak definitely had a crush on a minor character called Deep Blue, a.k.a. Debbie Perkins, but that never went anywhere, which is good because SHE WAS ARTHUR'S HALF-SISTER. (She and Arthur made out a bunch before they knew, because Arthur loves kissing girls his sons have crushes on. YIKES ALL AROUND.) (Also just kidding, Arthur doesn't pay enough attention to any of his kids to know who they have crushes on.))

Anyway. Back to the plot. Mera is very sick because of Evil Magic, and Garth decides to perform a massive spell to save her, and Koryak agrees to help. This spell attracts the attention of the Spectre, who was evil at the time, and he, uh...destroys Atlantis, killing Koryak, Garth, and almost everyone else. Arthur finally acknowledges that he was a shitty dad:

Immediately after this issue, the book's title changed from Aquaman to Aquaman: Sword of Atlantis. The main character is not the Arthur we know, but a new, younger Arthur, Arthur Joseph Curry, who turns out to be a cousin of our Arthur. His mentor is a guy called the Dweller in the Depths, who has a tentacle face like Davey Jones from the Pirates movies. It is eventually revealed that the Dweller is actually Regular Arthur, with traumatic amnesia. Why? Why does he have a tentacle face now? NEVER EXPLAINED.

Anyway, we also meet this guy:

Narwhal's character design is...suggestive, let's say? Also suggestive: Garth has also turned up alive, and like "Narwhal," he now has albinism and partial amnesia. And Narwhal knows the name "Orin," though he can't place it. (It's Arthur's Atlantean name.)

Anyway, Narwhal is sent to kill this "Orin":

Narwhal kills Arthur/Orin/the Dweller, but it doesn't bring him peace, because he still doesn't know who he is - and Orin did, at the last minute. He goes to Atlantis for answers, and Mera confirms it, at least for the reader:

...and that's the last issue of Sword of Atlantis. WOMP WOMP. All of the Aquaman characters disappeared until Blackest Night (when Arthur returned). Koryak never appeared again, and was retconned out with the New 52. Oh well, at least the narwhal tusk spear is pretty dope.

As of Infinite Frontier, the pre-52 universe has been pretty much restored, which should mean that Koryak is back in continuity...but DC is still keeping Arthur's New 52/Rebirth origin intact, which means he did not spend any of his teenage years in Alaska, which means Koryak was never conceived. So things could go either way - any writer who feels like bringing him back could do so easily, but they don't have to.

I call Koryak "my terrible boy" a lot, and he's undeniably pretty obnoxious: immature, bratty, petty, unforgiving, and, uh...awfully on board with murder, let's say? He is also extremely young when we first meet him, and is instantly slammed with trauma: his mother essentially dies, someone tries to murder him, he's physically and mentally violated by Kordax. I'll say again that the slightest bit of positive attention from Arthur probably could have changed his entire life, but he never got it. SO HE'S GONNA GET IT FROM ME INSTEAD.

Anyway, I love Koryak very, very much, and have already written fic about him. And I have another Koryak fic in the works for after The Lost Titans is published. And I will never stop whining at DC to bring him back. If Koryak has one fan (he does), it's me. But maybe now it's you, too?

#koryak #koryak curry #character profiles #aquasplaining #the lost titans #i write things

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