He grew up on the shores of the Atlantic Ocean, working with his father, lighthouse keeper Tom Curry, on his fishing boat.  It was a hard living, but it was home.

In the water, he came alive, doing things most boys his age could ever do...
In high school, he was the top athlete, the best swimmer the East Coast has ever seen... and yet he was holding himself back...

One day, he crossed paths with a man who—unknown to him—was a long-lost brother.

He met a mysterious woman named Mera.

And he stumbled onto a doorway to another world.

In the middle of all this, he was shot while on his boat and fell into the ocean.  The man who shot Arthur thought him dead.

But the Ocean saved him.  It took him into itself and restored him.  It did not just heal his wound, it helped him to discover who he truly was.

The underwater came alive and called to him.  The creatures of the sea called out to him, beseeching him to return home...  He suddenly could hear them speaking, each in its own language, all of the fish and mammals of the deep.

Then Arthur Curry found himself surrounded by strange men who could breathe underwater.  He could understand their words, just as he understood all the creatures.  He was taken to the undersea kingdom of Atlantis, where he met god-like King Neptune, ruler of Seven Seas.

Neptune told him was war in the kingdom not long after he was born.  A fight that was started by his true father.  Arthur’s mother had taken him to the surface world, to escape her husband.  She had tried to take both of her sons, but her father discovered her plans and took their eldest child and kept the boy away from her.

Arthur realized that not only does he have the ability to live and breathe underwater, but that he has gained incredible strength, speed, and stamina, many times that of any normal man.  He realizes that his true heritage is in the water below, and that his destiny to be Aquaman, whom King Neptune names as Champion of the Seven Seas.

His greatest enemy was the Ocean Master, his own older brother.  Ocean Master blamed Aquaman for their father’s death, and considered their mother a traitor.

Aquaman discovered an undersea doorway to an incredible Water World—a strange dimension where all life was underwater...

Where a young Queen named Mera ruled a kingdom imperiled by a villain named the Black Manta.

Only the Champion of Earth’s Seven Seas could save her.

Queen Mera was raising a strange, purple-eyed youth as her son—
Mera had saved his life, an orphan cast into slavery, a homeless waif with but one possession—his name, Garth

Aquaman learned that Garth was a child of Atlantis, from his own dimension.

Before Arthur Curry had reclaimed his heritage, before Aquaman came to Atlantis to be chosen by King Neptune as Champions of the Seven Seas, this young child, Garth, had been cast out of his antediluvian home and sent here—to this Water World—to be raised and live in life-long exile!

Aquaman taught the young boy to stand at Mera’s side in defending her kingdom.
Soon, Garth accepted the name Aqualad, using Aquaman as a role-model...

Eventually, the kingdom fell to the Black Manta, and Aquaman brought Mera and Garth into his world, to live under the protection of Atlantis and King Neptune.