Interview: Scott Snyder, James Tynion IV put Aquaman at the forefront of Drowned Earth

Scott Snyder and James Tynion IV are putting Aquaman in the spotlight amidst the ongoing craziness of their epic Justice League run.

Note: This article contains minor spoilers for Justice League #10, a prelude to Drowned Earth, but since it’s on sale, you’ve either read it already or can go get it now if necessary.

If you’ve been reading superhero comics from the Big Two comic book publishers for even a modest amount of time, you’ve already seen invasions of the surface world by forces from the sea. Drowned Earth, the Aquaman/Justice League crossover that got going in earnest in Justice League #10, is not that.

Or rather, it is that, but it’s a lot more at the same time. The aquatic invaders unleashed in this story aren’t from Earth at all, but from space. The genesis for this concept, which is ripe for awesome visuals like alien pirates and space krakens, came from what was actually a simple question.

“Weirdly, Earth seems to be the only planet with any kind of really advanced oceanic life,” Scott Snyder, who wrote Justice League #10 and half the crossover proper, said to FanSided in a recent phone interview. “So the more we thought about that, the more we felt like there’s our story. Why is that so? What happened? It became, we want to tell an epic story with space pirates, space krakens and alien sea gods and all this kind of stuff, and that gets us there right away.”

Naturally, the nature of this particular threat puts Aquaman in the limelight, especially when you consider that Drowned Earth features alien oceans flooding the planet and turning anyone they touch into sea creatures as well. It’s perfect timing, not only because he has a movie coming out before the end of the year (though surely, Warner Bros. isn’t upset about an Aquaman-centric epic in the comics right now) but because the character is at a critical juncture in his life as well.

“We’re sort of picking him up at a very interesting moment in his trajectory at DC, where a lot of his role has been tied up in his relationship to Atlantis: whether he was going to be its king, whether he was rejecting that role, whether he was sort of an outcast from there,” Snyder said. “And now that Mera has taken over as queen, he’s sort of liberated a little bit from some of that long shadow. He’s looking for a new role. He’s Aquaman, and still confident and all that, but I think at the same time, sort of free to kind of explore the full potential of his powers, the full potential of his role, and part of that is as a mariner.”

Indeed, the opening flashback of Justice League #10 has a young Arthur questioning his dad about why there aren’t more oceans to explore. The answer is that there are, it’s just that they aren’t necessarily on this planet.

Unfortunately, the seafaring races on other worlds aren’t necessarily friendly, nor are their sea gods. James Tynion IV, who takes the writing reins on the other half of Drowned Earth, says that the reason for them training their eyes on Earth flows organically out of what he’s been doing in his issues of Justice League that focus on their greatest foes.

“That’s the first place we really see how the Legion of Doom play into this storyline,” Tynion said. “We’ve already seen hints in Justice League #8 of how the Legion of Doom may have orchestrated the escape of these sea gods into our universe and directed them toward Earth.”

One member of the Legion, in particular, is going to play a bigger part as the story unfolds, and it’s one that Aquaman knows only too well.

“The character who’s going to come right to the forefront in this story more than anyone is Black Manta, who I think is one of the best DC villains,” Tynion said. “He just looks so cool. It’s such a ridiculous helmet, but just seeing the red eyes and the all black suit, there’s something very eerie about him, and something so inhuman despite the fact that he is literally a more human character than Arthur.

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“We’re going to see Black Manta reaching towards a power here … this is something that is tied to the core superpower of Aquaman, his ability to speak to ocean life. We’re going to learn more about what that power is and what its role is in the universe, and I’m very, very excited about that.”

Though several artists are working on Drowned Earth, it’s Francis Manapul who handles the visuals in Justice League #10 and two of the four crossover issues. Always known for his strong and distinctive design style, he gets to cut loose on all kinds of zany concepts in the prelude, and it looks like those will be even more pronounced in the weeks to come.

Snyder got to know Manapul while both of them were working on Batman books at the same time (Snyder on Batman, Manapul on Detective Comics) and says the two creators became close outside their shared work. He doesn’t have any qualms about throwing all kinds of “crazy comic book lunacy” at the artist because he’s confident the results will have fans raving.

“He is just knocking it out of the park,” Snyder said. “I feel incredibly lucky to be working with him, and I would encourage everybody … when you pick this up and you love the art, please go tell him, because he deserves all of the accolades that he’s getting for it.”

So just to review, Drowned Earth has angry sea gods, mutagenic alien oceans, space krakens, flying pirate ships, gorgeous art (Howard Porter and Frazier Irving are involved as well as Manapul), the Legion of Doom and the entire Justice League. Yet it’s still a big deal for DC’s Sea King too, and it’s that mix of epic scope and character development that should have fans hooked for the next six weeks.

“At its core, what it’s really about is Aquaman discovering that his role, his mission might be something grander than he ever knew,” Snyder said. “And in that way, it allows us to go nuts and expand his mythology, expand some of the history of Atlantis, expand the DC cosmology when it comes to his villains and Poseidon’s history and all of it.”

Justice League #10 is out now wherever new comics are sold. Justice League/Aquaman: Drowned Earth #1 (Part 1), by Tynion and Porter, goes on sale Oct. 31.