#peter mortimer

My conspiracy theory is that Aquaman: King of Atlantis was released as a prepper for casual fans about some of the goings on between Aquaman and TLK.

We all know when KoA was announced, one of the main draws was that it would be using the actors from the 2018 film: Jason Momoa, {redacted}, Willem DaFoe, and Patrick Wilson. Sometime between this announcement and I think the first teaser/promo images, this was dropped.

I think DC and the larger WB studio is aware that *checks notes* they have not really given any love to Aquaman's wider mythos in the modern era. Sure, we have Jackson Hyde and a reworked origin for Tula that makes her Orm's half-sister, but a lot of it has been Arthur vs Orm (did that), Arthur vs David Kane/Black Manta (started that) and Arthur vs Orm Knockoff Because They Don't Actually Want To Use Orm But They Need Someone Like Orm (Corum Rath, Devil Ray, take your pick). Arthur does have other antagonists, but they've either been repurposed more prominently in other IPs (hi King Shark) or just...kind of abandoned given that Aquacanon has changed quite a bit over the years.

So my personal conspiracy theory is that when the movie cast was still on to do the voice acting, the miniseries was intended to be a direct continuation of the movie that was supposed to be taken as an interlude between Aquaman and TLK. That way, the casual audience could get a background on the direction the team was going with Scavenger & explain why Orm isn't in Atlantis proper at the start of the movie (you know, "make sure he has a view" and all that but then TLK BTS so far has indicated he's in the Deserter Kingdom, which has no real contact with Atlantis' capital).

Then, things got a little Spicy with the pandemic and having to shift filming plans/not being able to access all the actors the way they expected to, so the series was shifted away from a more grounded direct continuation into a more artsy and comedy-focused indirect continuation.

BUT, it still had relics of things they intended to use in the original version baked into the script-- it's why Scavenger is the primary antagonist and why Orm kind of sliiiiides out of Atlantis at the end. It's no longer meant to be taken as canon with the films (thereby allowing it to stand on its own while still having elements familiar to fans of the film, which I think makes it stronger overall), but it plants concepts into the audience's awareness that they can choose to believe the show happened in SOME form off-camera between movies. My personal take is that especially the first episode is one of the characters' retellings of a similar story-- maybe Arthur or Mera telling a fun colorful version of the story to the palace's version of onsite daycare.

Anyway, now that you read my conspiracy essay, here's the actual board itself.