Did Earth 2 Aquaman Exist?

On the latest Fire and Water Podcast, there was a “Nerd Fight” between Rob and Shag over whether or not there was an Aquaman on Earth 2.  I’m going to look at the evidence and see what conclusions we can draw.

First some background.  Before 1985, DC Comics existed in a Multiverse.  Earth 1 was the primary universe where the Justice League of America resided.  Earth 2 was a slightly different universe where the Justice Society of America existed.  Earth 2 had many of the same, or similar, heroes as Earth 1, but this was based in the Golden Age.  For example, the Earth 1 Flash as Barry Allen, a police scientist in Central City while the Earth 2 Flash, on the other hand, was Jay Garrick, a research scientist in Keystone City.  Another example is Superman of Earth 1 was Kal-El while Superman of Earth 2 was Kal-L, but there were essentially the same person.  The first appearance of Earth 2 was in the famous 1961 story “The Flash of Two Worlds.”  Prior to that, the Golden Age heroes were not acknowledged by DC since its Silver Age reboot.

Let’s look at the 5 heroes that were continuously published, not necessarily in their own series, since the Golden Age:

Hero	Time Period	Origin	Group Affiliations
Superman	Golden Age	Rocketed to Earth from Krypton & raised by the Kents.  Became Superman after their deaths.	Justice Society, All Star Squadron
	Silver Age	Rocketed to Earth from Krypton & raised by the Kents.  Became Superboy in his teens and Superman in college.	Justice League
Batman (or Bat-Man)	Golden Age	Parents killed by a mugger.  Trained for years to become a vigilante.	Justice Society, All Star Squadron
	Silver Age	Parents killed by a mugger.  Trained for years to become a vigilante.	Justice League
Wonder Woman	Golden Age	Princess of the Amazons, formed out of clay by her mother and granted life by the gods.	Justice Society, All Star Squadron
	Silver Age	Princess of the Amazons, formed out of clay by her mother and granted life by the gods.	Justice League
Green Arrow	Golden Age	Grew up next to an American Indian reservation & emulated their lifestyle, including the use of the bow and arrow.	Justice Society, All Star Squadron
	Silver Age	Son of a rich family.  Stranded on an island and had to learn to use a hand-made bow and arrow to survive.	Justice League
Aquaman	Golden Age	Son of a scientist who experimented on him to give him the ability to speak to fish and breath underwater.	None
	Silver Age	Son of the Queen of Atlantis and a human lighthouse keeper.	Justice League

As we can see, Wonder Woman and Batman have pretty much the same origin in both the Golden and Silver Ages.  Superman, except for when he started using his powers, is pretty much the same.  Green Arrow and Aquaman, however, are quite different between the two ages.  This was explained with Green Arrow, once the Earth 2 concept came about, to be because they were actually two different people, but nothing was said regarding Aquaman.  In the Silver and Bronze Ages there were a number of crossovers between the various Earths, the most famous being the Justice League meeting up with the Justice Society for the Crisis du jour.  Most of the counterparts were there, but not Aquaman.

In fact, there are only 5 comics that had the Earth 2 Aquaman.  The first is Secret Origins #7 from 1974.  While this issue has Aquaman with green gloves, as opposed to the yellow gloves worn in the golden age, it is a reprinting of his origin from More Fun Comics #73 from 1941, which is solidly in the Golden Age and Aquaman’s first appearance.  The next two issues only feature Aquaman in relation to other speaking about him.  In All-Star Squadron #31 and All-Star Squadron #53 it is explained that Aquaman is out at sea and can’t be reached, which fits right in with all of his Golden Age adventures.  In the Golden Age, or on Earth 2 if you wish, Aquaman was primarily concerned with stopping modern day pirates and smugglers.

The last appearance of the Earth 2 Aquaman is probably the most solid piece of evidence, and that would be in All-Star Squadron #59 and All-Star Squadron #60 from 1986.  In issue 59, Aquaman finally makes it to the headquarters of the Squadron and makes a joke about his lack of attendance.  In issue 60, Aquaman stands with Superman, Batman & Robin and Wonder Woman in the front of a group picture of the Squadron, but as this is where the Crisis on Infinite Earths took effect, he and the other duplicate heroes are wiped out of that history, since all the Earths were merged into one timeline.

I am by no means a comic book historian, and I’m sure that there will be some out there who will refute the conclusion I have come to, but I think that all the evidence points to there being an Earth 2 Aquaman, even if he didn’t show up in the stories much.  The amount of time is spent in the pages of any Earth 2 based comic, or when those issues were chronologically, don’t matter.  What does matter is that he was there, on Earth 2, in a book published by DC.  Therefore, even though some may not like it, I have to conclude that there was an Aquaman on Earth 2 that was separate and distinct from the one on Earth 1.