Writing a modern YA love story is hard enough, but what happens when your two main protagonists are already well-known and loved by DC Comics fans?
Mera: Tidebreaker by Danielle Paige, the first graphic novel to come out of the DC Ink young adult readers imprint, is a Little Mermaid-ish and fairy tale-like reimagining of Princess Mera as an assassin out to kill Arthur Curry. What follows is an exciting adventure and interesting character piece bringing together two individuals who couldn’t seem more different. And yet, it’s their differences that ultimately bring them together in what become a DC YA love story.
But how does a storyteller start from Aquaman and Mera’s classic source material and origin stories to create a feminist YA love story like Mera: Tidebreaker?
Just ask the novel’s author, Danielle Paige! She’s got your inside scoop on just how Mera: Tidebreaker came to be, the DC couples that make her swoon, and her initial pitch for the novel that just didn’t quite jive with DC.
Love in the age of Wonder Woman:
What it’s like to write a DC YA love story
The first time I saw Clark Kent kiss Lois Lane on screen, I was smitten. With the DC universe and with Lois and Clark. I loved that despite his super powers when he was Superman, Lois and Clark were truly matched. Her intelligence and wit were for me just as powerful as Superman’s ability to leap over tall buildings. She was a force.
I was equally intrigued by Catwoman and Batman’s sexy interplay. It was a darker story and their will-they-or-won’t-they relationship was complicated by the fact that Catwoman’s moral compass often pointed in the polar opposite direction from his.
Then I found Steve Trevor and Wonder Woman. Diana is a glorious Amazon to Steve’s war hero. He teaches her about our complicated world and together they save it over and over again.
Finally, I discovered Mera and Aquaman. Mera, the warrior princess from undersea Xebel falls in love with Arthur Curry, the exiled Atlantean prince who has grown up on land.
When I first pitched DC, I pitched Aquaman as the Little Mermaid. I was quickly informed that there was one part of Aquaman continuity that I was not allowed to change. Aquaman always grows up on land.
I flipped the script and decided to tell Mera’s story instead.
Writing Mera wasn’t exactly new territory for me, but I still felt the weight of taking on a beloved character with so much history. I have made a career of flipping the script on beloved stories, in Dorothy Must Die, another girl lands in Oz and has to fight a now evil Dorothy. In Stealing Snow, the Snow Queen grows up in our world only to return to her fairy tale one day to discover that her father wants to kill her.
In my other books, romance has always been a part of my heroines’ stories – but I think that Mera might actually be the most romance-forward book that I have written.
What I love about Aquaman and Mera is that they are true equals – and if I’m being honest, she’s actually a little more baddass than Arthur himself.
Mera comes to the story with full knowledge of her power and her history while Arthur is unaware that he is from Atlantis. He is unaware of his history and his birthright.
Mera grows up in Xebel, a true warrior princess as the daughter of the King of Xebel. Xebel is a penal colony of Atlantis and has spent years under the rule of Atlantean forces. Mera and her people resent Atlantean rule, and when faced with an opportunity to help her home, Mera decides to kill Arthur. But when she meets him and begins to get to know him she begins to question her politics and her mission.
The act of falling in love can be the ultimate act of courage. To understand one’s enemy is one thing, to love him is another. For Mera, seeing past what she believes about Arthur and the Atlanteans and seeing him for the good man he truly is, is a turning point for her character and for her heart.
In my first book, I approached love as an ancillary part of my story. Amy crushes on Pete and falls in love with Nox in Dorothy Must Die. But her central conflict, and arguably her most important relationship, is between her and her antagonist Dorothy Gale. In Stealing Snow, Snow sets off to save her childhood love, Bale. But along the way, her mission becomes one to discover who she really is (the heir to the throne of Algid).
For Mera, love is the agent of change for her. Arthur is more than a literary side piece here. Each of them affects each other in life altering ways. Mera is the one who teaches Arthur his true identity and reveals his past. And once Mera realizes that Arthur is not responsible for the Atlanteans’ sins, she has to question her own. Can she kill someone who is innocent in the name of what she believes in? Or does she change what she believes and find another way?
I loved writing this story because it has a real Romeo and Juliet stakes and feels. There are warring families and the literal fate of land and sea in the balance.
This story isn’t the typical love story in that it starts off as an assassination story…which I think is so fun… it turns into a love story…Mera isn’t looking for love. She’s looking to prove herself and her abilities…and she finds love. She meets a guy that shows her a more nuanced view of herself and of the Atlanteans.
So many people think of Mera as Aquaman’s great love and much has been made of him (and rightly so) as the savior of two worlds – land and Atlantis. But Mera’s story adds another point to that trident. She is actually responsible for three – her home, land and Atlantis. Getting to tell Mera’s side of the story (or love story) hopefully will help make those who don’t know see Aquaman as Mera’s boyfriend! And more than that, see that this heroic couple’s real super power is love.
Mera: Tidebreaker by Danielle Paige and Stephen Byrne is available now from Amazon, Barnes & Noble, The Book Depository, and your local independent bookstore. Also, don’t forget to add it to your Goodreads “to read” list!
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