Aquam began life as the son of an Atlantean prince, at the turn of the last century. He was educated, as all young Atlanteans are, in the five gates and the athletic pass-times, and was known as a bravo of rare skill with the hand and a half sword in the competitions of blades in the amphitheaters.

The Second World War led to his becoming involved after an attack was laid against Atlantis by the German Thule Society. Their artifacts were plundered, and Aquam's aunt Cero sought to get them back, with Aquam as her sidekick and bodyguard.

Over the course of the war, Aquam saw and learned many things he had not known in Atlantis. The cruelty of the surface, the hopeless weakness of her people, and the power his home in the deep ocean lent him against his foes. His aunt tempered his wrath with her good nature, introducing him to other heroes, many of whom he was not too different from in spirit and strength. She explained he was a variety of Atlantean that emerged only rarely in the royal line, his academic and mystical skill falling aside in the face of a strength and endurance that rivaled the leviathans of the deep.

His climatic battle with the Nazi-mystic Das Kraken, who had led the raid on his home, left Aquam fighting to drag the man out into the open ocean, where his legendary skills with a blade would not help him. As Aquam dove, the man's body seemed to dissolve into the water, his screams fading. As a token of his victory over Das Kraken, Aquam still wields the Nazi's family heirloom, a pilfered Atlantean Blade from before the fall of Atlantis, when he fights with a sword

The years after the war saw Aquam return to his homeland, serving his grandmother the queen, and then his uncle Polyhyne after Cero refused to take the throne. He led parties of warriors out into the open ocean, searching for threats to Atlantis, and when he discovered the Endeavour family, scientist Benjamin and his three adventurer children Frank, Juniper and (insert),