In the Young Justice animated series, Aqualad was first seen as the protege ofAquaman. He was later unanimously elected by the team to be their leader after their first mission together, as he was perceived as having good leadership skills. In the second season of the series he uncovered he was in fact the son of Black Manta. Because the character was originally created for the animated series before being brought into Brightest Day, he has a different origin from his comic book counterpart, including being a citizen of Atlantis developed his powers in a year studying Atlantean sorcery. Though he still maintains the birth name of Kaldur’ahm, he does not use the Jackson Hyde alias created for the comics.[4][5] He is portrayed as the most mature member of the group. The episode "Downtime" reveals that he and his friend Garth had saved Aquaman's life during a battle with Ocean Master. Aquaman offered to take on both teens as his proteges, but Garth chose to remain in Atlantis to continue his studies in sorcery, while Kaldur chose to travel with Aquaman and become Aqualad. He also had an interest in a girl named Tula, who became involved with Garth after Kaldur left Atlantis. In season two, titled Young Justice: Invasion set five years later, Kaldur is working undercover with Black Manta, forNightwing to find out who the Light's partner is. In the episode "Depths," Black Manta sends Kaldur and the Manta Men to disrupt a satellite launch at Ferris Aircraft, where he and Nightwing fake Artemis' death to put her undercover as Tigress. In "Darkest," Aqualad, Tigress, and a team of super villains track Impulse and Blue Beetle to Mount Justice, captures them, along with Beast Boy, and destroy Mount Justice with a bomb. It is later revealed that he secretly gave Nightwing a tracking device (which corresponds to a tracker that he injected Lagoon Boy with). In "Before the Dawn", Miss Martian confronted and mentally attacked Aqualad as revenge for his supposed killing of Artemis, but drops into a state of guilt when she learns about his and Artemis' undercover mission. Artemis arrived, shocked by what Miss Martian had done, and escapes with a catatonic Aqualad. Artemis manipulates Black Manta into capturing Miss Martian to repair Kaldur's mind. After Miss Martian succeeds, Aqualad pretends to remain catatonic to keep Black Manta from killing her and arrange for her to escape.
