Greg responds...

1. I'm not exactly sure what you're asking here. It was a fairly organic process. We knew we wanted Aqualad in the show, but we wanted to increase the series' diversity, and with Garth dead in the DC Universe of the time, the void seemed to offer an opportunity to create someone new - AND simultaneously give us the chance to demonstrate "the road not taken" aspect of our Earth-16 parallel universe. We also wanted to establish Atlantis' combination of sorcery-based technology and give "Aqua-Lad" (which literally means Water-Boy) a unique power and devices (i.e. his water-bearers), which we thought would compliment the rest of the group. We based his physicality on Michael Phelps, and his costuming on a combination of Garth's original uniform and the kind of swimming 'suit' that Olympians were using back in 2004 and 2008.

2. He was always going to be the calm and quiet leader.

3. One of the first six, certainly.