Aquaman #15 – Review

By: Geoff Johns (story), Paul Pelletier (pencils), Art Thibert & Karl Kesel (inks), Rod Reis (colors)

The Story: With a tidal wave looming, suddenly the Joker seems like a trite problem.

The Review: Sheesh—this has got to be the lightest week on record here at the ol’ WCBR.  I suppose I didn’t help things by delaying this review until today, but the holiday always gets in the way of things, right?  Why, I must have played about three different board games in the last week alone.  And I still haven’t told you about my New Year’s Eve craziness—balanced my budgets.  So you might say that as far as making use of my break goes, I totally nailed it.

Back on the comics front, Johns has yet another splashy crossover arc on the stands, and it starts in earnest here.  The prologue in Justice League #15 set up the nature of the crisis pretty well, but now we really get a sense of what’s at stake.  So often in comics, major disasters will hit a city and no one will recognize the damage.  Not so here, where the enormity of the Atlantean attacks renders our heroes almost speechless with their own failure and horror.  Mera, stricken, says, “I could feel them in the water as I moved it, Arthur.  Bodies.  There are so many bodies down there.”

WCBR’s Top Picks

Dean’s Top Picks

Best of the past week: Witch Doctor: Malpractice #2 – I think I said in my review that this series was as good as anything in comics right now – and I stand by that.  The story is clever, snappy and funny…..and when I say the art is stunning, I mean it’s on a level with guys like Greg Capullo or Sean Murphy.  Great stuff.  Catching up isn’t necessary either.  I think you could jump right in with this second issue to understand and enjoy the series.

Most anticipated this week: Slim pickings this week, but it’s worth mentioning a few of them.

1). Amazing Spider-Man #700 – I started out very high on Dan Slott’s ASM run.  I even got hyperbolic enough that Marvel used a pull-quote from me on one of the early hardcovers (which is a bittersweet moment: good to be noticed, but embarrassing to have been so over-the-top).  But, the magic has dribbled away over the issues and ASM hasn’t been really good since Spider-Island.  This current story with Peter Parker and Doc Ock swapping brains is really tepid stuff.  Still, it is nominally “the final issue” of ASM and it’ll be interesting to see if Slott can salvage this lukewarm story.  I WANT this to be good, but fear it will not be so.

2). Mara #1 – This is another new series from the mind of Brian Wood with art by Ming Doyle.  Those are two creators I’m generally interested in, so we’ll see what’s up.  If solicitations are to be believed, it is about a young woman named Mara who lives in a sports and war-obsessed future and she is some kind of superstar (which probably means she is good at sports and war).  Brian Wood writes well and Ming Doyle draws pretty pictures, so I can’t imagine this being terrible.

3) Hip Flask: Ouroborous – I do love Elephantmen, but honestly cannot figure out their publication system.  This is solicited as the “penultimate issue”, but I think it’s just the penultimate issue of the Hip Flask miniseries – which has been going on for years and years.  Pretty sure the Elephantmen-proper is continuing.  I’m very confused.  Still, it features the return of artist Ladronn to the Elephantmen universe and Ladronn is a beast, so this is highly worth checking out.

4). Justice League #15 / Aquaman #15 – Even when I read a Big 2 superhero comic, it isn’t usually from DC.  But, this is a light week and it looks like DC is kicking off this Throne of Atlantis crossover between Justice League and Aquaman, so I’ll give it a shot even though Geoff Johns hasn’t written anything I’ve enjoyed in – well – forever.  I do like the artists (Ivan Reis and Ardian Syaf).  This is your chance, DC…..don’t blow it.