Review: Aquaman Vol. 1- The Drowning

Quick Summary

Pros: Political intrigue and suspense dominate this book. All of the Atlantians, including Aquaman, feel very authentic and are characterized excellently.

Cons: Many of the land dwelling humans’ actions and dialogue is odd.

Overall: This is a different kind of superhero book about a different kind of superhero. It ends up being a great look into the politics behind the existence of Atlantis and what Aquaman has to do to keep things running. However, it still manages to hold on to the action and adventure that most readers come to the series for. Though it does have its flaws, this is a great book. It is interesting, gripping, and even funny every now and then. This volume is a great indication that this new series is on the right track.

Story

Aquaman has always been a unique character, as his tumultuous relationship with the surface world indicates. His new position as King of Atlantis pushes this to its maximum, causing this Aquaman Vol. 1: The Drowning to read more like a political thriller than a standard superhero story. However, this is certainly not a bad thing and actually leads to some very interesting stories. It allows the audience to see a very interesting side of Arthur Curry, one which has been explored before, but possibly never like this.

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Sometimes comic books, especially those in a large and connected universe, start to feel very similar to each other. A bad guy shows up and does bad things until the good guy shows up and punches him until he stops. The most interesting thing about this new series is how unique of a niche it carves itself in the superhero world. Very few comics offer readers a view of the political maneuverings of sovereign nations, especially from the point of view of the leader. This makes the problems more complicated than just having a villain to punch; it forces the hero to deal with terrorism, extremists, and the underlying racism behind it. Seeing these more nuanced problems and villains being taken on is great; hopefully the series keep on doing much more of this.

This collection really has Aquaman’s personality and voice down. Some of the previous volumes in the prior series characterized him as either being an overly serious man of violence or a gentle man who makes puns all of the time. This series portrays him in a way that combines the two halves of his personality together, making a man who is regal yet approachable. His humor is redefined as he no longer tells puns, rather he sticks to a more dry and sarcastic wit. Him telling the prison guard that he will go berserk if “deprived of whale-song for over four hours” may now be one of his funniest moments.

His newly refined sense of humor does not undercut his role of king. He is clearly depicted as even-tempered and diplomatic, even allowing the government to place him under arrest until the problem is fixed. Dan Abnett shows that Aquaman has finally figured out what it means to be a king and how he is best able to serve this role. If only everyone in this story could be depicted so this well.

This book’s biggest problem is the opposite of one of its strengths: ordinary humans are characterized very poorly. To start with, they say things like “wowsers, hawt, and crikey” to add nonsense to what is already clunky dialogue. On top of this, they make strange decisions that will leave readers questioning what kind of rational person would do something like this.

Some examples of odd actions from humans can be found throughout this collection. First off, Aquaman’s embassy is shut down when a terrorist from the surface world attacks it; if this happened in the real world the host country would be incredibly apologetic and remorseful for the tragedy. They would end up begging the visiting country to overlook the mistakes of some of their more radical citizens (this has happened many times in the past actually). Then, as the story ends, Black Manta kills the leader of N.E.M.O. They are meant to come off as a hyper intelligent group who has gained clandestine control of the world yet they put a criminal, who has already attacked a few of their agents, right in front of their leader.

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Art

The art is overall rather good throughout this collection. However some aspects of it are better than others. For example, when Brad Walker is on art, most of the scenery and buildings look absolutely fantastic. Specifically, the Atlantian Embassy and scenes underwater all look great. However, when it comes to people, they don’t look nearly as nice. People, especially their faces, tend to look very off with dark lines and shadows casting an odd look over them. This makes Walker’s art a little harder to judge since on one page it will look beautiful while on the next it simply does not.

On pages where Philippe Briones takes over, things tend to fall more in the middle. Overall his style is very much the same and is clearly drawn to look like the rest of this collection does, however some things do differ. Details and backgrounds do not look nearly as nice as when Walker does them but people’s faces also tend to look more normal. This leads to his work looking very similar, yet a little less extreme on both ends.

Another small note, I personally don’t really like Aquaman’s design in this series. His old armor looked great, a mixture between chainmail and fish scales. This new armor is rough, rocky, and weird. It almost makes him look like the Thing rather than Aquaman.

Continuity

This is the first volume of the Aquaman Rebirth series. Rebirth is not a continuity reset at all; it is more of just a good jumping on point for readers. This means that, although there are stories that come before this, an in depth knowledge of Aquaman’s past is not really required to enjoy this series.

The story here continues in Aquaman Vol. 2: Black Manta Rising (Review).

This book also references a few other comic series. All of these are listed below:

• Aquaman became king in Aquaman Vol. 3: Throne of Atlantis (Review).
• Aquaman and Mera’s engagement can be seen in DC Universe: Rebirth (Review).
• Tula mentions going on land and trying cotton candy. This happened in the last New 52 volume, Aquaman Vol. 8: Out of Darkness (Review)