Review: Aquaman Vol. 4- Death of a King

Quick Summary

Pros: The story introduces more myth and legend into Aquaman’s world while also telling a good story. It also does a great job in connecting many concepts from Aquaman’s universe together for a larger finale.

Cons: The book tries to do too much at once, causing lackluster pacing and causing some stories to suffer because of this.

Overall: Although this is another valiant addition to Aquaman’s growing collection of impressive volumes, it fails to live up to the previous few volumes this series has offered so far. It still manages to tell a great story on its own though and does so in a way that introduces a lot of new concepts which could be very interesting to see in the future. Overall, when looked at by itself this is a pretty good superhero comic, but falters when compared to the volumes immediately preceding it.

Story

After reading Aquaman Vol. 4: Death of a King, it becomes clear that Geoff Johns run on Aquaman peaks in Vol. 3: Throne of Atlantis (Review). Not that this collection is bad by any means, it simply does not have the same well-structured and impressive quality that the previous volumes had. However, this volume still comes packed with enough action and intrigue to be an extremely entertaining read. In fact, some of the concepts and facts that it reveals are fantastic and will hopefully come back into play as this series develops further. Overall this is not the best story in this specific run, however it is still very entertaining and a great read when looked at by itself.

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The things that are great about this volume are the same as the things that made the prior volumes so fun to read, it takes everything that came before it and uses it to tell a great story. The “Dead King” and Xebel were small plot devices that mostly played a supporting role to whatever was actually going on for Aquaman at the time. This collection puts them in the forefront and makes a new, exciting story out of them. This is the way stories should be built up to, a way that feels natural and enhances what is already there. This is something the entire series has done very well so far and is something this collection does not disappoint in.

On top of this it also throws out some very interesting concepts to be used later on. In a similar way to how Vol. 2: The Others (Review) created an entire team for future writers to use, this collection sets up a lot of material for the future. The most interesting of these are the other lost kingdoms of Atlantis and the future of Orm. Hopefully these stories will come back to play a big part in the future and not be left on the sidelines for too long.

The thing that really prevents this volume from shining as bright as the others is how much it tries to make happen at once. There is a lot going on in these few issues, so much that the stories end up tripping over one another by the end. The book starts out by dealing with some of the fallout from the previous volume, which by itself could be very interesting. However, it only deals with this fallout for a short while before introducing the Dead King and tossing the story in an entirely different direction. For example, by the time the Scavenger’s story starts to get interesting it is instantly put to an end as the Dead King returns, the same thing happens with the soldiers who go to free Orm. It almost feels like this volume was Geoff Johns trying to wrap up his stories while also getting out all of the leftover ideas he still had.

Not only does this leave these stories without a proper conclusion but their thematic message is muffled as well. The scavenger’s story started out dealing with intense real world issues like arms trafficking and illegal whaling but never really fleshed out these issues. Instead it leaves them open and leaves the reader wondering if these things are not resolved or if they are still casting a rift between worlds. Overall, the pacing here left these stories feeling rushed and caused them to end without a real conclusion.

(spoilers end here)

Art

Paul Pelletier’s art here is very good overall and does a good job in immersing the reader into the story. It is clearly meant to maintain a similar style to Ivan Reis’s work which immediately preceded it, something which it does a good job in doing. The biggest difference comes in people’s faces, when they are not the centerpiece of the page sometimes people end up looking a little off in this collection. However, the underwater scenery scenes make up for it. The beautiful depictions of Atlantis or the tragic ones of Xebel all look wonderful and are so full of detail that they make the page feel real. While not the best collection of artwork out there, this collection does some real good and is very solid overall.

Continuity

Aquaman Vol. 4: Death of a King continues the story from Aquaman Vol. 3: Throne of Atlantis (Review).

The story here continues in Aquaman Vol. 5: Sea of Storms (Review).

This volume also makes references to other comic books, detailed below:

• The biggest pull of information necessary to understand this story can be found in the previous volumes of this collection and in the Brightest Day event.
• This collection’s end shows Orm living on the surface. The events of Aquaman #23.2 explain how this came to be. This is a Forever Evil tie in issue which is currently only collected in the DC New 52 Villains Omnibus.