Aquaman #45 Review and *SPOILERS*

Apparently, English Is Not Galactic Basic

Written By: Cullen Bunn
Art By: Trevor McCarthy, John Dell, Art Thibert, Vicente Cifuentes, Guy Major, Tom Napolitano
Cover Price: $3.99
Release Date: October 28, 2015

*Non Spoilers and Score At The Bottom*

This story has been a mess in my mind and while each issue seems to progress a bit, I couldn't tell you what it's actually about.  We've got invaders from a mirror Universe Atlantis, Mera is being held captive while her sister Siren works for this mirror Universe for some reason, while posing as Mera and issue after issue Aquaman just fights structures that appear out of nowhere, that either spew out black ooze or some kind of monster.  All this and he's being pursued by his own people that see him as a traitor.  At the end of the previous issue, we saw Arthur discover that Mera was actually Siren and before he could do anything about it, she stabbed him and Aquaman was forced to teleport away, only to find himself on an alien world.......... This story is nuts.  Let's jump into this issue and see what an alien world has to do with everything, as we all hope that it will somehow bring the fun and put us back on the Aquaman trolley.  Let's check it out.

Explain It!:

Our story begins with Arthur and us wondering why the hell Poseidon's trident would transport anyone to an alien world...... especially, somewhere away from water because apparently it takes water to activate the magic trident's teleportation feature.  It's like Back To The Future....... if Back To The Future was set on an alien world where Marty was surrounded by monstrous beasts, who only want to snack on him......... Okay, not like Back To The Future, but Aquaman needs water just as much as Marty needed Plutonium or 1.21 Gigawatts.  So you know how Aquaman is all super durable and has some tough ass skin?  Well apparently, no one told these monsters about it because they begin chewing on him like it's nothing and the only reason that Aquaman actually survived this attack is because some kind of beached space whale, that was impaled on some structures from Thule started mooing........ Whales moo right?  

I guess that's not the important part of what I was talking about, we got Thule, the mirror Universe Atlantis showing up on this world just as it's doing on Earth and before Aquaman can get to the bottom of it.......... he passes out from lack of blood.

This is the part of the story where I expect Arthur to wake up missing a part of his leg that some alien creature has gnawed off, but instead he finds himself patched up and resting well in some kind of hospital.  After Aquaman gets up and meets everyone on the street, even the Queen of the world, he finds out that Thule began conquering worlds all over the Universe before it started bleeding back into the actual Universe and when that started happening, these alien people surprised them and fought them back.  The craziest part about all of this is Aquaman finds all this out by simply talking to himself out loud because no one on this planet speaks English....... So this just really comes off as crazy jumps to conclusions about what happened on this world.  Hell, it's just like Han talking to Chewie.  You don't know what Chewie's saying, but we go off of Han's responses.  Only problem here is, Aquaman doesn't know shit and has himself a EUREKA moment when he realizes the way to fight off the invaders from Thule is to surprise them........ That's not a plan and you have no idea that that's actually what happened on this world Aquaman!  

In the end, we get some more questionable things when we find out why these aliens are being so hospitable to Arthur, who has a feeling that they know him somehow......nonsense.  Anyway, the alien Queen leads Arthur to a relic of the Thule people that came over during the bleed and it's a statue of Earth before Atlantis sunk and on top is a effigy of Aquaman, looking like he's the ruler of the world.  Now maybe these aliens appreciate strength and see conquest as a admirable trait, but it's crazy to me to think that these alien people who have recently fought off the invaders from Thule, would see one of their statues depicting this man they found and would treat him as if he is their savior...... or at least as someone they shouldn't kill.  There's nothing for me to believe that they wouldn't instantly see him as a threat and put his ass down and feed him to some alien dog.  That's just me though.

That's it for this issue of Aquaman and I don't know if Trevor McCarthy is finally starting to get the hang of what he wants to do with this book, but it looks to me at least that his artwork is improving with each issue he does.  Yeah, there's still some rough patches here and there, but the artwork didn't throw me off as it's done in previous issues.  As for the story........ there wasn't much of one.  Aquaman's on an alien world and discovers through the power of his own imagination, all the things that recently went down on this world that tie into his current adventure...... and it was just nonsense because nothing besides the fact that Thule went and explored other worlds during their isolation in the mirror Universe is revealed here....... and it's just crazy to think that some random world that Aquaman accidentally traveled to has anything to do with his or the Earth's current problems.  Everything in this issue just feels really forced and most of it is probably because Aquaman is monologuing the whole time and having both sides of a conversations because no one speaks his language...... 

Bits and Pieces:

This entire issue of Aquaman felt really forced and when you really get down to it, everything our hero gleamed from his experiences in this story was all just him jumping to conclusions....... that's no way to tell a story, especially one as convoluted as this has been.  I can say that the art seems to be improving with each issue and thankfully, I no longer feel pulled out of the issue when confronted with a deformed looking hero.  Still some rough patches, but improving nonetheless.  Aquaman has just been a mess lately and this issue doesn't do anything to help that out. 

3.8/10