Aquaman #46 Review and *SPOILERS*

The Tides Are Changing

Written By: Cullen Bunn
Art By: Vincente Cifuentes, John Dell, John Livesay, Marc Deering, Guy Major, Tom Napolitano
Cover Price: $3.99

Release Date: November 25, 2015

*Non Spoilers and Score At The Bottom*

Aquaman's been a tough sell lately...... you know, with everything just happening without much of an explanation about how or why...... that is until the big info dumps hit and takes up most of the issue with exposition that's accompanied by sub par art........... shit I sound like a Negative Nancy, but all I'm trying to say is Aquaman hasn't been that good lately.  The Thule story line has just been instances over and over again where Aquaman teleports in, fights the threat and moves on, while Atlantis keeps sending troops in to apprehend and or kill their former King and out of nowhere last issue we had Aquaman teleport to an alien planet....... where he just happened to learn from a species that didn't speak his language, that he was destined to be the destroyer of Thule.  Yeah, that was a weird issue, but hopefully this one will be better.  Let's jump into Aquaman and see what our former ruler of Atlantis is up to and if he can save his Queen Mera from her shape shifting, somehow sister Siren........ Yeah, it's a mess.  Let's check it out.

Explain It!:

When our issue begins, we have the one thing that I really have to say is the only part of this book I didn't like.......... Yeah, I'm jumping ahead and getting right to it, but really...... This book is doing exactly what it should be doing at this point and that's cutting out all the rigmarole and getting right to business.  So yeah, when we start this book we have Aquaman confronting his Sigmund and The Sea Monsters looking friend, Entriax about why he never told him about Mera being replaced by Siren or him being prophesied to destroy Thule.......

The reason I don't like this is because we never see Aquaman get back from that alien planet.  He sees a statue of himself on an alien world and now we jump back to the Amazon Jungle where he's threatening swampy looking fools for keeping secrets from him.  In Entriax's defense, he didn't know about Mera and before he could explain about the prophecy, he's interrupted by Wonder Woman, who has some questions of her own, since it seems that everyone is dealing with the intruding structures of Thule all over the world.  See, I love that shit.  In so many superhero stories we have the title character taking care of an over the top situation and there I am wondering, where the hell are all the other heroes?  Here though, we get that answer and thanks to Aquaman possessing the powers of Poseidon, Wonder Woman was able to track his god power having ass.  

So yeah, Wonder Woman's come a callin' and she wants the lowdown on what Aquaman's been doing and why he never contacted anyone about this invasion of Thule.......... really, I think Wonder Woman's pissed because she had to find out about the details from John Constantine.  So after Aquaman catches her up and we find out that if he fulfills his destiny and destroys Thule, he'll also be destroying innocent people like the refugees he's already saved and he's not willing to do that.  This issue is awesome.  All the problems I had with this story have all been cleared up with a simple conversation with Wonder Woman and because Vincente Cifuentes was on art this month, it looked amazing....... That's right, a simple conversation looked amazing, but the fun doesn't stop there boys and girls, right as Aquaman figures out that if Thule found out about his known associates and since they control Atlantis now, they might have tailed Wonder Woman to his secret Amazon Jungle location.........which they did.  Speak of the devil and all that and out of nowhere the Atlantean assassins that Aquaman fought in a previous issue begin their next assault on the former king of Atlantis.  

In the end, of course those bozos couldn't take on Aquaman and Wonder Woman and they seriously got their asses handed to them, but don't worry all you Aqualad fans, even though Garth was chilling with these goons the last time we saw him, I assume he's out and about doing Titans Hunt stuff and wasn't apart of the beat down buffet.  As our issue closes, Wonder Woman assures Arthur that whatever his decision is in dealing with Thule, he won't have to do it alone, but I'm not sure that Aquaman will be the live and let live type because we see that a structure of Thule has ripped it's way into our world and it's in Amnesty Bay......... Yeah, you don't fuck with Aquaman's hometown.

That's it for this issue of Aquaman and it's time to breakout the pinatas and RC Cola because this comic has seriously been straightened out and is on a straight forward track to kicking ass.  Not only does it bring other heroes into this world threatening situation, that so many other titles just stick to their title character and leave me wondering what everyone else is doing, but it breaks down everything that's been going on in a reasonable, easy to understand way........ Yeah, you could be saying to yourself that all I want is a "Dummy's Guide to Comics", but this story line has spent the majority of it's issues keeping what's really going on pretty close to the chest and with all it's added elements like Aquaman taking on Poseidon's power, Mera being replaced by a shape shifting Thule sorceress, which in turn made Atlantis as big of a threat as this invading world to our hero, but also had this prophecy of Aquaman becoming a destroyer of worlds......... well yeah, a dummy's guide at this point was really nice to have.  Everything is laid out on the table for us and it's something that I finally feel that I can get fully behind.  With that we had a bit of action too, that was accompanied with awesome art...... so for my money, I'd say that this is the best issue of Aquaman that we've had since June started and I hope that it continues down this path because now I'm actually interested.

Bits and Pieces:

Aquaman finally steps up in this issue and becomes something that I want to read.  Not only was the plot line spelled out for us, but the artist change really made this issue wonderful to look at as well.  For anyone who's dropped off of this title, this may be the issue that gets you back on board and don't worry about not knowing what's going on because this issue will catch you up and at least for me, keep you on board.  This is just a wonderful surprise that this series could rise out of the ashes from nowhere and be something that I'm excited about again......... Hopefully I'm not just getting over zealous here, but if the creators keep up what they're doing now, this could be something awesome in the long run.......... or until the story arc is over and we get a creative change....... Oh well, this is still a good issue.

7.8/10