With A Little Help From My Friends
Written By: Cullen Bunn
Art By: Vicente Cifuentes, John Dell, Don Ho, Mark Irwin, Guy Major, Tom Napolitano
Cover Price: $3.99
Release Date: December 26, 2015
Art By: Vicente Cifuentes, John Dell, Don Ho, Mark Irwin, Guy Major, Tom Napolitano
Cover Price: $3.99
Release Date: December 26, 2015
*Non Spoilers and Score At The Bottom*
Now I don't know if it's because I love Wonder Woman or if it's because the last issue of Aquaman was just better than it had been, but I found myself not hating what we got in the previous issue and that's saying something for how I've felt about this series over the last bunch of months. If it was Wonder Woman that got me excited and yes that is a double entendre, then just imagine how much better it will be now that we have the entire Justice League showing up for this one. This has been a really off run of Aquaman and I can only hope that it finishes strong because besides for the previous issue cutting the terribleness and getting right to the point, I could do without all of this. Let's jump into this issue and see if Aquaman can keep up his streak of not sucking....... is one instance considered a streak? Anyway, let's check this out and see if we can finally be done with Thule.
Explain It!:
Our issue begins with Thule making the biggest mistake of it's mirror world life by attacking Aquaman's home Amnesty Bay. Not only does Aquaman and Wonder Woman show up to kick some ass and take some names, but the entire Justice League show up and when that happens, you know you done fucked up. As cool as it is to have the Justice League showing up to take on this world threat, it's a little frustrating as well because we have an editor's note that this story takes place before Batman #40, which means that Bruce is still alive......... but we have the Truth Superman, new costumed Wonder Woman and Hal before he got all Renegaded up. This might not bother anyone else, but I'm left wondering when the hell everyone else had their stories flipped on their head in comparison to Batman dying and where the hell Shazam and Luthor are........ I have completely lost the timeline of events in my head now and that makes me angry. Putting my complex about continuity aside, we see the Justice League completely wipe out Thule's invasion of Amnesty Bay and Aquaman introduces the League to Sigmund and The Sea Monsters....... I mean Entriax. Aquaman's got a plan hidden up his sleeve and now that he's got his friends by his side, it looks like he just might be able to pull this thing off and put Thule in it's place.
While Sigmund and The Sea Monsters opens a portal large enough to allow hundreds of refugees to abandon Thule and the Justice League go to the other side to make sure that it's a smooth transition, Aquaman heads on down to Atlantis to free his lady love. Only problem is, he's still Atlantean Enemy #1 and getting to her might be a problem........ Well, not really a problem, more of just a work out really because this is Aquaman we're talking about and as all of us Aquaman fans know...... he's a bad ass. Even though Arthur seems to have the situation well in hand, I really hope that he gets some backup in the next issue because we saw when he was discussing his plan with the Justice League that Garth was watching from a far and if you've been following this story arc, you'll remember that Garth was a part of that Atlantean gang of mercs, who Wonder Woman and Aquaman beat the holy hell out of in the previous issue. Now though, he's rocking a new group consisting of Tula, Murk and Swatt and after shadowing Aquaman for awhile, they seem to think that their King may be on the up and up after all and really, who doesn't want to see Aquaman team up with Aqualad and have the two kick a little ass?
In the end, Aquaman gets some backup, but not the kind that I was hoping for, but it's still really cool when he calls out to some giant ass Anglerfish. The concept of giant ass Anglerfish alone scares the hell out of me, but what might frighten me more is the fact that Arthur originally tells them not to kill any of the forces of Atlantis, but when one of the guards yells out that Arthur is a no good half-breed.......... Well, he tells the fish that they can eat him. I'm sure that Aquaman was joking, I just hope that the giant ass Anglerfish know that. So Arthur is on the warpath to find Mera and as our issue ends we see Mera all chained up. What I don't understand though is why after Siren tells her that Aquaman will eventually fail because he'll have to make a sacrifice to banish Thule, that Mera finally uses that time to easily break out of her confinements. It's all very odd, but it looks like we'll at least get Mera back for the next issue, where it's possible that everyone and their mamas will be backing up our King of Atlantis.
That's it for this issue of Aquaman and while I hoped that the inclusion of the Justice League would put this series on the straight and narrow, the way that I thought last issue did with Wonder Woman, it just managed to muck up everything again. Now don't get me wrong, the story was pretty straightened out in the last issue and for the most part it maintains that here, but a whole other mess just left me shaking my head. First off, I have no idea now when this is taking place in relation to when all of our heroes went and had their overhauls in both look and story because we just have a hodgepodge of new looking heroes and old joining the fight and it just doesn't jive with me. So yeah, that's frustrating and something else that pisses me off a bit is that this story only moves forward with Mera being captured and Siren taking her place, but here just because it apparently suited her, Mera decides that she doesn't want to be locked up anymore and breaks free like it was nothing. So yeah, besides for those two things, the rest of the book is just Aquaman having underwater fights and while it wasn't bad and the whole book really came off looking great, that doesn't make up for the rest of the book aggravating the hell out of me.
Bits and Pieces:
While you'll get the Justice League helping out in this issue, their inclusion doesn't do much but make you scratch your head as to when this story line went down because it's just a mismatch of New 52 looking heroes and DCYou ones, while other League members aren't involved at all. Just another issue that's getting us closer to the end of the arc that spends the majority of it's pages showing Aquaman fighting his own people and while it wasn't bad and looked really good. It just wasn't that interesting.
While Sigmund and The Sea Monsters opens a portal large enough to allow hundreds of refugees to abandon Thule and the Justice League go to the other side to make sure that it's a smooth transition, Aquaman heads on down to Atlantis to free his lady love. Only problem is, he's still Atlantean Enemy #1 and getting to her might be a problem........ Well, not really a problem, more of just a work out really because this is Aquaman we're talking about and as all of us Aquaman fans know...... he's a bad ass. Even though Arthur seems to have the situation well in hand, I really hope that he gets some backup in the next issue because we saw when he was discussing his plan with the Justice League that Garth was watching from a far and if you've been following this story arc, you'll remember that Garth was a part of that Atlantean gang of mercs, who Wonder Woman and Aquaman beat the holy hell out of in the previous issue. Now though, he's rocking a new group consisting of Tula, Murk and Swatt and after shadowing Aquaman for awhile, they seem to think that their King may be on the up and up after all and really, who doesn't want to see Aquaman team up with Aqualad and have the two kick a little ass?
In the end, Aquaman gets some backup, but not the kind that I was hoping for, but it's still really cool when he calls out to some giant ass Anglerfish. The concept of giant ass Anglerfish alone scares the hell out of me, but what might frighten me more is the fact that Arthur originally tells them not to kill any of the forces of Atlantis, but when one of the guards yells out that Arthur is a no good half-breed.......... Well, he tells the fish that they can eat him. I'm sure that Aquaman was joking, I just hope that the giant ass Anglerfish know that. So Arthur is on the warpath to find Mera and as our issue ends we see Mera all chained up. What I don't understand though is why after Siren tells her that Aquaman will eventually fail because he'll have to make a sacrifice to banish Thule, that Mera finally uses that time to easily break out of her confinements. It's all very odd, but it looks like we'll at least get Mera back for the next issue, where it's possible that everyone and their mamas will be backing up our King of Atlantis.
That's it for this issue of Aquaman and while I hoped that the inclusion of the Justice League would put this series on the straight and narrow, the way that I thought last issue did with Wonder Woman, it just managed to muck up everything again. Now don't get me wrong, the story was pretty straightened out in the last issue and for the most part it maintains that here, but a whole other mess just left me shaking my head. First off, I have no idea now when this is taking place in relation to when all of our heroes went and had their overhauls in both look and story because we just have a hodgepodge of new looking heroes and old joining the fight and it just doesn't jive with me. So yeah, that's frustrating and something else that pisses me off a bit is that this story only moves forward with Mera being captured and Siren taking her place, but here just because it apparently suited her, Mera decides that she doesn't want to be locked up anymore and breaks free like it was nothing. So yeah, besides for those two things, the rest of the book is just Aquaman having underwater fights and while it wasn't bad and the whole book really came off looking great, that doesn't make up for the rest of the book aggravating the hell out of me.
Bits and Pieces:
While you'll get the Justice League helping out in this issue, their inclusion doesn't do much but make you scratch your head as to when this story line went down because it's just a mismatch of New 52 looking heroes and DCYou ones, while other League members aren't involved at all. Just another issue that's getting us closer to the end of the arc that spends the majority of it's pages showing Aquaman fighting his own people and while it wasn't bad and looked really good. It just wasn't that interesting.
5.8/10
Your just mad at the lack of continuity! I just enjoyed the book for what it was, a fun read. A huge smile formed every time they showed the league together, three times I believe... Batman is hilarious in those panels. He's either hidden or doing nothing why the others fight! Oh Batman Batman.
ReplyDeleteYeah, I am pretty angry about the continuity.
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