Aquaman #49 Review and *SPOILERS*

I'm In Love With A Lighthouse Man

Written By: Dan Abnett
Art By: Vincente Cifuentes, John Dell, Juan Castro, Guy Major, Tom Napolitano
Cover Price: $3.99
Release Date: February 24, 2016

*Non Spoilers and Score At The Bottom*

We're over the hump people and it's glorious!  That's right, we're out of the Thule story line and we've got Dan Abnett taking the helm of Aquaman for it's duration and I couldn't be happier because we can finally get Arthur to be fun again......... hopefully.  I'm staying optimistic though because man did I not fully understand everything that was going on in the previous story and on top of that, it just wasn't much fun.  Here though, we've got a chance to bring Aquaman back to greatness........ as we hope beyond hope that Mera doesn't call Arthur out for sleeping with her doppelganger as we've seen so many times in fantasy shows.  Let's cross our fingers and get into this latest issue of Aquaman and see what our King of Atlantis is up to after the Thule incident.  Let's check it out.



Explain It!:

Our issue begins with Mera hanging out in just a towel and all Arthur wants to do is just sit around and listen to music his mother liked...........  Why you gotta let me down like that Arthur?  Seriously though, we begin at Arthur's lighthouse home in Amnesty Bay, where our hero is explaining to his lady love how his mother really liked a cheesy song when her and his father were together and how something so innocuous as a pop ditty allowed her to feel a connection to the surface world.  It's a real nice moment that turns into the opportunity for a really fun moment when an officer of Amnesty Bay pays Arthur a visit to invite him to the Amnesty Sea Festival....... and Mera is fine just dancing around in the background....... only wearing a towel and singing this song that Arthur's mom loved so much....... It's not a bad moment by any means, I just couldn't help but picture me in this scenario yelling for my girlfriend to put some goddamn clothes on when people show up at the door......... I don't have a healthy relationship.

It seems that Aquaman has a proposition that he's trying to put together and sees this Amnesty Sea Festival as the best way to test it out.  The issue spends a lot of time teasing what Aquaman's up to, but I'm just going to spoil it right on front street and tell you that he wants to bring Atlantis into the rest of the world and have Atlanteans and surface dwellers hold hands and sing songs and whatnot.  The reason that the festival is the perfect proving ground for this is because he brought Tula, Garth and Murk to it as well as Mera and dressed everyone up in regular people clothes, which is hilarious because they hate it so much........... that is until they discover cotton candy and become sugar junkies.  The scene where Murk gets full on passionate with his cone of cotton candy has to be one of the best things that I've seen in awhile and I'm so happy that Aquaman could make me laugh again.  So yeah, the majority of this issue is really just a walk in the park....... or festival that is and it's low key and it's fantastic for being so simple, while we slowly lay out Arthur's plans to integrate Atlantis into the rest of the world.

In the end, we find out that Arthur wants Mera to act as the head of a Atlantean embassy on dry land and wants Tula to take up the leadership role in Atlantis so that he can maintain what he considers his "lighthouse" status and be a safeguard for both the sea and surface dwellers.......... pretty much he just wants to go galavanting around as Aquaman, but you know what?  I dig it.  Arthur has come up with a way to preserve his ideals, while being able to go about his superhero duties and I love it because we're not tied down by responsibilities that our hero happens to have.  It's not all pinatas and RC Cola though because throughout this issue we see random people getting attacked by demonic hands that appear out of water, whether it be a simple glass, fish tanks or tubs and they're being taken away by this mysterious monstrous figure.  As our issue closes, our heroes head back home from their day at the festival and it seems that Mera is preparing for her new role and figures that she should look the part that the surface dwellers expect from her......... and apparently the surface world expects her to look sexy as hell because goddamn is her new outfit amazing.

That's it for this issue of Aquaman and I can't tell you how happy I am to have fun with this series again.  We've got a demonic looking mystery on our hands and it was handled subtly so that we could have a fun filled day with our Atlantean friends, which was sorely needed after all the pain and suffering we went through during the Thule story arc.  It's a brand new day for Aquaman and his supporting cast because it looks like we'll be getting our King of the Seas back to form, while sending his friends away for the most part so that we can focus solely on Arthur.  I could be wrong about that, but that's how it appears to me right now.  There really isn't much else to say about this issue except that we've got a lot of new developments on our hands and it doesn't feel like too much too soon because of the amount of levity thrown in, allowing us the ability to just sit back and have a good time, while we laugh with our heroes.  Thankfully, since we got this new style of writing Aquaman we didn't lose what goodness we had before on art because Vincente Cifuentes continues to be on art duties and this combination of writing and art is fantastic and I can't believe it, but I can't wait to dive into the next issue............. It's been so long since I've been able to say that.

Bits and Pieces:

Aquaman is back with Dan Abnett on writing duty now and the tone has seriously changed from what it was............ and goddamn, it is so enjoyable.  While we have a whole new problem rearing it's ugly head in Aquaman's world, it's almost dealt with as a non threat because of how subtly it's thrown in throughout this issue so that we could take the time and just breath and laugh with our hero and his friends.  On top of all of this we have great art throughout and while it may be a bit early to say........ I think Aquaman is back!

8.5/10