Aquaman #50 Review and *SPOILERS*

Water Damage

Written By: Dan Abnett
Art By: Brett Booth, Norm Rapmund, Andrew Dalhouse, Tom Napolitano
Cover Price: $4.99
Release Date: March 30, 2016

*Non Spoilers and Score At The Bottom*

Since we finished with the nonsense of Thule, we saw our hero Aquaman realizing that Atlantis and the surface world need to be better friends........... or friends in general........... lousy no good, judgy surface dwellers.  To accomplish this task, our hero has decided to create a embassy in Amnesty Bay so that Atlantis can have relations with the United Nations and Arthur's put Mera in charge of the whole shebang.  Pretty much, it's to put a positive spin on Atlantis while Aquaman goes off to play hero and to give the people what they want.......... and apparently what they want is putting Mera in a Aquaman costume and calling her Aquawoman........ I don't know if that will lead to good relations or not, but it's certainly sexy as hell.  Let's jump into this over-sized fiftieth issue and see if whatever was killing everyone using water as it's means of travel will put a negative spin on how people see Atlanteans during this crucial time........ of course it will, let's check it out.

Explain It!:

Our issue begins with the FBI getting involved with all these water murders that are going around and if you remember from the last issue this isn't any JAWS were talking about because people were getting knocked off in the bathtub, aquariums and even glasses of water.  It was crazy, but now two agents are on the case and their best idea in solving these murders is bringing in an expert on water........ So yeah, Aquaman.  It's weird too because we get introduced to Agent Irving and Agent Ajar and I don't know if I buy these characters actually being FBI agents because of how jokey and unprofessional they come off in this issue.  They seem more like the comedy relief than anything esle and it just doesn't work for me in this story............ After reading this issue I have to assume that these two are some kind of screw-ups and being put on this still water murder case is more of a punishment than anything else.  So yeah, they get Aquaman involved and he goes on the case because the media is already saying that this moist murderer is probably Atlantean and Arthur needs to keep up appearances.

Once our hero goes and inspects a pool murder scene he starts talking crazy about some kind of anger that is now a residue in the pool........ and that just sounds like urine to me, but apparently Aquaman knows what he's talking about because after communing with the water, he's presented with a big ass monster, who the media is calling Dead Water and half our issue is now all about Aquaman fighting him and realizing that he can't really do much because the monster can phase through his attacks....... That is until the monster pulls our hero down into his rage water home, where he is able to access any body of water he wants to chomp on people, but taking the King of Atlantis to this place might not have been the best option for Dead Water because there he's tangible again and Aquaman beats the rage monster right out of him.  That's right this snake-tailed monster was once human and was turned into this beast by the rage water Dead Water calls its home.  Aquaman plans on taking this man back to the Atlantean Spindrift embassy so that they can study what the water was that turned this man into a beast.

In the end, Mera goes up in front of the press and presents to the world what Spindrift is all about and how it wants to be a stepping stone to bridge the world of the surface to the world below and after a few forced jokes, which the press apparently eat up, it looks like everything is going to work out for our hero and his good relations with the rest of the world.

That's it for this issue of Aquaman and even though I really enjoy the side-story of Aquaman and Mera's efforts to bring Atlantis to the surface world, the Dead Water stuff really felt like mostly filler because of how much time was spent in the battle and for how many times Arthur discusses how whatever turned the man into Dead Water was some kind of new water filled with rage....... some kind of otherness.  It was just repeated too many times for me and made me roll my eyes and wonder when the story was going to progress.  Also, I found myself just hating the FBI agents for how corny they came off because it seems that they were just there for comic relief and they weren't very funny.  Hell, all of the jokes in this issue came off just too forced and that's even with Mera during her press meeting and that was the part I was most interested in.  The art in this issue was stellar though and I love the fact that Brett Booth was on this fiftieth issue.  I'm just a huge fanboy of his style and I loved all the guest artists on this and wish that they were more than just guests.  

Bits and Pieces:

If you're into big ass fight scenes and forced jokes than this issue may just be for you, but personally I found the whole thing just a little heavy handed in padding out this over-sized fiftieth.  Aquaman just repeated the same things over again, while fighting a big ass monster, but despite these things that I wasn't on board with, I found myself liking some of this issue and continue to like the direction that this series is taking.  Also, we have some kick ass art and colors rocking this issue so that doesn't hurt.

6/10