Aquamansplaining
Story: Dan Abnett and Rob Williams
Script: Abnett
Pencils: Joe Bennett
Inks: Vicente Cifuentes
Colors: Adriano Lucas
Letters: Steve Wands
Cover: Rafa Sandoval and Ivan Plascencia
Variant Cover: Joshua Middleton
Assistant Editor: Andrea Shea
Editors: Alex Antone and Katie Kubert
Group Editor: Brian Cunningham
Cover Price: $3.99
On Sale Date: August 15, 2018
**NON SPOILERS AND SCORE
AT THE BOTTOM**
This
crossover with Suicide Squad
continues, and for the first time in a long while, I’m excited to check out an
issue of Aquaman! So let’s dispense
with the pleasantries and dive right into my review of issue #39, right here!
Explain It!
It’s
Part Two of this Suicide Squad/Aquaman
crossover that I was so keen about after Part One. That part doubtlessly
received a little boost from me on the merit of being something new—and, given
the repetitive, meandering nature of Aquaman,
you’d think Part Two would evince the same level of enthusiasm from me. The
problem here is that we got the complete story in the first part, featured in Suicide Squad #45, and here we get a
kind of pathological reiterating of the plot, which smacks of the same delaying
tactics used throughout the series to force a given story into a six-part arc.
Now
that Mera’s Queen of Atlantis, her boyfriend Arthur is so proud of her that he
can’t stand to be near her. He respects her so much, that he won’t even tell
her that the Suicide Squad have been tasked with sinking Atlantis. He is so
awed by her leadership, he doesn’t mention that felling Atlantis will crush the
Ninth Trides and the innocent citizens within. No, he takes it upon himself and
his rag-tag cohorts to perform some Black Ops of his own, in an attempt to save
the City of Atlantis without stealing the spotlight from Mera. Everything is in
her service. He’s merely trying to protect her from controversy! Well, she
finds out anyway, and boy is she pissed off.
Against
Mera’s wishes, Aquaman and his crew go toe-to-toe with the Suicide Squad, but
thanks to Satanus’ magic, they all get away, to live and nuke the sunken city
another day. Mera breaks Arthur’s balls for a while, but after a page or so of
fighting, she acquiesces to the idea that the only thing that can stop a
criminal is another criminal—so Mera tells Arthur to recruit from deviants like
King Shark from the Lower Trides to tackle Task Force X more efficiently! When
criminals face off against criminals, nothing can go wrong!
We
do get a nice Aquaman-heavy issue of Aquaman, which seems like a foregone
conclusion except that it hasn’t been the case for the last few months’ worth
of issues. The story is very cleanly told and the danger of Atlantis sinking
seems palpable. The problem is that there’s virtually no progress in this
story, aside from Arthur’s recognition of the Suicide Squad’s plan and his
intention to recruit King Shark in the fight against it. Which isn’t nothing,
but sort of drains the intention of the nuclear bomb reveal from the end of
Suicide Squad #45. I think this thing is four issues, so it shouldn’t drag on
too long, but I also wish we weren’t already treading narrative water this
early.
Bits and Pieces:
This crossover event plods on incrementally as we wait for the climax to happen. I figure it's got to be just around the bend, by rights.
6.5/10
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