I don’t think I’d ever be able to tell someone “you know, Aquaman is kind of awesome”
The New 52 – Aquaman #1 to #4 (“The Trench”)
I don’t think I’d ever be able to tell someone “you know, Aquaman is kind of awesome”. This might be due to a lack of interest growing up in a superhero who could talk to and control fish or simply because Aquaman has for as long as I can remember been an ongoing joke in the comic community.
Based on recommendations from a couple of people I trust and the local comic shop owner I decided to pick up and after getting through the first issue was completely hooked. The first issue of Aquaman doesn’t really introduce conflice until the very end and instead focuses pretty heavily on the meta commentary of Aquaman being a joke and trying to find his place among those who make fun of him. There’s a particularly great scene that takes place in a seafood restaurant that addresses a lot of this.
Afterwards, it’s little more than action as Aquaman is forced to save a large amount of people from an aquatic entity he’s never encountered which are essentially disturbing humanoid-piranha creatures that lurk in the deepest part of the ocean called “The Trench”. I highly recommend people pick up the first issue to read through and continue if it grabs you the way it did me.
The New 52 – Aquaman #5 and #6
After getting so into Aquaman in the first New 52 story-arc it just made sense to carry on. Things get a little crazy when an artifact pulled from a piece of wall brought from the Trench in issue #4 begins to emit strange sounds and is stolen by a mysterious team of soldiers, leading Aquaman to be stuck in the desert after taking down their plane.
Pulled off very well and alludes to some crazy things to come. Issue #6 takes a different approach and shows some brief backstory of Mera (“Aquawoman”) and shows her getting into a bit of trouble while out at the store for dog food. Awesome issue, strong female character and ends on an amazing cliff hangar that’s made me crave more.
The New 52 – Batman Detective Comics
I went into this series not expecting too much. Unfortunately, I had heard many bad things AFTER I had already purchased the first few issues and it’s because of this that Batman Detective Comics sat piled up on the corner of my desk for WEEKS until I finally got the courage up to crack them open. While perhaps not nearly as bad as I had thought, this series so far is pretty lackluster and for a Batman-centric story that doesn’t sit well with me. If you’re confused as to what the hell is going on with the covers, believe me when I say reading them makes it that much worse.
At first, I purchase the handful I read here because due to the seemingly random villains on the cover I was under the impression that perhaps each comic (or two) were single story entities; like the old crime digests that would be a different case in each release. I was disappointed to find that not only is this not the case, but all the villains seen on the covers DO in fact make an appearance in the most convoluted and confusing story-arc I’ve read in a long time.
Each issue seems to have little to do with any relevance other than “this character was in this one too” and in-turn it feels like a very ham-fisted and sloppy progression. I have the next three issues sitting around and am hoping they provide some sort of reason to continue on. As it stands, I cannot recommend to anyone picking this series up so far… it’s a pretty big disappointment.
The New 52 – The Flash
Chalk this up to ignorance on my part but The Flash is kind of cool. Hard to say he’s a bad-ass by any means but there’s something interesting with his character that I’m really digging from just this issue so far. I don’t really understand what’s going on at the end but I’m interested enough to pick up the next couple and give them a shot if for no other reason than the art itself. I guess stay tuned for more info on this as I don’t really have an opinion(strange, I know) either way.