Aquaman: Andromeda #1 – Ram V, Writer; Christian Ward, Artist
Ray – 10/10
Ray: Black Label has been riding an incredible hot streak, and so has Ram V, so it’s no surprise that when you put them together, you get a full-on masterpiece. The first entry point into Aquaman for the mature-readers line, this story uses the Sea King only sparingly. Here a lonely warrior who occasionally retreats to a northern Russian village to work with ordinary fishermen, he’s been haunted by odd visions of something in the deep. At the same time, Black Manta takes a contract to retrieve something that just landed in the sea—possibly from space. That mystery ship, located at the infamous ship graveyard of Point Nemo, is also the subject of a top-secret international mission to find out what it is—and if needed, make first contact with whatever’s inside. An elite crew is picked, including a young marine biologist named Yvette Verne, who seems to be our point-of-view character.
This really isn’t a superhero comic—it’s much more inspired by the best of the sci-fi horror genre, like Alien, The Mist, and John Carpenter’s The Thing. Stories of abominations from somewhere beyond, bearing things so terrifying the human mind can barely comprehend them. Making the human characters the POV here is smart, because it allows the creative team to play up the mystery and terror of the ocean in a very effective way—and treat Aquaman as part of that mystery. While the meaningfully-named Verne is given the most attention, the rest of the crew seems set up to be compelling characters as well, especially one player with a mysterious past in Serbia. When the monster finally appears, it’s delivered with some genuinely stunning and terrifying visuals by Christian Ward, maybe featuring the best art of his entire career. If the rest of this series can live up to the phenomenal first issue, it could go down as one of the defining Aquaman stories.
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GeekDad received this comic for review purposes.
