Aquaman and the Lost Kingdom Special #1 – Tim Seeley, Joey Esposito, Ethan Sacks, Writers; Miguel Mendonca, Ray-Anthony Height, Scot Eation/Norm Rapmund, Artists; Andrew Dalhouse, Eren Angiolini, Tony Avina, Colorists
Ray – 8/10
Ray: This is one of the oddest projects out of DC recently—a comic-book tie-in to the upcoming Aquaman movie that will probably be the final film set in the current continuity. Three creative teams tell tales bridging the gap between the first and second movies.
First up is Tim Seeley and Miguel Mendonca, giving us the main Aquaman tale. This double-sized story, taking place right before Arthur and Mera’s wedding, kicks off with him teaming up with the Justice League (a last hurrah for Wonder Woman, and an unpleasant reminder of Flash) to take out a team of assassins led by a husband-wife duo named Scylla and Charybdis. When Scylla gets killed (as Aquaman makes yet another villain by causing the death of someone close to them), Charybdis goes mad, gains metahuman powers, and creates an army of mutant sea-life hunters to crash the wedding. The plot is rather silly, and Charybdis is a little too close to Black Manta, but the scenes with Arthur’s parents, with Mera, and with Vulko are all surprisingly strong. Seeley gets the inherent absurdity of this character, but also infuses it with some real emotion as the character steps into a new stage of his life in more ways than one.
Joey Esposito and Ray-Anthony Height take over for the Black Manta story, which finds Manta making plans for his assault on Atlantis by following the path of his father, investigating Atlantean puzzleboxes, and taking over another captain’s ship through force and recruiting a paramilitary force. This is a dark, intense story that gives us a great insight into the mind of Arthur’s cruelest adversary—who here, has a deeply personal reason for wanting to take away everything from Arthur.
Finally, Ethan Sacks and Scot Eaton return us to the story of Ocean Master, the defeated Monarch of Atlantis and Arthur’s rogue half-brother. Now imprisoned in a secret jail deep under Atlantis, he finds himself targeted by both guards and fellow prisoners, as he suffers under prison life and plots his escape. While he was the main villain of the first movie, here he seems to be having almost a heel realization, which makes me wonder if he’s going to be switching sides in the new movie.
Overall, it’s a solid read, with three decent stories in service of a movie that seems to be slipping under the radar.
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GeekDad received this comic for review purposes.
