Aquaman #10 – Jeremy Adams, Writer; John Timms, Artist; Rex Lokus, Colorist
Ray – 9/10
Ray: Jeremy Adams has put Aquaman through the wringer in less than a year, with the comic stripping away his entire family, casting Atlantis into the depths, and pitting him against a dark god with the support of new allies. In the end, he beat Dagon and gained the power of a God – but found out that so much time had passed in the displaced Atlantis that Andy was now a young woman and Mera was on the verge of death. He returned to the surface with his daughter – but it was revealed to us that Mera was in fact still alive, still young, and with Andy, Garth, and Jackson, none of whom had aged. So what was going on – and who was this mysterious new Andy who had returned to Earth with Arthur? We start to get the answers this issue, as Arthur explains the limits of his new powers – not only being able to “talk to fish” but to absorb all the sounds of the sea and the people in it, across the world.
But there’s no time to dwell on that. There are Ghost Pirates to battle! In a story perfectly suited for Halloween, a long-dead mad captain rises from the deck, in search of some sort of haunted treasure. Aquaman winds up spending most of his time trying to protect people from the rampaging ship, but Andy takes the fight to the pirate captain – and winds up displaying a level of ruthlessness when out of sight of Arthur that took me by surprise. In fact, this is just the start of the surprises about this character, and it hints at a much bigger hidden hand that we don’t know about yet. The supporting characters like Arion and Nemo continue to add some fun color to the title, and we now have a new mystery at the core of this series. This arc doesn’t have the wild visual sense of the battle against Dagon, but it continues a fascinating effort at building Aquaman’s mythology in this run.
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GeekDad received this comic for review purposes
