It’s always fun to be in that period where a bunch of trades are tied-ins to a big DC event, when back in the day an event tie-in issue was more likely an indication that it wouldn’t be collected than that it would.
Somehow or another it seems like DC arrived a little late to the full-court press on trades and DC K.O., with a couple of collections that weren’t solicited with “DC K.O.” in the title being renamed, and then others, like Green Lantern Corps Vol. 2, getting “DC K.O. tie-in” cover branding, maybe because it was too late for more.
I wonder if, doing it all over again, DC might’ve liked to call Aquaman Vol. 2: Justice League Blue “DC K.O.: Aquaman” instead. There’s six issues here and three had DC K.O. branding on the individual issues. That’s half, and maybe Superman or Justice League was more directly tied in to DC K.O. than Aquaman, but I’m sure I’ve seen DC try to brand less, and I wouldn’t have blamed them this time.
Both within and without of DC K.O., there’s issues here from the Jeremy Adams series that are light, just throwing Aquaman against something to hit. Though, that’s not unusual when a writer’s trying to time issues around a crossover and it’s especially forgivable when it comes to DC K.O.’s raison d’etre. Where he can, however, Adams does well explicating Arthur’s new power set, which is impressive and will perhaps be even more so once Adams has some room to tell his own stories. The revelation of this arc’s central villain feels like a cheat, but in all Adams has built up enough good will that I’m satisfied with this volume and eager for the next.
[Review contains spoilers]
With the end of Aquaman Vol. 1: The Dark Tide and into Blue, Adams offers something like Aquaman by way of Swamp Thing. Arthur is now an “avatar,” if not in so many words, of the Blue — yes, verily like the natural Green, except now for water.
If, at least, Aquaman can’t just dissolve into a puddle of water and reappear somewhere else in the world, he can now listen to the ocean and discern by instinct where his presence is needed. Essentially the same Aquaman, but maybe now a bit smoother — he’s not telepathically communicating with fish but rather with the whole ocean itself. Adams makes a point of showing us Aquaman withstanding a punch from Superman and then jumping all the way from space to the ocean, so we’re clearly meant to newly understand Arthur as a contender.
[See the latest DC trade solicitations.]
Adams presents all of that in a scene-setting issue that reintroduces Arthur to his Justice League colleagues after almost a year away, and then another where he and his new “Blue” team battle pirate zombies. Not that these issues don’t forward the story of the missing Atlantis and the forces working against Aquaman, but again, they’re “light” overall — the pirates are no more important than as a vehicle to reveal something’s up with Arthur’s now-adult daughter Andrina. That’s a trend going into the DC K.O. tie-in issues, too — the first sees Aquaman and team fight Parademons and the Deep Six mainly to have something Darkseid-related to do.
I like the Justice League Blue a lot — not their actual name, rather a nickname that Wonder Twin Zan gives the group, though they’re at least enough of a team to all wear matching patches. As in Dark Tide, Adams has gathered a group from literature and DC Comics lore — the Lady of the Lake, Arion, Captain Nemo, Zan, the mermaid Lori Lemaris — and that’s simply a fun bunch to see tagging along after Aquaman. There’s less angst involved than with a similar group of Aquaman backups, Geoff Johns' The Others, though I would say that for a book called “Justice League Blue,” the characters don’t get much of individual plotlines here. If they’re around in the post-DC K.O. era, I hope that changes.
In a not-entirely-clear way, Mera’s mother is behind a bunch of Arthur’s recent troubles. It seems Lolanna was a minion of the evil god Dagon, but a lot of the worst part — stealing Atlantis — turns out to have been Lolanna’s doing. It’s been generally established that Mera’s mother was “dead,” but a Secret Origins tale (albeit New 52) presented her as someone who tried to free her daughter from the xenophobic Xebelians. Not that Adam’s can’t engage in some retroactive continuity; rather, I call foul that Mera’s mother hasn’t been mentioned even in passing in Adams' run, and now she turns out to be the culprit. A fair mystery raises all suspects while leaving none obvious; otherwise there’s a danger — the risk of serial storytelling — of the audience suspecting the writer’s just making it up as they go along.
Blue’s most forthright DC K.O. material is its “All Fight Month” issue (which we also find in the DC K.O.: All Fight collection), pitting Aquaman against Hawkman. That’s clever, whoever’s idea it was, with some discussion of “sea and air”; let’s get these two together more often. The fight is, y’know, a fight, with confusingly Arthur “K.O.”‘ing Hawkman once (as the visual effects tell us), but then Hawkman’s back again for Arthur to “K.O.” him a second time.
I was impressed, however, to see Hawkman encounter the god Horus, straight from Adams’ Green Lantern Corps Vol. 1: New World Rising. One, sure, give Adams Hawkman and let’s see what happens.1 Two, Adams does this kind of cross-pollination stuff among his titles all the time and I love it; the planning that went into Horus makes up for what did or didn’t go into the “Crimson Queen.”
Otherwise, Adams mostly uses the DC K.O. tie-in issues to focus on Mera while Aquaman is otherwise in use in the crossover. She fights someone, so I guess that counts for DC K.O.? The art in most of these issues is largely not by series artist John Timms, and it’s passable though the characters are often smooth-faced and lacking in detail. I despaired that maybe Timms had left the title, but I do see him along for the next arc.
Fun to see the rest of the DCU in an Aquaman book. Jeremy Adams' Aquaman Vol. 2: Justice League Blue is fine, and I’m eager for him put the pedal down, crossover in the rearview, in the next book.
[Includes original and variant covers]
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