The Cotton Review
Sink or Swim |
Aquaman’s
been lampooned on "Saturday Night Live,"
ridiculed on Adult Swim and recently heckled in the pages of
Maxim—but if writer Rick
Veitch has anything to say about it, Aquaman
won’t be a joke too much longer.
With Aquaman
# 1 (available tomorrow, Wednesday December 11) Veitch (Swamp
Thing) and penciler Yvel Guichet
(Superman) dive into the job of trying to turn Aquaman from
an ongoing joke into an ongoing series. And the team does
a pretty good job of it, too.
Aquaman
#1 finds its lead character banished from Atlantis—and
the ocean for that matter—for his role in the sinking
of Atlantis during the Obsidian Age sage, which recently ran
through JLA #69-75. Stripped of his link to the sea, its inhabitants
and his crown, Veitch turns the former king into royalty --
without any people to obey him. Like King Lear, he’s
cast out by those he thought he could trust. But all is not
lost.
Playing
on the Arthurian legends of Camelot, it seems like Veitch
is taking Aquaman back to his roots but not tying the hero
too close to those roots so the character can grow and change
as the series evolves.
Guichet’s
pencils are amazing as always but what really stands out about
this first issue is how it gives readers a real feel for how
Veitch plans to reshape Aquaman—no telepathy, no super-friends,
no undersea kingdom to escape to.
Overall,
Aquaman #1 does what few Aquaman stories of the past could
hope to do—it gets readers interested in a second issue.
Get
new Aquaman writer Rick Veitch's signature!
New Aquaman penciler Yvel Guichet's
signature here!
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