Taking on the Other Side
Oh boy oh boy oh boy. It's Aquaman, and it's back to the same quality as the first arc after the little dip with issue 6. The general comic community can't keep telling you to buy this title, but there's really no valid reason you shouldn't have at least enjoyed this on some level. Issue #7 was fantastic, and nicely sets the series up for the introduction of the Others.
First of all, Johns has the right idea to make the main antagonist of this arc Aquaman's archnemesis, the Black Manta. John's seems to have realized that it's not enough to make Aquaman a bad-ass in his present incarnation, you have to show how he's always been a great hero for the majority of his history. And showing somehow as brutal and as intense as Black Manta really helps demonstrate that. Also, just a side note, Black super villains are few in far between, so it's nice to see one who has no connection to any kind of black culture, he's just a force of evil who happens to be black, as all great characters ought to be.
The rest of the story continues along quite smoothly. We see Aquaman prove himself to be a hero who doesn't keep the task at hand from keeping him away from saving a few hundred lives, as well as the guilt he feels when the trench are brought up. One of the defining traits about Aquaman seems to be his sense of responsibility, no matter how hard it is to bear, but what separates him from, say, Spider-man, is that it's a sense of duty brought up by his experience as king, which adds a nice twist to the character. Story wise, a bit is left vague, probably so it can be explained in the next issue, and there's a small info dump near the end, but you never feel lost, you just feel like more is to come, and all the seeds and possible connections are all there to potentially set up a great story in the following issues.
And as usual, the art somehow manages to eclipse the quality of the story, which is a damn hard thing to do. the action scenes are gorgeous, the character designs are perfect, and emotion is very properly delivered in each panel. The last page showing a picture the complete team of the others was just awesome. Ivan Reis is probably one of the best artists working for DC, and Johns is lucky to have him help tell this fantastic story.
In the end, I can find nothing wrong with this issue, like at all. As disappointing as Justice League was, Aquaman remains at the height of it's quality, and doesn't seem to possess any of John's typical writing flaws, such as feeling underwhelming. Quite the opposite, this is great set-up for what I expect to be a wonderful story.
