DCU Comic Book Reviews

AQUAMAN #13

The Storm

January 2004

Written by Jon Ostrander

Pencils by James Bosch

Inks by Ray Snyder

Cover by James Bosch & Wade von Grawbadger

Synopsis

In the Atlantic Ocean, Jennifer is sailing to Bermuda with her mother and father.  During the night, a thunderstorm threatens to capsize their boat.  Jennifer falls into the water.  Aquaman rescues her and then offers to help the family.  He is able to swim out and with his mystical hand, clear a path to get them into the eye of the storm.  Unfortunately, the boat is taking on water and there are no aircraft available to get them out.  Aquaman offers to swim them to shore, but he can only take two.  Both mother and father tell Aquaman to take Jennifer.  Once they reach shore, Aquaman goes back to get them, but it was too late.  Later, Jennifer requests her cremated family be scattered in the ocean at the spot of their death; Aquaman volunteers to do it for her. 

Review

This was not a bad issue at all. I am not saying it was great or even good, but it was not bad.  After the lengthy year-long arc that just completed, it was nice to get a small self-contained story.  Comic books rarely do that anymore.  The story provided a set-up for Aquaman to do his heroic thing, while at the same time delving a little bit into his past.  The beginning, setting up the main characters was a little confusing at first, but once I understand the Invisible Man and the Witch were descriptions and not real (hey, I read comic books, things like that are fairly common), I liked that part.  The downside is that the art was average and at times it looked really odd, such as Aquaman in the first panel on the last page.  To me, that looks like something one of my friends drew in high school, not a professional.  However, I did like the drawing of the water parting and the fact that he was able to use his hand to do that. 

The other problem with this issue (and this has nothing to do with the creators) is that coming off of the recent year-long story arc, this issue seems like filler, a placeholder (and not helped by the description of Ostrander as a guest writer).  Really, one would think that after all that ahs happened, Aquaman would have returned directly to Atlantis to free his people and his wife.  There are a few questions lingering, so to have this issue just seems like (as I said) a placeholder until Aquaman does return.

Having said all that, I really hope they do more one and done stories like this.  -- MRB

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