DCU Comic Book Reviews

AQUAMAN #15

American Tidal, Part 1

March 2004

Written by Will Pfeifer

Pencils by Patrick Gleason

Inks by Christian Alamy

Cover by Alan Davis & Mark Farmer

Synopsis

Tragedy of epic proportions strikes San Diego has half the city falls into the Pacific Ocean.  Aquaman swims around the destruction and finds no survivors.  Later, President Pete Ross holds a press conference in which he tells the American public there are still no details on the cause of the catastrophe and that it is time to move on.  Days later, a young child crawls out of the ocean.  A security guard finds him and an ambulance is called.  On the way to the hospital, the kid dies.  Aquaman is present at the autopsy in which they notice bruises caused by long-term exposure to salt water.  They also find digested fish in the kid’s stomach.  An examination of the kid’s throat reveals gills.  Aquaman tells the doctors that the kid had been breathing water for some time and what killed him was better out of the ocean. 

Review

The best thing I can say about this issue is that I am deeply curious to see where the next issue is going to lead with the knowledge of someone being able to breathe underwater.  Other than the final seven pages, there was not much to this issue.  The first six or so pages were essentially dialogue free.  The visuals were well done and strike a chord in our post-9/11 world and it does well to set the stage for the next part of the issue:  President’s Ross’ speech.  His statement about moving on regardless of why it happened was the writer’s way of saying I am not interested in the event, just the aftermath.  That is fine with me.  There have been plenty of stories dealing with disasters, so I think it was the right choice to start after the event.  Perhaps at some point another writer will examine the whys, but for now, I agree the focus should remain on the consequence.  And that is brought home with the final pages and the autopsy.  The final revelation was a killer and I am looking forward to the next issue. 

The worst thing I can say about this issue is that Aquaman is essentially given nothing to do.  Really, the thrust of the issue is the tragedy and the consequence of this tragedy.  Aquaman is nothing more than the bearer of bad news at the beginning and a helper to the medical examiner at the end.  He is a passive bystander for this entire issue.  For the number of readers who pick up this title based on the press coverage and DC’s marketing machine, this will not feel like an Aquaman story, but a story that just so happens to feature Aquaman.  Hopefully in the next installments, Aquaman will take a more active role to show these new readers what he can do. 

As with any brand new, bold direction for any title, there are always questions.  The first I must ask is:  when did Aquaman change his costume?  Personally, I liked the new look.  I thought it was distinctive and bold, yet a great nod towards his old costume, which happens to be his new costume. 

The bad news is that a lot of questions left over from the previous story arc still remained not only unresolved, but completely absent.  Where is Tempest?  Who is the ruler of Atlantis?  What happened to Mera?  All of these issues are left dangling.  I want a resolution, dammit!

And, finally, I hate the title of this issue and the bad tribute or reflection or whatever they are doing of the singing show.  Bad, bad, bad.-- MRB