Aquaman (Vol. 7) #19 - August 2004

Comics Weekend While there are more dynamic, "better" covers by Alan Davis during his brief run on Aquaman, this one might be my personal favorite.

That's because it so clearly harkens back to the Silver Age of Comics, where heroes were always getting shrunk down and put in test tubes by some nefarious baddie.

(And since nothing like this happens in the book--the image is metaphorical--it's even more like old school comics, in promising the reader something that doesn't actually occur, hopefully before they noticed yet after they've paid for it).

Anyway, we pick up from last issue where Aquaman and Lorena have discovered the guy(named Geist) behind this whole bizarre plot to "convert" a vast chunk of San Diego's citizens into water-breathing beings. This issue opens with Lorena kicking the crap out of the guy, and Aquaman has to literally lift her up off the ground to get her to stop.

After Geist seems, er, less than contrite, Aquaman slaps him around a bit, but Geist is still unrepetant. You see, Geist is so sure that Global Warming will convert a turn much of the Earth into the sea, he wanted to help people prepare for a life underwater. Classic comic book mad scientist!

Aquaman demands to know where Geist came up with this genetic anomaly which enabled him to inject into people's bloodstream, and he doesn't like Geist's answer:

...that is one pissed-off Sea King.

Geist tells Aquaman how he stole some of Arthur's DNA after a public appearance Aquaman made (in a flashback where we see Aquaman's previous hook look), so it came from him.

Geist is proud of what he's done, but Aquaman knows he didn't do it alone, judging from the vast machine that helped drop some of the coast into the ocean he discovered(in the previous issue). Geist refuses to say, which leads to a nice moment where Aquaman threatens to kill him.

Geist isn't scared, since he knows Aquaman is a hero, etc. Aquaman's response?: "You may know that when I wore a crown...delegating unpleasant tasks was a common occurrence."

Sure, Aquaman's bluffing, but its a nice, Batman-esque bluff.

Anyway, suddenly Lorena starts convulsing, and its Geist who injects her with a solution that gets her out of it, but Aquaman knows she needs water. As he leaves with Lorena, Geist smugly tells Aquaman he'll be right here when its convenient for Arthur to come back and continue their conversation. Luckily, Aquaman can multi-task:

As it says, To be continued!

Like the previous issues, its a dark story, both thematically and visually, but I like how Aquaman does not take any Karp in this story from Geist. Geist may be a brilliant guy, but he's such a smug jerk that you do wanna see Arthur paste him one. Or several.