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Saturday, June 28, 2014

Aquaman (Vol.8) #32 - Aug. 2014

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Comics Weekend "It Lives" by Jeff Parker, Paul Pelletier, Sean Parsons, and Rain Beredo.

This issue opens with Aquaman hitching a ride with Batman back to Atlantis:
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Meanwhile, a strange creature is sending telepathic signals out, looking for "The Killer King." What's that about? Well, two hours ago, we see what it's about: the ghastly experiments performed on the man known as Coombs by Dr. Orson have gone horribly, horribly wrong. Coombs has been transformed, and after he kills his creator, he breaks free:
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After destroying Triton Base, the creature escapes, on the hunt for...Aquaman!

Meanwhile, at the remote, dangerous region of Atlantis known as the Underreealm, Mera is threatened by the very conspirators she was searching for. When met with those threats, Mera offer is similar to her husband's, over in Aquaman and the Others #3: surrender, now.

As you might imagine, this is not met well, and soon the would-be assassins are attacking Mera and Tula, who are not cowed by the odds. In fact, their bravery in battle is noticed by some of the citizens of the Underrealm, who start to question all the bad things they've heard about Michelle Obama Mera. Tula grabs control of one of the giant crabs, leaving Mera feel to deliver the coup de grace:
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Mera and Tula grab the head of the group, and when he sees the light again, it's staring into the gaping maw of Topo! Mera promises that as he is digested, Sarlacc-like, his co-conspirators will give them the information they're looking for. This bluff(?) has the desired effect.

Back out at sea, Aquaman runs into some of his finny friends, who do not respond to his telepathic communication. In fact, they start to attack him! Aquaman then senses another presence, and turns around to face:
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...to be continued!
The P3 team (Parker, Pelletier, and Parsons) continue to do really fun, solid work with Aquaman, both the character and the title in general. Mera's sub-plot is so well done that I don't even mind that she and Arthur have been separated for about three issues straight now!

It's pretty clear that Parker has read his fair share of Lovecraft, and it's been enjoyable to see that kind of tone mixed with superhero derring-do. Pelletier seems to really sinking his teeth into coming up with all these monster designs, and the whole package is given a nice polish by Parsons and colorist Beredo. I hope this team stays in place on Aquaman for a good long while.


1 comment:

Martin Gray said...

Nice review, and I'd also give a big shout-out to Rain Beredo for striking colour work, and Dezi Sienty for the fun B-movie title lettering.