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Saturday, January 31, 2015

Aquaman (Vol.8) #38 - March 2015

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Comics Weekend "Maelstrom Part 4: The Final Gate" by Jeff Parker, Paul Pelletier, Sean Parsons, Sandra Hope, and Rain Beredo.

When last we saw him, Aquaman was tangling with Gorilla Grodd, and both were hurtling through the dimensional portal. It seems that the Sea King could be trapped in another world along with Grodd, except: 

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...Mera FTW!

Drs. Shin and Evans arrive, with further clues as to where Aquaman's mother went when she disappeared. Arthur, almost desperate to find her, prepares to teleport to her last known location. Mera asks if he might wait a bit to see if its safe, but of course he says no. In that case, Mera is going with him. 

The trail leads to a Polynesian Island, where a collection of massive statues surround yet another portal. As Aquaman strikes it with his trident, the statues come alive, revealing themselves to be...Fire Trolls!

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Aquaman and Mera fight the fire-breathing stone beasts, and one of them grabs the trident away from the Sea King. After Mera separates that one from the others, Aquaman grabs its hand, breaks it off, and touches the trident to the portal. 


Suddenly the Fire Trolls stop attacking, and the portal opens up a whirlpool. Aquaman and Mera take a moment to join hands, and leap in. They arrive in the same place, but a different time. Some locals spot them and call for their leader:

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...of course, to be continued!

Jeff Parker keeps the ball in the air for this particular installment, dispensing with the Grodd side story and instead focusing on our heroes. Paul Pelletier and Sean Parsons (with Sandra Hope) do some of their best work on the series to date, like this sequence of Aquaman and Mera taking a literal leap of faith:

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"Maelstrom" is proving to a lot of fun, with Parker throwing in wonderful bits of Aqua-History (the Fire Trolls from Aquaman #1!) while giving us a story particular to the New 52 versions of the characters. Another fine installment, this creative team is on a real roll--I'm almost dreading the interruption known as Convergence that's coming down the pike.


7 comments:

Joseph Brian Scott said...

Beasts of the mother's exile!

Yeah this arc has been an exciting ride.

Joe Slab said...

Agreed! The creative team is firing on all cylinders and Maelstrom has the cohesiveness that Parker's 1st arc lacked. I am genuinely curious about the book again and admittely dont have a clue where Parker is going to take it -- and I like that!

Agree again rob! I am dreading Convergence if only because Aquaman book will be on hiatus and its replacement looks very weak. I have no desire to revisit 90's Aquaman with a scrub creative team. Now of they'd brought PAD & Egeland back for 2 issues THAT would be real convergence (and it would probably sell like gangbusters too!).

rob! said...

Let's try and keep insults at writers and artists out of this, please. I don't think the Convergence stuff looks bad, but when you find a creative team that works the way Parker, Pelletier, and Parsons do, I'm nervous that they will get interrupted and what that might do to sales.

Joe said...

Insults?

Pelletier was on fire with this issue. The spread with the fire trolls...!

Thought Parker did an unkindness to Flash fans with how he dispatched of Grodd. Some poor writer is going to have to fish Grodd out of that dimension (or ignore this story entirely).

Martin Gray said...

A terrific issue indeed. I wonder how P&P will update Quisp - it has to be coming.

Of the panels you show, that last pic of Arthur and Mera has a lovely Alan Davis vibe.

TheFlash said...

Did anyone else think Shin looked like Armin Zola when he was looking through the portal?

Lucien Desar said...

Great synopsis Rob! (as always) This was a fun issue and I always go back to that with recent Aquaman - Fun. It is pure enjoyment. I can tell the writer is totally setting up for a major issue to occur with Arthur & Mera. Which will be sad but that is called suspense and a source of good writing.