Bombshells #43

"Ghost Stories Part 1 of 3" by Marguerite Bennett, Laura Braga, and J. Nanjan.

Off the coast of Ireland in 1941, Mera and Arthur are spending some downtime. They stroll into town, where a festival is about to take place.

It doesn't take long, though, before Mera is accosted by a man in a hood who says she should be ashamed for shirking her responsibilities, and says her enemies will follow her to this small town. Arthur threatens to deal with the guy, but Mera calls him off. Later that day, Mera shows off the dress she's going to wear to the dance, and she is of course stunning. They head outside to practice dancing, and Arthur offers to sing for her:

This romantic moment is interrupted by, as is par for the course for the King and Queen of the Seven Seas, a giant horse made of water:

Even in platform shoes, Mera makes quick work of the "Kelpie" by using her necklace as a bridle. They both climb aboard and take the horse into town, just in time to stop the mysterious hooded man--named Hagen--from attacking the townspeople.

Hagen is the Cardinal of Atlantis and accuses Mera of abandoning her people in Atlantis. He grabs the kelpie and takes off, but not before threatening to take away anyone Mera loves until she does what he demands. Amid the flaming wreckage of the town, Mera realizes what needs to be done:

...To be continued!

I admit I do not read the Bombshells book regularly, so I really didn't understand much of what was going on here. I've tried a couple of times to get into the Mera storylines, but it seems like every time I do there are several issues in a row where Mera doesn't show up and the book follows other characters (like what happens in issue #44). I get frustrated and forget about the whole thing until I see that Mera is back in the book, and the whole process starts all over again.

That said, I liked what I saw here, this alt history of Aquaman and Mera set in the 1940s, with the latter taking the lead. The art by Laura Braga is quite beautiful, as are the colors by J. Nanjan. From what I have seen, Bombshells seems like what the DC romance comics line might have become over time if they hadn't all folded in the 1970s. The cover of course looks just like a Harlequin romance novel, but the story gives us more than Mera fretting over affairs of the heart.

I'll try and do a better job at keeping up with Bombshells because I like these weekly digital books and that Mera gets so much focus. She more than deserves it!