Aquaman Volume 6

Well, Aquaman Volume 6: the Maelstrom was better than Volume 5.  But still nothing about the other kingdoms being reunited.  :(

This time, Aquaman has to fight the Chimera, the crazy experiment a Triton Base scientist cooked up using the brain of an Atlantean monster.  The Chimera was able to camouflage as things, and had all the super powers of all the predators under the sea.  He thought he'd be able to mind control Arthur (especially since he was able to control the minds of fish better than Arthur), but he totally failed.  But he lived to fight another day, so I guess we'll see the Chimera again sometime. 

After that, Arthur invited Dr. Shin, Daniel Evans, and the Martian Manhunter into Atlantis to help him solve a problem: why are the seaquakes happening?  It turns out, they're because Arthur is king, but he is part surface dweller, so the living kingdom (it absorbs the thoughts and feelings of dead Atlanteans) has not completely accepted him.  It should have been fine when his mother died.  Which leads to a bigger mystery: where is Arthur's mother?  Her body should have been in its tomb/casket.  But it is missing.  So Arthur and Mera go off hunting through gates to find her.  They make their way to Katangala, the land of psychic talking apes.  And eventually find Atlanna's trail leads them to the Maelstrom.  But Atlanna was told Arthur and his father were murdered by her Atlantean husband's hand.  Will Arthur be able to convince her that he is who he says he is?

Oh, we also got the origin story of Mera (of how she left Xebel and decided not to assassinate Arthur).  That happened nearer the beginning of the volume, but was pretty out of place with most of what happened. 

Like I said, this was better than Volume 5 though.  The stories fit together a lot better, rather than being random weird, almost unrelated things. 

So *hopefully* I get the story I'm waiting for in Volume 7!

Aquaman Volume 5

This....was not the story I thought it was going to be.  Aquaman Volume 4 left off with Arthur Curry's half brother being visited by the king of Xebel, who was reuniting the rulers of the seven sea kingdoms to take down Aquaman.  It had long been thought that Atlantis was the last one.  Turns out that's false.  So I was super excited to read that story. 

Hopefully it's in Volumes 6 or 7?

Aquaman Volume 5: Sea of Storms was kind of all over the place.  Aquaman discovers there's a human base in the sea.  He wasn't able to deal with it at the time though (for reasons).  The base is experimenting with a piece of the brain of an Atlantean monster that Arthur had to kill.  After that, Arthur and Mera attended his high school reunion (where he discovered that many of the people he went to school with are still okay with him, even though he ran off from high school).  While he was at the reunion, an archeologist stole Arthur's trident and used it to open a portal.  He thought it would go to Atlantis.  Turns out it just went to Hell, releasing the Giant children.  So Arthur and Wonder Woman dealt with most of them.  Mera and Wonder Woman dealt with the rest.  But then there was a giant algae monster that Arthur had to deal with because it was killing a reef.  He battled the green avatar for no reason (the green avatar kept telling him to stop, but apparently Arthur Curry is kind of dense like that).  Eventually the green avatar went and dealt with it (but was almost nuked by Atlantis in the process).

So yeah.  This was a super weird volume.  A different writer took over from Geoff Johns, so that might have made a lot of the difference.  Hopefully Volumes 6 and 7 will be more coherent!

Aquaman Volumes 2, 3, and 4

I read them all back to back so decided not to write a separate review for each of them.

Aquaman: the Others was Volume 2, which seemed to start the whole Black Manta thing (Black Manta is a villain who has also appeared in the Aquaman rebirth comic series I'm also reading but not reviewing on this blog because I'm reading it issue by issue).  Black Manta has tracked down members of the Others, a team of super people Arthur Curry worked with prior to accepting his place in Atlantis.  His teammates were armed with powerful Atlantean artifacts, which is why they have been targeted by Black Manta.  It seems Black Manta is after a hidden seventh artifact which is more powerful than all the others.  I thought that the Others were interesting, but I wasn't given enough time to get to really know them as characters which was a real shame.  Arthur kept not wanting their help (which was apparently characteristic of him in the past) but his motivation had greatly changed - where previously he didn't care about them, now he didn't want to see them get hurt.  Black Manta was ultimately successful in getting the artifact (which is the scepter that was used to sink Atlantis) but he gave it to an unidentified third party.

Aquaman: Throne of Atlantis was Volume 3.  This one starts off when missiles from a surface world ship are fired at Atlantis (not by humans - they lost control of the weapons through mysterious means).  The humans think it's weird that the missiles fired themselves at empty ocean (because they didn't realize that's where Atlantis was).  But then the entire Atlantean war machine mobilizes with the intent of sinking Boston as retaliation.  This volume has members of the Justice League jumping in as Arthur must decide whose side he is on.  Volume 3 involves Arthur's half brother Orm, who is currently sitting on Atlantis's throne.  Arthur worries that Orm has the scepter that Black Manta took, but quickly realizes that's not the case when Orm orders charges laid in Boston to sink the city.  The staff is revealed to command those strange creatures from the Trench (Volume 1), who attack humans and Atlanteans en masse at the surface.  It turns out that Vulko, the first Atlantean Arthur met, was behind this.  Vulko wanted Arthur to resume his rightful place as the King of Atlantis, and felt that a war was the only way to get him to do so.  Vulko is brought back to Atlantis to await trial, while Orm yielded the throne to Arthur and so must stand trial in the surface world for killing so many when he attacked Boston.

Which brings us to Volume 4, Aquaman: Death of a King.  This one was my favourite of the bunch.  The original king of Atlantis, Atlan (the Dead King) was awakened from his tomb.  He moves to reclaim his rightful place as King of Atlantis.  First he follows Mera to Xebel.  She tries to get the people of Xebel to stand with her and Arthur against the Dead King, but to her horror they side with him.  The Dead King attacks Atlantis at the same time a submarine fleet led by Scavenger attacks as well.  In the fight, Arthur is presumed dead after trying to telepathically control a monster of the deep named Topo.  Vulko got him out and cared for him while he was in a coma for six months.  After learning some uncomfortable truths about his heritage, Arthur and Vulko retrieve the scepter and call forth the monsters of the trench to help him defeat the Dead King once and for all.

Volume 4 ended with an epilogue that really makes me want to read volume 5.  Nerus, the King of Xebel, was charged by the Dead King with finding a trace of the remaining four kingdoms of Atlantis which everyone has presumed dead.  Nerus has found Orm and wants to join forces with him.  Apparently Nerus lied to the Dead King and knows where the other missing kingdoms are!  He wants to unite all seven kings to take down Arthur!  I can't wait to read it!!!