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by **guitarsmashley** » Sat Oct 01, 2011 12:21 am

So I just read this and it certainly was a comic but nothing else of substance at all. Cleaning up all of Aquamans history to bring this new story to life and man what a big giant pile of fucking nothing it is. The art is Ivan Ries super hero work so it's awesome but man the Johns of flash up till issue like 207 or around there.

2

by **alaska1125** » Sat Oct 01, 2011 12:52 am

guitarsmashley wrote:So I just read this and it certainly was a comic but nothing else of substance at all. Cleaning up all of Aquamans history to bring this new story to life and man what a big giant pile of fucking nothing it is. The art is Ivan Ries super hero work so it's awesome but man the Johns of flash up till issue like 207 or around there.

2

This literally made no sense to me. Is it even in English?

by **guitarsmashley** » Sat Oct 01, 2011 1:08 am

alaska1125 wrote:
This literally made no sense to me. Is it even in English?

Then I have given you the exact feeling I had reading this comic.

by **Punchy** » Sat Oct 01, 2011 8:51 am

alaska1125 wrote:
This literally made no sense to me. Is it even in English?

Yeah, it ended like halfway through a sentence! Sort it out Yoni!

by **guitarsmashley** » Sat Oct 01, 2011 1:05 pm

Punchy wrote:
Yeah, it ended like halfway through a sentence! Sort it out Yoni!

literally how I felt while reading that comic.

by **alaska1125** » Sat Oct 01, 2011 3:46 pm

guitarsmashley wrote:
Then I have given you the exact feeling I had reading this comic.

Zing!

by **GLX** » Sat Oct 01, 2011 6:33 pm

Couldn't find Batman or Static at Barnes and Noble. The Nu52 titles are going fast.

by **fieldy snuts** » Sat Oct 01, 2011 9:11 pm

Aquaman #1 was a fanfic. The entire thing was pretty much a rehash of the same stuff he's used in all his #1's like GL & Flash Reborn and most recently Justice League: Insider jokes bout the perceptions of the character in the real world, a few angry looks and shows of strength lifted from 90's Image comics etc.

The entire thing was a letter from Johns trying to tell us "I know the character's been treated as a joke for years that nobody takes seriously, so lets apply the Johns formula that's been rinsed and repeated countless times over the last few years!". I mean the entire damn issue outside of those piranha people was structured around people treating Aquaman like a joke while he constantly uses Ben Stiller's Blue Steel look. He's basically become Namor with the mood to match.

Who gives a damn whether Aquaman is lame or not to the point where this is what the entire book is about, the entire issue reeked of Johns trying to tell us repeatedly "Boy I used to love this character when I was a kid, lets try the same stuff I did with Barry Allen and Hal Jordan to make him likeable today by adding brooding angst that drive him to make him more like Batman.".

Every damn "Rebirth" story by Johns does these things where he tries to make the character out like an insanely overpowered Mary Sue in debuts while making the perceptions others have of them a massive burden on their shoulders which pushes them to try to excel even further. 3 very diverse characters and the Johns push approach boils down to rinse and repeat. He's doing the same thing with Sinestro now where he made a character modeled after damn Hitler as an antihero with these same elements simply because he wants to write him as a leading story figure. I've grown tired of it, and using it on Aquaman of all characters isn't a winner for me.

I'd wager that if any new readers picked up this book it'd have been from the fake movie in Entourage rather than the character's failures over the years in his solo title. Like I said earlier, the book was a self-deprecating fanfic that was nothing more than lame jokes and brooding looks. Mix that with nice Ivan Reis art and you get Aquaman #1.

So yeah, same old stuff from Johns and some nice art from Reis.

1/10. The score was mostly driven by the art...though you can't have one knock it out of the park and the other one to flounder so badly and still carry it over the line.

by **Starlord** » Sat Oct 01, 2011 9:36 pm

Aquaman #1: This was the most excellent beginning to the all new, all different but still kindda the same, Aquaman!!! I am ecstatic to say that this is Geoff Johns at his best. With a nod to the ne'er do wells who will mock the one true Comic Book King of the Seas, Geoff lets us know that he's anything but a joke.

Perfect writing, perfect art. Perfect book. This is what Johns can do when he isn't trying to build ultra big events. He makes us love the characters we grew up with.

Story: 10
Art: 10
My Score: 10

by **Stephen Day** » Sat Oct 01, 2011 9:58 pm

I used to like Aquaman back in the 80s when he was the leader of the Detroit League. He seemed like a strong character back then. I miss the character who was a little bit of a jerk; the character that used his psychic powers on the young members of that League to influence them in ways he wanted them to go; the character that had the Martian Manhunter nearly punch him out when he was caught in the act. Given that, I went into this issue with some hope that I would see a return to a character that isn't viewed as a joke. Johns tries to do that, I'll give him that, but sadly, from my point of view, he also fails. I don't see an Aquaman that's done right as a lame character and I don't want to be reminded that some people see him that way. It takes away from my enjoyment instead of enhancing it.

This Aquaman shows signs of strength, but it seems more surface than anything else. This isn't helped by the fact that the two big scenes this issue (a fight against some bank robbers and a scene in which Aquaman goes to have some fish a chips) both gave me the sense that they should have been a whole lot shorter than they actually were.

I did enjoy the one on one scene with Mera and the parts dealing with the carnivorous fish men on the first two and last three pages. The fish men is a little bit irritating though as that comes across as the meat of the story that Aquaman is going to be dealing with. There should have been a much bigger space dedicated to the main character's upcoming confrontation with them. Had he actually encountered them at some point this issue there would have been some interesting conflict -- something to really grab my interest and make me want to get the next issue. Instead we have an issue in which he wonders from one place to another with not really much happening to him.

On top of the two bits that I liked, I did come away with the sense of the kind of person that Johns' Aquaman is going to be. I will give him credit for that and admit that the writing is fairly strong along those lines. In the end it's just not enough for me to want to continue past this first issue.

4 out of 10.

by **guitarsmashley** » Sat Oct 01, 2011 10:04 pm

Starlord wrote:Aquaman #1: This was the most excellent beginning to the all new, all different but still kindda the same, Aquaman!!! I am ecstatic to say that this is Geoff Johns at his best. With a nod to the ne'er do wells who will mock the one true Comic Book King of the Seas, Geoff lets us know that he's anything but a joke.

Perfect writing, perfect art. Perfect book. This is what Johns can do when he isn't trying to build ultra big events. He makes us love the characters we grew up with.

Story: 10
Art: 10
My Score: 10

Now for your real review or no chocolate starfish for you.

by **Starlord** » Sat Oct 01, 2011 11:04 pm

guitarsmashley wrote:
Now for your real review or no chocolate starfish for you.

No really. I get what Johns does, and when he does it right its what a comic reader would consider the good stuff. Pure comic, nothing cutting it. When he's off... he's way off. For what Johns can do, this is him at his purest.

by **Stephen Day** » Sat Oct 01, 2011 11:12 pm

Starlord wrote:
No really. I get what Johns does, and when he does it right its what a comic reader would consider the good stuff. Pure comic, nothing cutting it. When he's off... he's way off. For what Johns can do, this is him at his purest.

I'd disagree, but I'm glad you enjoyed it.