Aquaman #7

The Others secret is so secret that I've never heard of them before.

Black Manta! Legion of Doom fans rejoice!

Black Manta chases down a woman with the power to see the future. But the power to see the future changes the future to a future that she hasn't had time to recalibrate and see the future of! So she avoids Black Manta's spear using her power but isn't able to see that the spear is set to explode if it misses her. The explosion downs her and lets Black Manta catch up.

Black Manta looks a bit like an amusement park caricature. His head is huge and it's set too high up on a slightly elongated neck. Either the man underneath looks like a freak without the armor or he's got one of those black mesh screens set under the big red eyes that he really looks through.

Nope. He looks normal.

Black Manta can also shoot giant laser blasts out of his eyes. When did he learn that power? I really haven't been paying much attention to him or Aquaman. The woman he finally puts down with that laser power is Kahina the Seer. And I think she probably knows the guy under the Black Manta mask since he makes a point of taking it off to confront her.

Black Manta kills her and takes a golden artifact from her. In her dying vision, Kahina sees Black Manta stabbing Aquaman in the stomach with Aquaman's Sea Fork. But before this vision comes true, it seems Black Manta wants to destroy everything Aquaman cares about in retaliation for losing everything he cares about. How did Aquaman cause him to lose everything? I don't know. Why is Black Manta after these Artifacts kept by the people I can only guess are The Others? I don't know! But I think it has something to do with Black Manta and Aquaman being nemeses!

Aquaman and Aquawoman have gone to see Dr. Shin to find out about the Atlantean artifact that the Atlanteans tried to steal in Issue #6. As Dr. Shin activates the artifact by immersing it in salt water, they are attacked.

Why does everyone hate Shin?

Another person I don't know appears to kill Shin. I don't know if the timing of this is a coincidence or it was caused by the activation of the artifact in proximity to Aquaman's trident (since it begins to glow). It looks like this issue is just going to be about raising a lot of questions to be answered in subsequent issues. Unless there is history here that I don't know about. Geoff Johns is good about creating stories out of old DC History (and this history might not even be that old seeing as how I didn't read comics for about eight years) instead of just making up stories that don't have any relation to anything in the DCU at all. Although he seems to enjoy twisting things into great big over-arching story arcs that change everything ever as well! So, this is probably one of those things.

I'm with Mera! What the fuck, dude?

I suspected earlier that Shin had something to do with Black Manta. I thought he might become him but that is now proven to be wrong. But now that Mera has asked the question, hopefully Arthur will answer it before this comic book is over. Especially since the cover promised me The Secret of the Others!

Well, I guess they've given me exactly that up to this point. "Look! There's a secret here! About The Others!" But now I want some context, bitches!

After this question, there is only one more page left. It's a picture of a book lying on Dr. Shin's table and it shows Aquaman with several other people. Post it notes identify them all. Looking at the cover of this issue, from left to right, we have Ya'wara, Vostok, Kahina the Seer, P.O.W., Arthur, and The Operative. Maybe this is a Justice League made from all the joke members from six nations' Justice Leagues!

Aquaman #7 Rating: No change. This issue felt more like a prologue for the entire twenty issues. Mera agrees with me. It looks like Aquaman was living a secret life somewhere during his time with the Justice League. I guess his time is still with the Justice League! It's just hard to remember that he's doing other things since this comic hasn't had any intrusions from other New 52 storylines. And Black Manta! With laser beams!