Aquaman #25

Last issue, Aquaman found out that The Trench were one of the races descended from the Ancient Atlanteans. So now Aquaman needs to do some serious apologizing for collapsing the entrance to their kingdom and banishing them to the depths of the ocean without any food. Unless he threw some Hostess Snack Cakes into the deep sea hole with them to calm them down and save the day. I might be confusing last issue with an advertisement.

This final battle against the Dead King had better be worth the extra dollar DC snuck out of my wallet! At least they aren't charging Batman prices for this issue. What the hell is going on with Snyder's Batman? The last two issues cost about fifteen dollars between them!

Aquaman plans on leading The Trench to battle The Dead King. With The Dead King's scepter, he has power over The Trench so he probably won't need to apologize to them. He'll just use a magic item to manipulate them. Who cares though, right? They're obviously monsters who look so completely different than the Atlanteans and the Xebels that they should be treated like shit. It's not like Aquaman knows how to speak their slimy inkblot language. But Aquaman's main goal doesn't seem to be to defeat the Dead King and take back the throne. Why would it? Aquaman doesn't care about ruling. What Aquaman does care about is finding Mera. She's been missing for six months now while Arthur hung out in Vulko's tent growing a beard.

Enh, she can take care of herself.

Geoff Johns wastes no time having Arthur attack Atlantis because he has to get this shit over with before his replacement writer hits the office. Usually, Johns might spend three or four pages meandering about the ocean showing panel after panel of sea life to remind the reader that this book is about a guy that can breathe underwater. But not this issue! The extra dollar is going toward some big action scenes of Aquaman's army, most of which have been coerced into joining by telekinetic or magic trident means. The only person benefiting from this assault on Atlantis is Aquaman and yet he's brought in The Trench and some Great Whites and some Killer Whales and some Moray Eels and some Manta Rays and some Sturgeon and a few Lemon Party Sharks. They've just been drafted to risk their lives so Aquaman can regain his wife. He's not even going to pay them even though he has sixty billion dollars of sunken treasure at his disposal! You know how many seals a Killer Whale could buy with that kind of cheddar?

I bet "cheddar" for money is rhyming slang somehow!

Also, I was wrong about Geoff Johns getting right to the action. I just counted how many pages were used before the assault which is also the title page: nine! I think that is one page over the additional pages paid for by my extra dollar. So that's why I had to pay more! Now I'll get twenty pages of war story! Okay, maybe ten because we still need ten pages of resolution where Arthur and Mera kiss and they go home to feed Aquadog.

Aquaman frees Mera first thing but then decides to free some other prisoners and save Atlantis since he's, you know, here already but no big deal or nothing. He also makes sure to free the Atlantean prisoners because eventually the army he came with is going to shake off their mind shackles and begin thinking, "Why the fuck am I risking my life for this manipulating bastard?"

How cute. Aquagirl and her gang of assholes are suddenly all sugary sweetness. "Thanks for rescuing us, My King! You were always My King, really! Never once did I look up the meaning of Regicide for use in a future diary entry!"

After freeing his subjects who have rethought their loyalty now that they've gotten a taste of a king who is a real fucking asshole, Arthur finally gets to confront that fucking asshole. First thing they should do is swap tridents! Also, they should switch weapons! That first sentence about swapping was a sexual innuendo!

Yeah! What kind of king enslaves his own people?! You should be enslaving other races and stupid sea creatures, dumb dumb!

Once Atlan realizes the Atlanteans are turning against him and the Xebellions are on the run, he decides to destroy Atlantis once more by smashing it to pieces with his Scepter and sinking it below the ocean's bottom. If he does that, then the Atlanteans are going to have to learn how to breathe magma! It would probably make Aquaman a lot cooler! Atlan the Dead King points out how Arthur is the enemy because he doesn't want The Dead King ruling everything. But Atlan should get a closer look at Aquaman and realize that he's the son of an Atlantean and a Land Mammal. He's the culmination of everything that Atlan believed in when he was king! You know, before his entire family was slaughtered by Arthur's relatives.

Oh hey! It looks like Atlantis might still get the chance to become an awesome city of lava with magma-breathing denizens!

The Dead King and his scepter are melted into oblivion in the lava but Arthur's skin is tough enough that he swims away unharmed. Even his clothing and bandages don't burn off! Those Atlanteans make some tough first aid supplies.

And everybody lived happily ever after. Except Atlan. And Nereus. And all the dead Trench creatures. And the dead sea animals. And probably Vulko who's going back to jail for being a dick. But you're not supposed to concentrate on minor characters in stories like these or else they get a bit too messy. Save that kind of bullshit for your Kurt Vonnegut novels.

And so the ten pages of battle have ended and the ten pages of denouement begin with Arthur and Mera's kiss. Denouement is a fancy word for "cleaning up the mess." I think that's what it literally means in whatever language it is. Lithuanian, I think.

Arthur decides to stay and rule Atlantis even though he fucking hates the job. But he figures he can be happy as long as Mera is with him. But Mera says, "Fuck this bullshit. I'm not responsible for your happiness! You're going to take out your job on me and I'll be miserable and you'll be miserable and I'm not going to take part in this dysfunctional bullshit so I'm going back home to feed the fucking dog."

This break-up reminds me of that part in Elfquest where Skywise says he's going to stay with the castle and Cutter leaves, heartbroken, to take his tribe back to the forest. So my guess is that Mera is going to wind up hanging out at the lighthouse playing with the dog and being sad because her heart has been torn out and Aquaman is going to come riding up on a dolphin and pat her on the back and they'll just smile and not say anything and Mera will give Arthur back his lodestone and everything will be good.

Whoops. I got it backwards!

Aquadog has to stay up on land with his dog-sitter, Jenny, until he can get an operation to have gills implanted in his throat.

There's also a final bit where Nereus destroys the wall of a Land Mammal's house where Orm has been living. Xebellions don't understand doors, I guess. Anyway, he claims he knows where the other Four Sea Kingdoms are and that he, and Orm, should take their places among the other kingdoms as the true Kings of the Seven Seas. And then a blurb says that this story will be concluded in a Justice League event called Rise of the Seven Seas. But aren't the Justice League already involved in a big event?! Or two?! Actually, it's probably a good time to do other stories in the Justice League books that have nothing to do with Forever Evil. Leave the Forever Evil stuff in Forever Evil! Maybe. I guess if Superman dies you can't continue doing stories in Justice League without ruining the surprise that Superman is dead. Maybe they can just leave him out and not have anybody mention him because the pain is still too raw.

Aquaman #25 Rating: +1 Ranking. I just typed "+1 Ranking" and I'm already wondering why I did that! I don't like that Aquaman took the throne. I don't like that Aquadog has been abandoned. I don't like how Arthur feels he can use any fucking sea life for his own selfish purposes! I don't like that Aquaman's super power is talking with fish and being able to live in high pressure environments. I don't like Aquaman! But I enjoyed this issue and think the Death of a King resolution was okay. Although Topo should have gotten a cameo. Where did he disappear to in the last six months?!