Monday, October 3, 2016

Aquaman #7


When is the last time Aquaman spoke to fish? Has DC Comics told writers to move away from that because too many people were making too many fish fucking jokes?

The Commentary!
• This issue begins by introducing (or re-introducing. What am I? An Aquaman historian? I'd rather be Cullen Bunn's masturbation sock) a bunch of Atlantean politicians or bureaucrats as they request meetings with Aquaman. For some reason, they're bothering Mera with these requests and not Aquaman's royal aide. I highly doubt that's an effective use of the fiance of the king's time.

• For some reason, Jurok Byss, Keeper of the Monsters, has a Cockney accent. How does that happen in Atlantis? Is he like Aquaman? Born on land and only recently returned to the sea? What are the chances a Cockney accent developed in Atlantis as well as in Britain? Do they also have rhyming slang?! I wonder if there's a sea creature that rhymes with barn owl?

• Instead of meeting with the jerks who want to use up all of his free time, Aquaman decides to show Mera his Justice League Identity Card. Are those really necessary? This was Lex Luthor's idea, wasn't it? And I bet Batman was all, "Oh, hey! That's a great idea! Maybe we should also have a Justice League VIP Area for members worth billions of dollars!" Then he and Lex fist bumped and bro chest banged and said the secret rich man phrase which is...oh no! I'm not going to spill the beans. I've spilled enough beans in my life. Although if somebody wants to send me the secret rich man phrase in a private message, I'll send it back to you and we can be best friends!

• The Justice League Identity Card is also a key to use the Watchtower Teleport System. That's probably an important plot point that readers should remember for later. I bet somemanta steals it later!

• After getting the pertinent plot point foreshadowing out of the way, Aquaman decides to do some kingly business and meet with people of lesser stature so he can put them in their places.


Ha ha! Get out of here, you racist! Come back after you've tried being a Werewolf for a week!

• Aquaman eschews the bureaucratic nonsense in order to speak with Murk. I hope I used eschew right! If it's a sex word, I apologize to my younger readers for destroying their innocence! If it's not, I apologize to everybody else for using it incorrectly!

• Murk has returned from the scene of the Pontchartrain sinking where he discovered a whole bunch of clues as to who sank it!


Oh come on! If surface dwellers wanted it to look like Atlanteans did this, they would have "deliberately placed" helmets that weren't fitted with scuba gear! So it's obvious that rogue Atlanteans deliberately placed these modified helmets to make it look like surface dwellers were trying to make it look like Atlanteans were behind the attack! Duh!

• Unless of course that means...no, you know what? There's no reason to go spiraling into crazy logic time. In this case, it's obvious that the obvious is too obvious to be that obvious! In conclusion, it was definitely Atlanteans who attacked the ship! Unless Dan Abnett just assumed readers of Aquaman comics are complete morons. Then maybe I should take this scene at face value and believe that the attackers who planted material to make people think one thing fucked up and planted material that would reveal it was a total con job.

• Meanwhile in Venice, Black Manta lets the other members of N.E.M.O. know that he's now The Fisher King and he'll be their leader, no matter how fucking ridiculous he looks in that stupid helmet and skin tight body suit. Some people don't like the idea and Manta kills them. He should have also declared, while stabbing them in their revolting (double meaning!) faces that N.E.M.O. now stands for "Never Eschew Manta's Orders!" I guess then it would be N.E.M.O!, right?

• Aquaman, using the clues he got from Murk, decides to ask a Deluge prisoner if the Deluge were behind the attack. See?! He came to the same conclusion I came to! That it must have been disgruntled Atlanteans who staged the attack! Which is worrying because it means I'm thinking like Aquaman! Now I'm worried I might stick my dick in a fish tank.

• The Deluge prisoner is all, "I may be a murderer and a killer and a racist, but I'm not a liar!" Then he calls Aquaman a half-breed which is a lot like Republican Talking Heads calling Obama a thug. Actually, it's not quite as bad because we all know that thug is now the acceptable way to say nigger. Or at least racists think they're talking in code when they say thug. It's like stoners who still think 420 is a clever way to identify themselves as boring assholes.

• Rath, the Deluge prisoner, says everything he does is in the name of Atlantis. He refuses to follow the orders of a "half-breed" king because, I guess, he feels it weakens Atlantis. But then he's happy to hear that somebody is using the name of the Deluge to try to start a war between the surface world and Atlantis. Wouldn't that be harmful to Atlantis? If he's pro-Atlantis and not just anti-Aquaman, why would he want a war that could bring so much death and destruction to his precious city? The only reason he wants a war is so that the Deluge can blame Obamaman for doing a poor job. He and the Deluge don't give a shit for Atlantis. Some patriot!

• Rath eventually admits he would help stop a war that might hurt Atlantis but he doesn't know anything. He does admit to Aquaman that he doesn't like him because he doesn't value the traditions of Atlantis. I can see that point being that Aquaman is from the surface world. He might be half-Atlantean, but he certainly doesn't know much about Atlantean traditions. He should probably make a concerted effort to immerse himself in the lore and traditions of Atlantis before simply shrugging them all aside and declaring they're stupid because he has no connection to them. He really hasn't tried to fit in, has he?

• As you can tell from my use of the word "Obamaman", you can tell that this interaction between Rath and Arthur is heavily influenced by the way some conservatives seem to have a ready criticism for anything Obama does, especially the talking heads who make a shit ton of money from this viewpoint who then convince their audience of the same things. But in this case, Rath does have a point. He makes it poorly by calling Arthur a half-breed since that points out that possibly the only reason the Deluge hate him is because of his parentage. But the bigger point obfuscated by the racial hatred is that Aquaman doesn't really know much about the traditions of Atlantis and he doesn't seem to have much time for learning about them. He spends most of his time on the surface world with the Justice League. Arthur could make a lot of headway by showing that he's trying to fit in with their traditions. It looks like he might soon insist on Mera going through the ceremonial ritual of proving she's a worthy Xebel. Even though that seems pretty racist and misogynist. Maybe he could start with something less icky.

• Mera actually decides she wants to go through the rituals. That probably makes it less icky. Plus, I mean, when has Mera ever been defeated by anything? I just hope one of the challenges isn't the Challenge of the Clitoridectomy! Judging by Mera's casual attitude to the potential rituals, I have a feeling they might not be far off from my disgusting joke.

• N.E.M.O. is behind the attack on the Portwhatever. Why did the battleship have to have such a foreign name?! I can hardly spell "foreign"! How am I supposed to spell that other thing?! America should really stick to more American sounding battleship names. Like the USS Hotdog or the USS Loveless Marriage or the USS Dirty Sanchez. To keep Arthur from discovering their organization, Black Manta has decided to unleash a distraction! He's either going to question Aquaman's birth certificate or unleash one of Professor Ivo's robots on Atlantis.

• Aquaman continues his investigation using informants and resources he's gathered over his short New 52 career. He reaches out to Reagan and Arni, FBI Agents who are total fangenders of his. They have information about the underground world of ocean scavenging that might help lead him to whoever destroyed that battleship with the complicated French name. He's all, "This is Aquaman! I need you!" And Reagan is all, "It's true! He can cause floods!"

• N.E.M.O. unleashes some gigantic, monstrous underwater Incredible Sea-Thing. Remember that part about me not being an Aquaman scholar?! I don't know what this thing is! But apparently it used to live in Atlantis before it was buried for its own good. And by "its own good," I actually mean the good of everybody else, probably. So I don't know why I said the first thing. I should try to write more clearly.

The Ranking!
+1! Aquaman is a stupid hero but Dan Abnett is doing a good job telling the story of a stupid hero. So I don't mind reading this!

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