Aquaman #18

Nobody likes me! Everybody hates me! Going to eat some woooor...Holy fuck who put a hook in this thing?!

Aquaman has become an emo sad sack because he has to live with the fact that he fucked his brother big time just to impress a handful of super land dwellers. The other land dwellers are now all afraid of him. His Atlantean guards don't trust him. He's just a big fat mess and the only people left that will talk to him are fish. I'll move this comic book to Rank #1 and shove Batman down to #2 if it's just twenty pages of Aquaman pouting on the ocean floor.

Instead of pouting, Aquaman and his aquamen have been traveling around the world confiscating Atlantean weapons from humans who purchased them in suspicious circumstances from a fence named Scavenger. I'm pretty sure Aquaman confiscated Atlantean technology legally owned by people as well since Atlantis doesn't give a shit about Land Laws.

So Aquaman is going around attacking legitimate business people like the whalers from last issue and sketchy assholes all over the world because he feels he has a reason for doing so. Just like his brother had a reason for attacking the Land Nations because they attacked him. I think somebody is a gigantic hypocrite who owes his brother an apology and a nail file inside of a delicious crab-cake. I think Aquaman gets away with his attacks because most of the Atlantean technology has fallen into the hands of criminals. But what if another Land Nation got their hands on a bunch of the technology? Aquaman would feel justified attacking that nation to get the weapons back, right? And then he'd start another internoceanal incident.

I don't think the rest of the world knows what he's doing though because Aquaman stories always get buried way in the back of the newspapers.

Oh! Oh! I know what they say! "Joke. Stupid. Dumb. Ridiculous. Useless. Impotent. Fish fucker. Octopus diddler. Mollusk Molester. Bitch. Cunt. Did I say joke? Jerk. Poop head. Worst member of the Justice League ever. Dumb powers. Silly. Ugly costume. No reason for existing. Stupid piece of shit. Disappointing. Should I go on? Boring. Really boring. Super duper boring. Unimaginative. Waste of space. Douchebag. Crumb cake. Pool piddler. Way too interested in butt stuff with fish. Tarter sauce dumpster. One of the best comic books of The New 52. That's about it."

Now Tula, Orm's sister and Aquagirl, is waiting to speak with Aquaman in the throne room. I'm sure she has some reasonable questions for him about his part in Orm's incarceration.

Orm's father was Tula's father. Aquaman's mother was Orm's mother. So that makes Tula and Aquaman strangers. Tula wants to know if Orm is going to be killed.

Don't worry about Orm. He'll be a member of the Secret Society of Super Villains soon enough. Although they probably don't need two Ocean Villains, do they? And they're already trying to recruit Black Manta. I guess he'll have to hope for a spot on the Suicide Squad.

Meanwhile on land, Mera is being hassled by the police. Even though she has some huge beef with Atlantis, it won't be long until the surface dwellers chase her back into the ocean. Although I don't know what she's going to do with Aquadog if that happens. Perhaps Atlantis has medical procedures to outfit animals with gills. Can you just add gills to normal land lungs and cross your fingers and pray to Poseidon? Is that enough?

Here's a picture of Mera in her natural state of righteous indignation.

Aquaman visits Vulko in Underwater Prison and learns that the person selling Atlantean Technology to thieves, murderers, and whalers is most likely The Scavenger! That's what I said last issue, Vulko! Sheesh. I should be Aquaman's adviser.

Me: "Aquaman, sir! I just wanted to report some sharks have killed some tuna nearby. Should we send out some patrols to go shake down those fucking Cartilage Heads?"
Aquaman: "What? God no! What is wrong with you? That's in the shark's nature. It has to feed."
Me: "If you say so. But I don't like it. So many sharks moving into the area. I think we should make a sweep before real estate prices fall."
Aquaman: "Will you calm down about the sharks? They're just like all the other sea creatures. They just want to live their lives and be left alone."
Me: "Sure, sure. But you can't blame me for crossing to the other side of the current when I see one swimming my way, can you?"
Aquaman: "Who the fuck hired you? Get out of my throne room!"

Meanwhile...oh look! Big surprise!

Dun dun DUN!

And then the weird old crusty guy that woke up beneath Antarctica because he was totally envious of Arthur claiming to be the King of the Seven Seas ends up in Maine in time to keep Mera from being arrested. He does this by freezing all the police and nearly killing Mera as well. I have a feeling this isn't going to help Mera's relationship with the Land Dwellers.

Aquaman #18 Rating: No change. I still have no idea who this crusty old Atlantean king is but if I had to guess, I'd say it was Orm and Tula's father. Of course if this were Preboot continuity, Orm's father would be Aquaman's father after Aquaman's dad grew tired of waiting for his first wife to return from the ocean and married some land dwelling whore. But now instead of Orm becoming a bad guy because he was always jealous of his older brother's not-that-cool-at-all powers, he gets to become a bad guy because his brother acted like a complete dick by giving him up to the land dwelling authorities! I think I like this version of Orm better.