Black Manta #1

Was Black Manta a member of his college color guard?

I have a very specific reason why I've never liked Black Manta: his neck. Why does his neck always look so long with that precariously perched saucer head on top? It always freaked me out a little bit to imagine that a human was inside that outfit with a neck long enough to make it so he could see out of the red eyes in the saucer. I never considered that maybe his head just barely poked up out of the neck and he could see through the big red eyes via some technological mumbo-jumbo. It just seemed like he had to have an enormously long neck. And once I had that image, I was completely freaked out and done with him.

You see, one of the scariest images from my earliest years was this picture from Alice in Wonderland:

It still gives me the heebie-jeebies.

I used to flip through the book to get a glimpse of this picture and then close it really fast. But I was intrigued by it too, so I would keep trying to look at it but get freaked out and slam the book shut. Then I'd go off to have nightmares from being obsessed with trying to look at it.

Black Manta never gave me nightmares. But that fucking neck. Ugh.

So, Black Manta was in Belle Reve trying to be recruited by Amanda Waller. And since the Crime Syndicate tore Belle Reve apart, my educated assumption is that he's going to get free! And maybe recruit an army of Manta-Men to go take Atlantis while Aquaman is dead. Except I don't know exactly when this is taking place, so he might find The Scavenger on the throne or he might find The Dead King on the throne or he might find whoever ends up on the throne at the end of Aquaman's Dead King storyline. Probably Vulko.

This issue begins with Amanda Waller offering Manta a Task Force X job and Black Manta not really being that into the gig.

Why is Belle Reve full of crickets?

Amanda wonders what Black Manta will do once Aquaman is dead. Won't Black Manta be out of work? Doesn't he want to have another job lined up before he makes himself redundant? Amanda shows Black Manta what Task Force X can do for him by giving him a look at her tablet.

"We have the technology to photoshop kittens onto any image we find."

I just processed something I read earlier: Black Manta is the most highly disciplined killing machine that's ever been in Belle Reve? Of course. Amanda Waller is a big liar and she's probably just blowing the proverbial smoke up the proverbial ass (even though Black Manta is in no danger of drowning). Although Waller might be serious since she did qualify it as the "most disciplined." I suppose the other great killers in Belle Reve (like Deadshot) are chaotic nutjobs she has no hope of ever truly trusting.

Before Black Manta can agree, Power Ring and Deathstorm launch their attack on Belle Reve. Waller heads off to get things under control while Manta is freed by one of his Ocean Pals. That should be the name of an underwater super-villain team. Ocean Pals!

Does DC not have one fucking reference picture for King Shark in their offices? How many different looks does this fucker have?

Claude St. Aubin: "Hey, does anybody have a reference pic for King Shark?"
Brian Cunningham: "Just grab a reference pic from the internet!"
Claude St. Aubin: "But what kind of shark should I reference?"
Brian Cunningham: "Who cares? They're all pretty much the same."
Claude St. Aubin: "Fine. Hmm, here's an image labeled 'The Shark' from a website called flaccidpenisesandballoons.com. That should work."

Luckily amid the chaos, Black Manta happens to find the area of the prison labeled "Personal Effects" which houses nice little well-labeled lockers for the gear of every criminal in Belle Reve. I don't know. It seems like a bit of a design flaw to store the weapons of super-villains within the same building in which they've been incarcerated.

Black Manta's equipment is housed next to Ocean Master's. So they apparently organize super-villain gear by which hero the villain most wants to kill. These were probably the only two lockers on the Aquaman wing. And one of them they had to ship over from the Superman section. Just wait until they find out there's a guy named Scavenger who wants Aquaman dead as well! Three lockers! Crazy!

After the escape, Black Manta heads over to the Secret Society of Super-Villains meet and greet where Geoff Johns can recycle even more of his script from Forever Evil.

Hey, Scavenger? Is the suit really fucking necessary out here? I can forgive Black Manta wearing his suit on land because it does so much neat shit like shooting eye lasers. But your underwater gear looks like it was made in the 19th Century.

Black Manta grabs up Aquaman's trident when it's thrown in the crowd and then he rebuffs The Scavenger's advances. And then he walks out on the meeting and throws away his coin. Why does he need to join up when he's just found out the only thing that was driving him was the death of Aquaman and the Crime Syndicate has accomplished that? Now maybe he'll take Amanda's offer, join Task Force X, and get busy photoshopping kittens on shit.

Black Manta visits his father's grave to tell him that he's been avenged (although not in the best way possible) and that he's done with the stupid long-necked outfit (although it really wasn't very long or disturbing in this issue). But then Ultraman fucks with the moon and causes a bit of a tidal wave which uproots Black Manta's father's corpse and pisses Black Manta right the fuck back off. So now he knows where to direct his hate! He's going up against The Crime Syndicate! Which means he'll probably get to fight side by side with Aquaman!

No, that's too weird. Hopefully he'll just sock Aquaman in the mouth when he realizes he isn't dead and go back to trying to kill him.

Black Manta #1 Rating: DC Comics owes me about a sixty cent refund due to all the repeated panels from Forever Evil. Sure, they had new art. But I took that into account when figuring out my refund! Aside from that, I actually enjoyed Black Manta's slow and meandering journey from his prison cell to his father's grave. It was a kind of jeremiad showing one black man's journey across the twisted landscape of a racist America. I think. I haven't put much thought into it. I just wanted to say, "jeremiad."