Earth 2 #20

Namor backwards is Roman. Aquawoman backwards is sexy.

Over on Earth 2, they've been having some problems. They're not real problems like I have. Like how my cat never finishes pooping and sprints away from the litter box flinging turds all over the house. Or how at the pet store I cleaned today, there were two of the cutest puppies I've ever seen in the back room and I couldn't pay attention to both of them at the same time. Also there were no kittens to be seen and that's a fucking problem, man. Even though I don't approve of pet stores selling dogs and cats! Everybody knows you're supposed to be against that so, of course, I am! I think I probably have some other problems too that are worse than horrible creatures from Apokolips destroying your world. But they have to do with middle age and feeling like my life has amounted to little but some sassy backtalk and how I don't have the emotional capacity to truly connect with anyone. I mean, those problems pale in comparison to trying to pet one widdle puppy on the nose and seeing the other puppy feeling hurt and abandoned and quickly having to pet him on the nose while the other one falls over in a fit of loneliness and despair. I'd like to see Replacement Batman solve that problem.

Speaking of Replacement Batman, if you haven't read Earth 2 Annual #2 yet (or the solicits for the upcoming Replacement Batman Action Figure), then you don't know he's actually Thomas Wayne, Bruce's dad. Now you know that if you didn't know that before and it's not a spoiler because that comic book came out two or three weeks ago. And it was already spoiled by then because everybody reads solicits! To be current, I really should be writing my commentaries on each issue five months before it actually comes out. But I can't do it because I'm really awful at time travel! So far, I've only mastered forward time travel and I can only do that in real time. But occasionally I'll go into a trance and suddenly find myself eight hours into the future! So I'm getting better at it!

Hawkwoman also returned to this comic book after having a little adventure of her own that was never resolved. I don't think I need to bother remembering what it was because if Tom Taylor ever revisits it, he'll probably have Hawkwoman explain it again.

Right now, Hawkwoman, Replacement Batman, Aquawoman, and Kym are headed back to the Batcave in Gotham City. I hope it's not overrun by dinosaurs! I also hope they find Big Barda and Scott Free.

Where was she keeping that shell? I don't see a fanny pack. Now I wish Aquaman's outfit contained a fanny pack! Or a bum bag if you're English and fanny pack is too vulgar for you.

Back at the Batcave, Replacement Batman finds The Accountant Jimmy Olsen, Red Tornado Lois Lane, Val-el the Kryptonian, Red Arrow Connor Hawke, and babbling incoherently Doctor Khalid Fate. This is Replacement Batman's army that must defeat Flip the Fuck Out Superman. I guess Green Lantern Alan Scott will eventually join up. As will, once they escape Bedlam and Beguile's clutches, Mister Terrific Michael Holt and The Flash Jay Garrick. Those are a lot of names to remember! And I did it all by myself! Fuck you, Lord Google! I must have been eating fish oil recently! Does Filet 'o Fish Oil count?

Ugh. I can't remember the last time I've had a Filet 'o Fish sandwich from McDonalds. It was probably well before I turned twelve. I used to love those things! And fish sticks. Do adults eat fish sticks? That seems like the kind of food only kids eat. Or, I suppose, parents that have young kids. I'm sure they have one or two when they've cooked them.

Meanwhile, Replacement Batman shows he doesn't know the definition of the word "sensitive."

On a practical level, an agoraphobic Kryptonian is obviously useless. But the main problem is that he can't ever power up with sunlight! I bet he's even afraid of skylights. Not that there are any left unsmashed in Gotham. Fucking Batman.

Meanwhile Flip the Fuck Out Superman is wasting time having his army destroy churches and cathedrals and mosques and temples and synagogues. He even has them destroy Scientology buildings! He might as well make sure they burn down McDonalds and movie theaters while they're at it. This is like the replicants in Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep? exposing Wilbur Mercer as a fraud and believing that everybody will suddenly realize they've been had and no longer believe in empathy and Mercerism. Does Flip the Fuck Out Superman believe destroying places of worship will end worship? I get that he's big into symbolism but this is really just wasting time. A few people will probably be so offended that they'll let their neighbor's know, but that's about it.

I suppose if you're as stupid as Flip the Fuck Out Superman is, you'd believe that now the Earthlings will shrug and wonder, "Who do we worship now?!" And Flip the Fuck Out Superman will say, "Have you heard the good word? Darkseid lives!"

And back in the Batcave, Lois convinces Val-el that he needs to soak up some sun.

Aren't his parents dead from a disease contracted from tainted pirate treasure?

Earth 2 #20 Rating: +1 Ranking. Still no Alan Scott, Big Barda, or Mister Miracle. Or Fury! It seems a lot of characters have just disappeared since the change in writers. Although there are a fuckload of characters to follow in this book. It's like trying to fit each of the 52 New Earth titles into one book. Where is Commander Steel? What about the Red Lantern in the fire pit?! I think this book should be double length each month.

Aquaman #8

P.O.W. is the worst super hero ever. Aside from D.O.A.

Six years ago, before Aquaman was tricked into joining the Justice League, his father was killed.

He's going to regret breaking that in the morning!

Outside the lighthouse, dozens of television news crews wait to speak with the boy from Atlantis. Dr. Shin is also outside trying to get close enough to speak with Arthur. Dr. Shin has a bandaged wound on his neck. But neither Shin nor the reporters get a chance to speak with Arthur. Arthur dives off the lighthouse rock and disappears into the ocean. It seems Dr. Shin is to blame for something, perhaps causing the media frenzy or, seeing he's wounded, he was responsible somehow for Aquaman's father's death. My guess is it had something to do with Black Manta! Or, you know, something else entirely.

Whew! That was a long one!

One year later, Arthur returned to the surface. And he became involved with The Others. Since it's now five years later, he also got involved with the Justice League. But that probably came later after The Others fell apart for some reason. Probably because Aquaman started acting like a big shot because he was hanging out with Superman and Batman. Arthur was in The Other meetings and his phone would beep, so he'd check the text. And it would be Superman texting: guess what bman just did??!? And Arthur would chuckle and respond while ignoring The Operative's mission directives. But if he was in a meeting with the Justice League, Vostok-X would message: bro? guess what Kahina sees you doing tomorrow at 4? But Aquaman would just ignore that text until he was out of the meeting. Mostly because Batman would confiscate everybody's phones before the meeting would start.

Returning to the present, Aquaman is trying to explain The Others to Mera.

I'd connect all over that.

The Others were brought together to keep the Relics of Atlantis safe. Dr. Shin knew about them and their plan and now Ya'wara believes that Shin is helping Black Manta to hunt The Others down and kill them. Those are a lot of assumptions to make after just a single one of The Others was killed. I guess since he took the artifact from Kahina, he sort of revealed his hand. One probably doesn't do much by itself.

Aquaman and Ya'wara (and her jaguar) teleport to South America to examine Kahina the Seer's body. He leaves Mera to protect Shin. Uh oh. Here comes an old joke. Vomiting forth. Can't control it. BUT WHO'S GOING TO PROTECT SHIN FROM MERA!? Oh ho ho! Um, actually, I just wrote that joke! First time it's ever seen the light of day! I figure half of the readers on Tumblr are young enough to never have heard it! So once Mera is alone with Dr. Shin, she distracts him from doing his important Atlantis research.

Mera plays the part of the comic book reader. I want to know what she wants to know! And I'm holding up my comic book to my life-size cut-out of Geoff Johns with the glory hole cut in his crotch the same way that she's holding up her comic to Dr. Shin!

Back to six years ago, Aquaman and The Others (sounds like a do-wop group) are hunting Black Manta in Siberia. He causes an explosion that doesn't do anything to the group. But Kahina the Seer sees that a village on the other side of the mountain will be covered in the avalanche and many people will be killed. Aquaman wants to remain on the trail of Black Manta. But The Others turn around to save the innocents. P.O.W. shows off some of his P.O.W.ers.

On second thought, I decided to scan these panels instead of the panels where he clicks his manacles together to form a shield to save everyone in the village except one little girl. I wonder if each dog tag from his fallen comrades grants a special power? But what I'm wondering most is, Ooh la la, Ya'wara!

The one little girl that is too far away to be saved by P.O.W. is saved by Aquaman in two of my favorite panels since the panel in Frankenstein where the townsfolk are casually tossing toddlers into the lake of monsters.

"Okay, we saved your innocents. Can we get back to hunting fucking Black Manta now?"

Aquaman is upset that The Others weren't willing to sacrifice the villagers for the greater good.

This comic earned a +1 Ranking quite a few pages ago. Now it's fighting hard for a +2 to put it on top of Wonder Woman. Mmmm, on top of Wonder Woman.

Aquaman and Ya'wara find Kahina. Black Manta took the Seal of Clarity (whatever that does) and has headed, unbeknownst to them, to Germany where Prisoner-of-War is in a U.S. Army Health Center. Black Manta also left a troop of men wielding machine guns to ambush anybody approaching Kahina's body. Since the comic book ends here, my bet is that it will begin next issue with the guys with guns already having been knocked unconscious by Aquaman. Comics love skipping the big fight scene in-between months.

Aquaman #8 Rating: +2 Ranking. Yes, yes. I rarely give out more than a +1 (unless it's a big +3 to a Blackhawks issue that I rewrote!) but this issue is more than deserving. The art is back to its well above industry standard quality. And the back story of the others, even though a lot of things are still missing (why are they hunting Black Manta? Revenge for killing Aquaman's father, I suppose?), the short scene shown by Johns tells a lot about several individual members. Terrific issue.

Although the cover was silly. Maybe it represented them trying to keep him from chasing crazily after Black Manta.

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!

Aquaman #6

This is what happens when you spend 25 years making fun of her man.

The previous storylines dealt with some cannibalistic fish creatures who might possibly have destroyed Atlantis. And they might possibly be the result of some shenanigannery that the Queen and King of Atlantis were up to. Genetic experiments? Who knows? But none of that probably matters for this comic. For this comic, the only thing that matters was the note Aquaman found at the end of last issue:

You should also get a Dog Tower and some Doggy Litter and some Dognip.

I hope Aquaman and Mera become responsible dog owners. And I don't mean responsible in that they take care of it and love it. I mean as in picking up its shit from the public thoroughfare and keeping it on a leash so it doesn't run up to everyone else who just might not love or enjoy their pooch as much as they do. I also wonder if Aquaman will be able to telepathically communicate with it. Maybe if he sticks it in a tub of water first. I think Aquaman's telepathy doesn't have any real scientific logic behind it. He can communicate with sea creatures simply because he's the King of the Sea. The end.

Sure! Some day. But not by you because you fail in your mission and fall in love with him instead. Dumb dumb.

Four years ago, that was Mera. On a mission to destroy the so-called King of Atlantis. Mera's father sent her on this assignment but I don't know who he is. I'm sure we'll find out some day as he tries to kill Mera for betraying him. But this is all semi-ancient history! Today, Mera's hitting the town.
The story begins simply enough. Woman shops for dog food in clingy, low cut Atlantean Scale Armor. Letch working as a grocery store manager helps her pick out dog food by groping her. Woman tells asshole to get his hands off of her. Manager ignores her warning. Woman breaks manager's arm. Store security guard shows up with a gun to arrest her.

Unless the town is so small the police are always hanging out in the grocery.

Wait. What? This story just took a huge turn into the fantastic! I hate when comics do such outrageously ludicrous things like giving security guards guns! Now I don't know if I'll be able to get back into this story about a mermaid shopping for dog food.

Mera begins controlling all of the water in the store and causing a big mess but she does disarm the guard before he kills a bystander by shooting bullets which would just bounce off of Mera's tough skin and ricochet into the brainpan of one of the employees. And since it's a small town, emergency services show up almost immediately to investigate the situation.

Here we see the medical responder answer the sheriff's question, "What the hell is going on?" And then Randy proceeds to make fun of himself. Or the Letterer fucked up his speech bubbles. Again.

Mera defends herself by saying, "It's not a wound he won't recover from. And maybe he'll avoid inappropriate physical contact in the future." While I'm mostly against physical violence of all kinds, self-defense is a special case. And inappropriate physical contact by a man against a woman should be considered a violent act. It's an act of power and of intimidation and the victim should be able to respond in a violent way to match the violence inherent in the groping. I believe Mera acted entirely appropriately.

While the police try to arrest Aquawoman with their measly little guns, they receive a call over their police tricorders about an escaped convict who recently murdered his wife and is probably going back to kill his daughter now. So Mera decides to play superhero.

If there's no water around for Mera to control, can she piss herself and save the day with urine?

Aquawoman allows the police to chauffeur her to the scene of the crime where she breaks out of the handcuffs and the back of the police car to take care of the situation. And the criminal is just another jerk who doesn't have the brains to realize how strong someone born to exist in the incredible pressures at the bottom of the ocean really is.

Yeah. At least come up with a new joke that makes her laugh before she shoves your teeth down your throat.

Mera sucks the water from his body so that he collapses in fatigue, dementia, and dehydration. She's about to kill him but the daughter stops her. Mera finally has had enough of these land animals and leaps back to the ocean.

Sitting alone on the beach, Mera thinks back to when she told her father she would not kill Aquaman because he isn't what they thought he was and he isn't interested in the throne of Atlantis.

Does Mera's father rule over the destroyed Atlantis? Or is there a secret Atlantis? Or is the Atlantis at the bottom of the ocean under the dome a place in the DCnU?

One of the clerks at the store brings Mera the dog food she was looking for and agrees to deliver it to her whenever Mera calls. Some of Mera's anti-land dweller feelings erode a way a bit as she realizes some people can be okay. But only when they want something! I think this store clerk, Jennifer, is in love with Mera!

Aquadog finally gets some food and that's almost the end of the issue. But then Aquaman finally shows up to his own title and tells Mera they've got a mission!

Unless he decides to kill you instead.

Aquaman #6 Rating: No change. The art has really gone downhill since that first issue. It's not bad by any means. But it isn't magnificent. It's just middle of the road. But it's the same artists! I think they just had a lot more time to prepare for the first issue. I liked how this issue dealt with Mera's relationship with her father and how different it is than Aquaman's relationship with his dad. Another quality issue of Aquaman! I can't wait until he goes up into space!