Aquaman #13 Discussion/Spoilers

[tabo61]

I thought the end of the issue was going to reveal who the mastermind was in that Atlantean ship.

[edhopper]

The Others never really grabbed me. My main problem with this "conclusion" is it just felt like set up for another story. It's one thing to have unresolved subplots, but when the main story feels like a subplot to a bigger story that is coming, especially one that smells like "event", they loose me. Great art as always by Reiss. But it's not enough, and without him i don't wee sticking around.

[Ed Love]

The Others never really grabbed me. My main problem with this "conclusion" is it just felt like set up for another story. It's one thing to have unresolved subplots, but when the main story feels like a subplot to a bigger story that is coming, especially one that smells like "event", they loose me. Great art as always by Reiss. But it's not enough, and without him i don't wee sticking around.

And it's been that way since the beginning. The Mera single issue is about the only one that had a plot that wasn't intrinsically tied to the The Trench/Atlantean Artifacts/Black Manta/Orm. Each "story" at its core has been about setting up the next one, making them really chapters to a longer story moreso than individual story arcs.

[edhopper]

And it's been that way since the beginning. The Mera single issue is about the only one that had a plot that wasn't intrinsically tied to the The Trench/Atlantean Artifacts/Black Manta/Orm. Each "story" at its core has been about setting up the next one, making them really chapters to a longer story moreso than individual story arcs.

Maybe so, but this one felt particularly unfinished. Or maybe I have just reached the point where I no longer have the patience to keep reading.

[Ed Love]

Maybe so, but this one felt particularly unfinished. Or maybe I have just reached the point where I no longer have the patience to keep reading.

Probably because this one had too many characters and too much on its plate while being presented in a widescreen format that really didn't allow for a lot of depth. By virtue of having the Atlantean artifacts and the need for cannon fodder to add gravitas, the Others were necessary to the story. But, we never really got beyond the surface ticks of each of the characters. The name itself seems more like a placeholder in the script until the writer came up with something better and never did. And, you had all this build-up of Black Manta as a mega-threat and in the end, he is easily taken out by Aquaman despite having several of the Atlantean artifacts. There's not even a scene of him being carted off to jail and you have the necessary enigmatic scenes that dovetails this story into the next issue to let you know that the resolution is not really a resolution. The resolution with Prisoner of War would have been stronger for instance and made the arc feel more cohesive, if his part in the story was stronger or was more developed. Actual stronger storytelling with the parallel themes of men tortured by the past and seeking redemption/attonement (Aquaman, Prisoner of War, Shin and to an extent Black Manta). The ingredients are there, but the structure of how the story was told doesn't pull it off.

[Conway]

Maybe so, but this one felt particularly unfinished. Or maybe I have just reached the point where I no longer have the patience to keep reading.

I think at some point Johns realized "Oh, crap this is a comic book not a novel. I have to try and wrap all this up in just an issue or two." The story just got away from him. Reis was great again though.