Emperor Aquaman #15 review

Nothing says Space Aquaman like our hero riding not a whale, or a seahorse, but a Starro. Behind him on John Timms’s nicely designed, executed and coloured cover we see regular supporting cast members Lori Lemaris and Titanus.

Inside, there’s no sign of these two but presumably they’ll show up soon. Instead we have the closure of recent storylines and set-up for the latest new direction from regular writer Jeremy Adams and artist Timms. It begins with an elderly, gnarled Aquaman appearing before a young Arthur Curry and inviting him to come and help save the universe.

In a version of their boyhood lighthouse, the two Arthurs find a third – and he’s not gung-ho about going into battle.

Can he be persuaded to get off his backside and back on that heroic horse? Words having failed him, Hobo Arthur tries another tack.

The clincher is hearing the voice of wife Mera, pleading for help. While Arthur is in some unknown realm, his soul split, Mera is firmly on Earth, fighting her mad mother, Lolanna, without her hard water powers.

But how can Mera’s husband get to her side? Her mother said it, he’s lost ‘for eternity’.

Oh. Okay then.

Aquaman defeats Lolanna and cracks open the spell which has sealed off Atlantis for ages.

Then he announces a new project.

And that’s why the book ‘Aquaman’ is now ‘Emperor Aquaman’, right down to indicia, ugly new logo and even more hideous new crown.

This run has seen Aquaman wielding Mera’s powers as well as his own, gain the strength of The Blue, and as of DC KO #5, get a big boost of Omega Energy (whatever that is). He’s just too powerful. I don’t doubt Adams can throw some big challenges Arthur’s way – after all, writers manage to find foes for the likes of Superman and Green Lantern – but that’s not what I want from an Aquaman book. Arthur is interesting enough in terms of personality, powers and background to make for great yarns; if the book is now about a cosmic godlike figure, working far away from home, why use Aquaman at all?

The final page sees the Atlanteans cheering as Arthur opens a portal to space, or something, which chimes with no depiction of Atlanteans we’ve seen in 80 years of stories – they’re notoriously insular, constantly imploring Arthur to focus on their kingdom, not events outside of it. The new direction sounds about as promising as Marvel’s Space Wakanda.

I do generally enjoy Adams’s work, and even though this run hasn’t caught fire for me I’ll keep buying to see if its imperial era ignites. This series has suffered from Aquaman being less interesting than pretty much anything around him. If the new direction inspires Adams to make him the compelling character he can be, that’s a big win.

Hopefully there’ll be better stuff than this issue’s ‘lost Arthurs’ business, which reads like pure filler. Points, though, for the ‘outrageous’ nod to the Brave and the Bold TV cartoon.

Timms’s knack for conveying intensity gets a good showing this time with such moments as Hobo Arthur’s anger and Mera’s fight with her mother. As for quieter moments, Arthur gets a terrific hero shot, and a snog from the missus.

One thing Timms could usefully have done, though, is make Mera and Lolanna look different. Lolanna had been pretending to be the daughter of Mera and Arthur artificially aged up and everyone accepted that, presumably believing any DC Universe child would look like a clone of one parent or the other.

The colours of Rex Lokus blaze throughout the book, while Dave Sharpe scatters fonts everywhere. As well as excellent yelling, Sharpe does some nice word balloon toning, while the skies and seas look spectacular thanks to the colours of Lokus.

I enjoyed this issue, but as the culmination of the first big storyline it should have been better.