Justice League: Throne of Atlantis

To the general public, Aquaman is certainly one of the lesser known members of the Justice League, being one of the few heroes to have not yet had his own film or TV franchise, despite being now over 75 years old. In fact, the most cross-media exposure he’s had so far is as a recurring guest in the last few seasons of Smallville, and even then, he got pretty roundly overshadowed by Green Arrow. I’ll admit, he’s a character that I have never collected a run of, although I did pick up a couple of arcs as part of the New 52 relaunch that DC comics carried out in 2011. And I’m glad I did, because they’re actually pretty good!

The first arc of writer Geoff Johns’ revamped Aquaman (#1-#4) is refreshingly straightforward; it (re)introduces Arthur Curry as the half-Human half-Atlantean hero, making minimal acknowledgement to the previous history of the character, before dropping him into a Creature-Feature plot, where he must take on a swarm of deep-sea dwelling beasties known as The Trench as they attack a defenceless seaside town. There are no surprises or twists here, but over the brief run the plot kicks along at a fantastic pace, and the monsters, who seem more like something out of an HP Lovecraft horror short, are gruesomely depicted by superstar artist Ivan Reis.

Johns had also been overseeing the revamp of the Justice League at this point, and so for the third volume of that title, he brought Aquaman front and centre in a blockbuster arc called ‘Throne of Atlantis’. The main driver of the plot sees Aquaman trying to stop a war between Atlantis and the surface world, but in doing so, finds himself at odds with both his teammates in the Justice League, and with his own malevolent half-brother, and King of the Atlantean nation, Ocean Master! It’s a really strong arc, providing plenty of wide-screen action (Atlantis declares war by unleashing massive tsunamis on a number of coastal cities), underscored by some deeply personal stakes for several of the characters. There are twists and turns, along with a healthy dose of personal sacrifice. What’s more, several of the characters introduced in the preliminary ‘Trench’ story arc make a return, so it serves as a bit of a sequel to that story too. This crossover ran through Justice League (#15-#17) and Aquaman (#15-#16), and marked a high point for the adventures of the revamped League at that point.