Ray: So far, Aquaman has sent our title character into the world of magic – a big change for Aquaman’s usual adventures. Atlantis has been spirited away to the realm of Dagon, a magic city ruled by a mad God-king, and assassins have come after Aquaman from that world, but we’ve never seen it – until now. This issue opens with our first glimpse inside Dagon’s world, and it’s horrific. A family is on trial for stealing water, and Dagon’s cruel functionary judges promptly order them executed by a swarm of sharks for a “crime” that only the father was guilty of. I kept expecting a hero to come to the rescue, but those living in dictatorships often have no such recourse. Aquaman, Arion, and Vivienne are deep undercover in the city, hoping to escape detection – but Aquaman can’t sit by and watch as people are threatened and killed for nothing in particular. And that’s where the coolest new character debut in a while comes in.

I love when public domain heroes and villains show up in modern books. Technically, any writer can just decide they want Dracula to be a character in their comic and no one can stop them! But it rarely works as well as it did here, as Captain Nemo finds himself a prisoner in the City of Dagon, one step ahead of the guards. Aquaman comes to the rescue and teams up with the eccentric explorer, but there’s only one way to the main villain – by getting inside the gates. And the easiest way to do that is by getting arrested. This Aquaman is a much more “Leeroy Jenkins” version than we’ve seen before, and his tactic here is particularly funny – but it doesn’t change the fact that he’s ready to unleash hell once he’s in front of the judges. This book has big ideas and big action, but we haven’t seen much of the big bad himself yet – and from the very end of this issue, it seems like we might be heading for the darkest issue yet.

To find reviews of all the DC issues, visit DC This Week.

GeekDad received this comic for review purposes.

Source: geekdad.com