DC Comics 2021
Written by Brandon Thomas
Pencilled by Scott Koblish
Inked by Wade Von Grawbadger
Coloured by Andriano Lucas & Alex Guimarães
Lettered by Andworld Design
There’s no safe haven quite like home…if you can call the destroyed and abandoned West Coast Titans Tower home! Jackson may have eluded the Atlantean guard, but he’s in for the fight of his life with the mysterious villain DELUGE, who framed Jackson for the Atlantis attack and seems hell-bent on his destruction!
Well to be honest I’m not sure how this story is going to take him from Aqualad to Aquaman but I’ll go with it. Though I do wonder where Garth is in all this and why he’s not helping Jackson? Regardless, I’m enjoying seeing Jackson forced to come into his own, on his own thus far as it really shows us the kids mettle. With the Atlantean army hot on his heels and Deluge after him, can Jackson find someplace to catch his breath and recuperate long enough to figure out what is going on? Nope, this is comics after all and part of being a great hero is learning to think on your feet and figure things out in the moment. Plus why were they so keen to kidnap Jackson’s mother, what role does she play in all this.
I am enjoying the way that this is being told. The story & plot development that we see through how the sequence of events unfold as well as how the reader learns information is presented exceedingly well. The character development that we see through the dialogue, the character interaction as well as how we see them act and react to the situations and circumstances which they encounter does an excellent job in bringing the personalities to life. The pacing is superb and as it takes us through the pages revealing more of the story the more I want to see revealed.
I’m enjoying the way that this is being structured and how we see the layer within the story continue to emerge, grow, evolve and strengthen. I also like the way that we see the layers within the story open up new avenues to be explored. I'm particularly interested in this network that Arthur and Mera set up. Whether or not these avenues get explored they add so much depth, dimension and complexity to the story. How we see everything working together to create the story’s ebb & flow as well as how it moves the story forward are impeccably handled.
I’m a fan of the interiors here. I’m really rather impressed that the work Scott and Wade do looks like one person did them both and that kind of talent is great to see. I like that we think we see a ton of backgrounds being utilised, I mean we see a lot but it feels like more thanks to the composition within the panels and how they bring out the depth perception, sense of scale and the overall sense of size and scope to the story and how they enhance and expand what we see. The utilisation of the page layouts and how we see the angles and perspective in the panels shows an extremely talented eye for storytelling. The various hues and tones within the colours being utilised to create the shading, highlights and shadow work shows a great understanding of how colour works.
I stand by my earlier statement that if you aren’t all that familiar with Jackson that this is an incredible vehicle to get to know him. The way we see him changing, growing and evolving into a man through all this is really quite something. With some good, solid and strong writing and characterisation alongside these really sharp and dynamic interiors this is proving to be a great addition to not only the DCU but the Aquaman world of characters.