Aquaman #10

Written by: Dan Abnett

Art by: Brad Walker

Coloured by: Gabe Eltaeb

Lettered by: Pat Brosseau

In the previous issue, realizing that the Shaggy Man is making for his surface home of Amnesty Bay, Arthur rockets off ahead of the military to stop it. Reaching the town, the Shaggy Man begins destroying everything in sight when Arthur catches up, lunging at the creature before being easily smacked out of the way and into a nearby building. Apologizing to the people currently fleeing from the fight, Aquaman readies himself t attack again when Murk arrives, urging his king to call the Justice League and not let his pride be his downfall. Aquaman lunges towards the monster once more, getting in close and burying his Justice League communicator into its hair, activating the Leagues teleporter and sending the creature drifting into space before himself collapsing due to his injuries.

This issue follows Mera as she attempts to prove herself worthy to the Widows. After having received a vision of a woman bearing similarities to Mera destroying the world in grief of her husbands death, the Widows finally reject Mera, fearing the destruction that she may bring. Mera, being unwilling to accept their rejection, returns to her and Aquaman's lighthouse home seen in the New-52 series. Inside is a letter from the Royal Navy officer from their failed embassy wishing to meet about a matter of life and death. Meeting at a nearby restaurant, the officer informs Mera of N.E.M.O. and their plans to frame Atlantis, fearing for her life simply for knowing of their existence. Her fears are realized as they are attacked by a N.E.M.O. thug, Mera managing to fight him off but choosing to save the patrons of the restaurant rather than chase after him. The issue ends with the officer informing Mera that Arthur collapsed, heavily wounded in the middle of town the day before, Mera remembering the prophecy of her possible future.

The artwork in this issue is fairly mediocre, with odd faces, bulging eyes and just rediculous expressions on almost every page. Mainly taking place on the surface, we also have issues with the backgrounds being fairly sparse and generally lacking much detail. The action still flows well during the fight scenes, but unfortunately that is not enough to save the poor facial artwork.

Ultimately, this issue was fairly mediocre, not great but not terrible either, just bland. An improvement in the artwork would help, but ultimately the problem was simply that, for the most part, nothing happened except for an obvious red herring revelation at the beginning and a character learning something that the reader has known for several issues, seemingly just to push the story along. While I appreciate a greater focus on Mera this issue, and I sincerely hope that there are many more Mera-centric issues in the future, this one was not a great start.