This time, it's my little sister, Lisa. I think I mentioned that a few weeks ago I gave her Aquaman #15, a copy that the back cover was destroyed on. I didn't really expect her to read it, she's never had any interest in Aquaman and has always preferred non-superhero stories. So I was surprised when she asked me if any more issues came out, and if she could read them.
Heck yeah! I'm not giving up a chance to show off my favorite character to someone who seems interested. So when she visited last night I handed her the last three issues, and she gave me her thoughts this morning.
Some background. I wax enthusiastic about Aquaman on-line, but not in "real life". Lisa admits that all she really knew about Aquaman was that he's from Atlantis and he can talk to fish. She didn't even know his name is Arthur until "that green guy" (J'onn) started calling him by it, and even then, she was momentarily confused. Basically, she's coming in cold. (I'll also point out that she was born a bit late for Super Friends).
First off, she started by complaining that it ended in a cliffhanger. I pointed out that pretty much all on-going books have cliff-hangers nowadays, and she said, "I know, but I want to read the next issue NOW." To her, that was the biggest fault in the books.
She's ok with the art, although she admits that she is more of a reader than a viewer and to her the artwork supplements the words. Thus she read very closely, but missed some of the aspects of the artwork.
I asked her if Aquaman's powers seemed odd, or if she thought they were just serving the story. She said that every bit of his power was explained in the storyline, and even directed me to a speech Aquaman makes to J'onn about being connected to all sea life (#16, page 16). I apparently missed the speech because it's all stuff I know, info-dump, and so I'm guilty of skimming over it. But Lisa read it, and she said his powers were being used consistently throughout the storyline. So far.
There were a number of plotlines she was curious about, but she pointed out that the book is essentially a mystery: who drowned San Diego, and why. She indicated that there was nothing unusual in introducing plot threads in the first four issues without giving immediate answers to them. She was mildly confused by the disconnect between the mysterious villains in the beginning of issue #18 and who Aquaman is going after at the end of issue #18, but she pointed out that in any kind of story you follow the clues available which eventually lead to the truth. Her rationalization as a reader was that Aquaman will eventually be led to the mystery villains.
Ok, that's all well and good. I asked her to try a little mental exercise for me. If she hadn't read the first three issues, and only read #18, would it read as well. She looked at me like I was nuts and said it's the fourth part of an on-going story, how could it read well all alone? And so we are left with the usual problem with on-going comics. Accessibility to new readers is limited to good jumping on points. This is a fault with any book that uses long storyarcs.
I don't know what rating she would give the book, I didn't ask. You can ask her yourself when she guest-blogs for me in July. However, she seemed to like the story overall.
And, if you want to read yet another review of Aquaman, Near Mint Heroes points us to a set of reviews by Four Color Meat and Fish that includes a bit on Aquaman #18. And here's one at comiXtreme, and another at MediasharX (what's with the capital "X" thing?). I tried to find a negative review, but this is all Google could turn up. I'll have to try again in a couple of weeks.
