(COMIC) AQUAMAN #8

STORY: Geoff Johns
ART: Ivan Reis and Joe Prado

It feels like, at this point, there's not much to be said about Aquaman that I haven't already expressed in spades over the course of the last four months. Geoff Johns is a stellar writer and he obviously has a soft spot in his heart for characters who've lost their true essence. In 2004, Johns took Green Lantern and revitalized that franchise to a point where DC was basically framed around the workings of the GL universe for nearly three years. And while the imprint is no longer as GL-centric as it once was, Johns brings the same passion and bravado to Arthur Curry in the pages of Aquaman. This month's second part of "The Others" give us a little more insight into Aquaman's life before the events of the series thus far, which seems to take place before Arthur joins the Justice League but not much before.

Starting six years in the past, Johns shows us paparazzi are hassling a young Arthur before he throws a temper tantrum and jumps into the sea. Flash-forward to the present and Arthur decides to take off with Miss No-name-from-last-issue because of something having to do with a group of superhumans that worked together, but were never (technically) a team. In true Geoff Johns style, the storyline at this point is still cryptic and hidden under layers of intricate backstory that Johns has masterfully crafted, so I'm not super worried about the eventual conclusion.

My only gripes with Aquaman #8 would be the a general lack of real movement in plot. While we get a lot of backstory, the present-day panels and flashbacks didn't flow as well as they could have, and Ivan Reis' art this issue seemed a bit sloppy, a bit rushed. But like I've said many a-time, Aquaman is still one of my favorite series of the 'New 52' and issue eight still impresses beyond most of the other top-tier books in DC's lineup.

GRADE:

B+