Michael Hancock

“What’s her game? I guess I’ll have to just keep making out till I figure it out.”

I tried to read David's Aquaman before and fell off; the extra context of what he's doing with the character's history is really drawing me in now. My biggest complaint previously is that the story seemed to be repeating itself, and it's definitely not doing that anymore.

And it raises questions: is Thanatos real? Is this the real Meera, or a dream Meera? Also, the last we saw to Aqualad, he was a skeleton chained to a rock, flesh stripped clean. So we'll see what happens with all that.

I was really not expecting the Thanatos stuff to come back into play. It's weird that the mental personification of a drug a crimelord shot into Aquaman to make him do crimes has persisted as one of the more enduring members of his Rogue Gallery.

I'm honestly pretty impressed with the way David is drawing together Aquaman's previous spotty history, while adding his own contributions.

In 13, Aquaman battles Thanatos in a series of weird dreamscapes, from 19th c France to a Roman colosseum. The refugees quarrel with the merfolk, and leave.

in 12, Meera returns, and attacks them both. She seems to be enchanted in some way, and Aquaman and Dolphin pursue her into a dream realm that seems to be ruled by Thanatos. Meanwhile, Aquaman's son takes the refugees to the merpeople from the 90s miniseries.

11 starts a new story arc, as the city is evacuated over the increasing quakes. Aquaman's son takes charge of the refugees, and Aquaman and Dolphin finally have sex in the ruins of Aquaman's former palace.

A stranger reveals himself to Aquaman as Posiedon. Honestly, Aquaman really should have realized something was weird when he met a man wearing a trenchoat and hat with a beard of bubbles in the middle of the ocean.

And I liked the depiction of Posiedon in the fourth chapter, both in the mysterious stranger form and in the powerful god form, and his beard of bubbles. There's been a lot of really cool depictions of Greek gods in DC comics over the years.

First page of the first section, with a youthful Aquaman hiding from Triton, who's riding a whale, trailed by fish with very human faces.

I'm not a fan of the Diana chapter--it feels like she would have done more than be the god's kidnapee in that situation. But it's a good use of a "Year One" annual to add some heft to Aquaman's Rogue gallery. Two art shoutouts: I liked the weird fish with people faces in the Jones chapter.

Then we have the annual, where each section is done by a different artist. Framing sequence is Egeland, first section is Casey Jones, second is Jake Jacobsen, third is Califiore, fourth is Phil Jimenez. And each is about Aquaman opposing Triton or Poseidon at some point in his career.

In 10, w/ art by Calafiore, Kyle Green Lantern and Aquaman fight over a dying shark, while the king is caught in a quake and Aquaman's son leaves him to die.

In 9, a sharp shooter assassin, Deadline, goes after Aquaman, with art by Joe St. Pierre. At the end of that story, it's revealed that the king of Poseidonis tried to have Aquaman killed, jealous of his hold over their people.

She's captured by the Apocalips group Fathom Five, and turned into a flame elemental. (the old flame into a Flame. That's Peter David, all right.) 8 continues with Egeland and Casey Jones on art; the old flame goes off to become a fire elemental, and her son joins Aquaman's supporting cast.

Over at DC, I read through more of Peter David's Aquaman, issues 7-13, plus an annual. 7 has art by Egeland, and takes up midplot, with Aquaman having returned to his mother's people for answers, but instead finding an old flame and her son--also his son.

and the Lizard as villain to accelerate things seems very random. I get that he's chosen as another figure with a monstrous body, but it still seems off.

Anyway, the plot of this one is that post-Secret Wars, The Thing takes on the venom symbiote in an attempt to appear more human, against Reed's advice. It's not a terrible premise, but it does do the What If thing of characters acting out of character for the tragedy at hand...

I also read the one shot What If Dark Venom by Stephanie Philips and Jethro Morales. What If Dark was a 2023ish set of comics, with the premise that they were What Ifs, but... Dark? The What Ifs already tend more towards tragedy, so it seems a bit redundant.

The fifth has all the characters teaming up to fight the uncles teaming up, plus Miles Spidey and a Blue Marvel uncle. It's also by Medina and Ziglar. It's fine, and has Miles saving the day, but there's not a lot of emotional heft to be had--he doesn't really know these people.

donated the salary to the Brooklyn Book Bodega. It's a surprise this made it past the editors. Between this, the Cap Civil War, and the Hiroshima Hulks, What If has some dodgy racial history.

(There's also some potential as a new father figure, which they get it into.) The bigger issue is that to set up this Afrofuturist Asgard, Yehudi Mercado leans heavily into Black vernacular, and he's not Black. It became a big enough issue that he apologized for his approach, and...

So what Mercado does is reimagine Asgard in the modern day as a Black community. There's a touch of Afrofuturism in that, and under the right hands that could work. The problem on a narrative level is that it calls for changing Loki from brother to uncle, which does place some distance.

4 is the, uh, controversial one, by Yehudi Mercado and Luigi Zagaria. What if Miles became Thor. And that's a fundamentally different proposition than the others. Captain America, Hulk, and Wolverine have supporting casts, which be reimagined, but Thor has a community, a world.

The idea of typically mild-mannered Miles having this repressed anger--over his uncle, and over the realities of life in America--that explodes outwards into this destructive force works well. And in this version, his uncle is murdered by Abomination, so it's unresolved. That works well too.

Honestly, they're very similar stories, with Miles being selected as a test subject, and his uncle becoming jealous or feeling he deserves more. My favorite of the bunch is What If Miles Morales became the Hulk, by Anthony Piper and Edgar Salazar.

First, then, is What if Miles Morales became Captain America, by Cody Ziglar and Paco Medina. And granted, having these written by a regular Miles-Spider-Man writer lowers my critique. 2 is What if Miles became Wolverine, by John Ridley and Farid Karami.

Both make Miles feel interchangeable to me instead of his own unique hero. It doesn't help that 4 of the 5 issues are retellings of his origin, but more about his uncle being a jerk than Miles being anything in particular. (In the 5th, they all team up with regular Miles.)

Next up is a What If mini-series based on the premise What if Miles was based on a different Marvel superhero other than Spider-Man. I did not like this premise. It kind of fits with the Spider-Verse theme of "anyone can wear the mask" but I'm not fond of that either.

And in retrospect, the idea that Dr Doom survives and couldn't find a way off Battleworld is kind of silly. I would have loved it if the twist was that he could jump back to Earth whenever he wanted, and just kept it secret from everyone else.

It's fun to see who paired up and had what kids, though current day me is disappointed there aren't more villain/hero pairings. I feel like we don't see enough of that side, the barriers that they never manage to take down. Also, Human Torch and the Wasp's kid is a big weiner.