You Damn Fool! You’re More Useless Than Aquaman: Justice League #15 Review

Since last year’s New 52 relaunch, Geoff Johns has made it his personal mission to rehabilitate Aquaman’s reputation. Which is a somewhat Quixotic task, since Aquaman never had much of a reputation to begin with. I remember years ago, when superhero Underoos were finally released for sale, my mom brought me to the store late enough that all that were left were Aquaman Underoos… and I told her that I would rather parade around the schoolyard in tightie-whities than suffer the indignity of having to pretend to be Aquaman. I was 28. But that’s not the point.

But hey, everyone has an unlikely dream that they harbor deep in their hearts, and I don’t begrudge Johns his, even though I don’t think he’s quite delivered on it thus far. Hey, I have the secret fantasy that someday I, a bloated and drunken 41-year-old, can smack the home run that wins the Boston Red Sox their third World Series victory since 1918 despite never having played even Little League baseball, so I’m not gonna rank Johns out too much for his dream to make Aquaman cool, despite it arguably having a lower chance at success than mine.

After fifteen months of chasing the dragon, Johns has begin phase two of his unlikely Aquaman resuscitation (actually, given Aquaman’s inability to carry his own book for longer than seven years despite more than 70 years of history, perhaps “presuscitation” is a better word) by making Aquaman the focus of a big Justice League event, Throne of Atlantis. So finally, Johns has his main chance to give Aquaman some relevance, not only in his own title but in the DC Universe proper, by making the poor, fishfucking sonofabitch the focus of a story… but for it to work, the story better be a good one.

We open on the aircraft carrier U.S.S. Mabus, which is performing a missile test when they lose control of the missiles, which enter the ocean, continue beneath the surface intact and then explode near Atlantis (and we will nitpick the living shit out of the entirety of that sentence shortly). We then cut to Superman trying to convince Wonder Woman to wear some rimless hipster glasses to allow them to enter a restaurant without being accosted, or perhaps because Superman has a thing for Lisa Loeb. Then we cut to Cyborg on the Justice League Satellite, being asked by his father to investigate the suddenly missing Mabus just before power is lost on the space station, allowing us to cut to Batman and Aquaman battling Scarecrow’s goons (all Batman’s rogues have a seemingly infinite supply of hired goons. Is there a Craig’s List board of which I am unaware? Because I need help moving a bed). Aquaman has just enough time to tell Batman that all the fish on the Northeastern Seaboard have begin ignoring him (Like all comic readers from 1941 to 2011. Pow!) before tidal waves hit Gotham, Metropolis and Boston. The Justice League gets to work saving and cleaning up Metropolis and Gotham (Leaving Boston to its own devices, and as a resident: fuck you too, Justice League!), when Aquaman reveals that all that has happened is covered under the Atlantean plans for war against the surface – plans he himself wrote.

If that summary sounds like I’m making light of the story, I’m really not… with the exception of the whole aircraft carrier / missile thing, which I will now resoundingly mock. First of all, the Mabus is a Nimitz-class aircraft carrier, as newer aircraft carriers are still being built and would therefore sink like bricks (like most of Aquaman’s solo titles! Boom!). When it comes to missiles, Nimitz-class carriers are armed with launchers for small, short range anti-aircraft and ship-to-ship missiles, not big old ballistic missiles like we see in this issue. And speaking of missiles, didja ever see the episode of Mythbusters where they shot a 50-caliber bullet into a pool and it disintegrated when it hit the surface? What do you think would happen to a giant missile? Atlantis would be under siege by gently sinking debris, and this issue would end with Metropolis, Gotham and Boston receiving strongly worded letters of complaint.

Look, this sequence is just a simple setup to start the conflict between Atlantis and the surface, but stuff like this matters… and before you accuse me of being some kind of military equipment freak, I know nothing about that shit. But I do watch Mythbusters, which was enough to get me to Google “do aircraft carriers fire missiles?”, and Wikipedia did the rest. And yes, this is a nitpick, and yes, in the end it’s not all that big a deal – all that matters is that some shit blows up and gives Ocean Master an excuse to attack the surface – but it’s starting off with a sequence that will ring false to anyone who ever flipped past the Discovery Channel… although that kind of geeky viewing does seem a bit unlikely for a habitual reader of comics. Thwap!

If you can get past the admittedly minor problems of the very beginning of the story, there’s actually a lot to like in this issue. For a first issue of a relatively big crossover event, this is a fairly character-driven story. Most of the initial time we spend with each team member addresses and advances relationships that matter to the characters. We see Cyborg and his odd and strained relationship with his father, the beginnings of the relationship between Superman and Wonder Woman – including Superman trying to teach Diana how to just be human and not just on all the time – and we see nuggets of the nature of the relationship between Batman and Aquaman, as well as how Aquaman is seen by the general public (see the first couple of bolded punchlines for half-decent examples). The overall effect is to really ground what is an action-packed story opening with real, satisfying human character moments, which elevates what we have here to a much more satisfying level than a standard blow-’em-up.

But make no mistake: there is plenty of blow-’em’-up here. As an introduction to what is shaping up to be a full-scale war between Atlantis and the United States (if not the entire world, although we only see Gotham, Metropolis and Boston get hit… then again, if the Justice League treats the rest of the world the way they treat Boston, the rest of the world can apparently fucking drown in their own sweet time), seeing tidal waves basically wipe out three American cities isn’t a bad way to go. Sure, the story starts a little slow – you’re not gonna get a lot slower than “Batman, the fishies are scared” – but we get full-scale apocalypse by the end of the issue, and Johns takes full advantage of the fact that he’s dealing with some of the most powerful and iconic superheroes ever by having Superman and Wonder Woman do some serious, big action movie style heroics. It’s an exciting start, and if we’re gonna kick off an event with this kind of action, it’s a tantalizing enough taste to make my want to see what Johns has in store as things really ramp up.

Ivan Reis’s art is a good match for what’s shaping up to be a big, widescreen action story. His style is realistic, with idealized, yet not overly jacked or stylized figures, and highly expressive faces. However, the realism doesn’t come up to the levels of, say, a lightbox artist like some who will remain nameless, where the realism is pumped up to a level where the art becomes distracting. In addition, while Reis works with a thin line, he doesn’t use it as an excuse to throw a bunch of stylized detail lines all over the place. So what we end up with is art that depicts events from Wonder Woman’s obvious glee and wonder at being able to be out in public, to a huge and spectacular double-page spread of the destructive tidal wave that hits Metropolis. There isn’t anything too stylized or unrealistic here, just some good, realistic detailed art that covers everything the story throws at us.

Justice League also continues to feature the ongoing Shazam backup series by Johns and artist Gary Frank, and this is a pretty good installment of the story Billy Batson and his buddy Freddy are taking advantage of his suddenly superpowered adulthood by trying like hell to scrape together enough money to buy a case of beer (“A case of beer’s gotta be at least five dollars,” Freddy says miserably), when they discover that, when in his Captain Marvel form (Fuck you, DC; The Big Red Cheese isn’t “Shazam,” he’s Captain Fucking Marvel! And Aquaman was a green-panted wuss who argued with scrod and fucked above his weight! Just like now! Crugazunch! Yeah, I’m just lifting from the Don Martin Dictionary now), he is automatically attracted to trouble where he can make a difference. The vignette works mostly in the characterizations of Billy and Freddy; Johns really sells the feeling of a couple of kids with no supervision whatsoever trying to figure out what to do with their sudden good fortune, and the inevitable split when one kid realizes that their fortunes aren’t equally good. And Frank, as usual, uses his realistic style and expressive faces to help sell the good, and bad, times that the two main characters are having. All in all, it’s a good backup story that, in its conclusion, is finally getting to some actual superhero action.

Overall, Justice League #15 is a damn solid opening to a large-scale crossover event. It doesn’t require that the reader have really read any earlier issues of other DC books to follow along – although knowing why Superman seems to be trying to lay into Wonder Woman will probably help matters – and it’s an opening that starts big, big enough to make the reader excited to see how, and if, Johns intends to raise the stakes. The only problem is the opening with that aircraft carrier, and even that isn’t really that big a deal if you can force yourself to shut off your brain better than I was able to. However, the one thing it doesn’t do is put Aquaman front and center; while his role might be amped up in this week’s Aquaman, in this issue, beyond telling Batman that fish are nervous, he doesn’t really do a hell of a lot here. Kinda like in every other comic book with Aquaman in it. Glorp!