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A review by rhganci
The Trench by Geoff Johns
4.0
(4.5 stars) It took a lot of encouragement on the part of some friends as well as the comics-reading community in general to convince me that even IF Aquaman's book was the best of the New 52, I would want to read it. Well, I did read it, and no amount of hype could have prepared me for the utter humanity that Johns uses to write the character of Arthur Curry, and just what a standout book this first volume of the new Aquaman story THE TRENCH is.
Aquaman's place in the Justice League has been a piece of trivia to me and probably to most people, a cool link to the fringe science and speculative history of Atlantis in the same way that Wonder Woman ties into Greek mythology. But, as the gentleman in the diner reminds him, Aquaman isn't anybody's favorite superhero. That's the point at which the book jumps out from some of the others: Johns uses the character's fan history to generate a fresh allegory, redacting AQUAMAN as an immediate underdog story in which a hero whom nobody believes in--they don't even believe in Atlantis--has to save the people who can only compare him to the all-powerful Superman. The town of Beachrock gets to know Aquaman as a guardian of the shoreline, just as we the readers do, and with such a metastructure, Johns takes the "seventh" member of the Justice League and gives a solo book that stands at least as tall as the others, and better than a few: I'd certainly give this book the nod over Superman's own, as well as one or two of the others. The bad guy is unsympathetic, faceless, and not English-speaking; the symptoms of the problem are hints at a larger one, and the cliffhanger promises more personal quests in the issues that follow, certainly.
Ivan Reis always does great work as well, and while I feel that he sometimes sketches faces with a sort of blurry fervor, I love the large number of facial close-ups that focus on the eyes and mouths, almost always scowling, and the character models of both Aquaman and Mera. Some of the action sequences got a little hard to follow at times, but the manner in which Reis, Prado, and Reis make their work communicate the depth and vastness of the oceans does much to excuse the temporary muddiness that strikes the middle of the book. The book looks great, tells a simple, well-executed story and sets up what is sure to be another, but what AQUAMAN V1: THE TRENCH does as well if not better than the other JL solo books is identify the brand of heroism that its subject is going to espouse: Superman, the descended god; Batman, the rule utilitarian; Flash, the moral compass; Green Lantern, the authority-challenger; Wonder Woman, the warrior; and Aquaman, the underdog. That Johns works from this angle on just about every level wins the book through and through.
Aquaman's place in the Justice League has been a piece of trivia to me and probably to most people, a cool link to the fringe science and speculative history of Atlantis in the same way that Wonder Woman ties into Greek mythology. But, as the gentleman in the diner reminds him, Aquaman isn't anybody's favorite superhero. That's the point at which the book jumps out from some of the others: Johns uses the character's fan history to generate a fresh allegory, redacting AQUAMAN as an immediate underdog story in which a hero whom nobody believes in--they don't even believe in Atlantis--has to save the people who can only compare him to the all-powerful Superman. The town of Beachrock gets to know Aquaman as a guardian of the shoreline, just as we the readers do, and with such a metastructure, Johns takes the "seventh" member of the Justice League and gives a solo book that stands at least as tall as the others, and better than a few: I'd certainly give this book the nod over Superman's own, as well as one or two of the others. The bad guy is unsympathetic, faceless, and not English-speaking; the symptoms of the problem are hints at a larger one, and the cliffhanger promises more personal quests in the issues that follow, certainly.
Ivan Reis always does great work as well, and while I feel that he sometimes sketches faces with a sort of blurry fervor, I love the large number of facial close-ups that focus on the eyes and mouths, almost always scowling, and the character models of both Aquaman and Mera. Some of the action sequences got a little hard to follow at times, but the manner in which Reis, Prado, and Reis make their work communicate the depth and vastness of the oceans does much to excuse the temporary muddiness that strikes the middle of the book. The book looks great, tells a simple, well-executed story and sets up what is sure to be another, but what AQUAMAN V1: THE TRENCH does as well if not better than the other JL solo books is identify the brand of heroism that its subject is going to espouse: Superman, the descended god; Batman, the rule utilitarian; Flash, the moral compass; Green Lantern, the authority-challenger; Wonder Woman, the warrior; and Aquaman, the underdog. That Johns works from this angle on just about every level wins the book through and through.