728 pages of absolute perfection! One of my favourite runs and honestly one of the best DC put out during the entirety of New 52.

This is absolutely worth picking up even if you have never read an Aquaman book this run will make you love him and the characters surrounding him!

Geoff Johns knows how to write some entertaining stories and despite all of the dangling plot threads, he’s a damn good superhero writer. This book tells some of my favorite modern blockbuster action superhero stories. Basically every arc reads like a multi-million dollar action movie, and a good one at that.

I really enjoy the way Johns reinvented Aquaman and his side characters, especially Mera. I fully credit Johns for creating the version of Mera that I love dearly. They truly are one of the best couples in all comics. Johns adds a lot to the mythos (as he usually does, especially in the post Green Lantern era of his career) and really makes Aquaman feel like an important character. He wrote a whole event around him and it was a great one at that. The villains of the run are really good too. Johns has always had a fantastic voice for villains and he really flexes that muscle here with both Black Manta and Ocean Master.

Art wise, we have 2 main artists Ivan Reis and Paul Pelletier. Ivan Reis is one of my favorite more house style artists in the industry. He doesn’t take as many risks as I’d like in comic art, but he does exactly what he needs to do for this book. Reis’s splash pages are downright gorgeous though, especially with this oversized format. I think his art really benefits from the bigger pages because you can really appreciate how much detail goes into his art. Both Reis and Pelletier are fantastic at showing action, but Pelletier might have Reis beat in terms of being a sequential artist. Pelletier is a veteran of the industry though, he’s been drawing comics for DC since the 90’s with an awesome stint on the Flash with Mark Waid. Pelletier also continues onto the book after Johns leaves and does some great work with Jeff Parker.

My only flaws with the book stem from the lack of risk taking with paneling and visual story telling, but this isn’t the book for that. This book is pure escapism fun and it’s excellent at being pure entertainment. Also, Johns has a weird habit at this stage in his career for hinting at major events and never doing anything with them. This happens most notably here (Rise of the Seven Seas, where tf is it Geoff) and Flash Rebirth 09 (The last couple pages hint at a bunch of potential stories only for none of them to be explored).

8/10. Solid solid superhero stuff and holds up well on rereads. This was my third time reading through this material.

That was a ton of fun to read!