Comic Info
Comic Name: Aquaman and the Others/Aquaman: Futures End/Aquaman and the Others: Futures End
Publisher: DC Comics
Writer: Dan Jurgens
Artist: Lan Medina/Alvaro Martinez/Alvaro Martinez/Sean Chen
# of Issues: 8
Release Date: 2015
Aquaman and the Others #11
Reprints Aquaman and the Others #6-11, Aquaman: Futures End #1, and Aquaman and the Others: Futures End #1 (December 2014-November 2014). Mayhem has struck. A team of terrorists led by KGBeast and Cheshire have taken control of nuclear missiles on an abandoned Soviet satellite. With Mayhem threatening to unleash the satellites, the Others must stop the destruction…and not everyone on the team is on their side! Plus, the future is bleak as Atlantis and Xebel are both dying and Aquaman and the Others might be the only hope in saving it.
Written by Dan Jurgens, Aquaman and the Others Volume 2: Alignment Earth follows Aquaman and the Others Volume 1: Legacy of Gold. The final collection of the series features art by Lan Medina, Alvaro Martinez, and Sean Chen and a two issue crossover with the Futures End DC Event Series.
I liked Geoff Johns’ relaunch of Aquaman in the New 52 universe. I wasn’t an Aquaman hater (like many people…though I do like Namor more), but I also felt that this series was rather unnecessary…and this volume proves to be an example of it.
Aquaman and the Others: Futures End #1
First off, there isn’t anything really wrong with the “Alignment Earth” story. It progresses exactly as you’d expect, with characters doing what you’d expect, and ends…as expected. That is both what is good and bad about the series. It is just very generic comic book plots. It feels like a lot of this series just could have been absorbed into the Aquaman run and that Aquaman wasn’t really worthy of carrying two titles at DC.
The second part of the collection features Aquaman’s ties to the Futures End storyline. I have only read random issues of this storyline so for the most part it feels like a throwaway (though I am a completionist…I like to read a whole run if possible). The story does a good enough job setting up the Others storylines for this alternate reality storyline but bottom line is that it is all just inconsequential storytelling since it is “the future”. It just feels like What If? or Elseworlds that is a bit more grounded in the DC Universe.
Aquaman and the Others is a good comic for those who are fair weather comic readers. It isn’t amazing storytelling or that innovating but it feels like a real comic book (or at least what many people imagine about comics). The story is more stylistically close to the stories of the ’80s or ’90s and that doesn’t necessarily mean it’s bad, but it also doesn’t mean it’s good.
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