Aquaman #30 Review and **SPOILERS**

The Lower Trides Are Gonna Rise Again

Story: Dan Abnett 

Art, Color and Cover: Stjepan Sejic 

Lettering: Steve Wands 

Cover Price: $3.99

On Sale Date: November 15, 2017

**NON SPOILERS AND SCORE AT THE BOTTOM**

Do you think the Atlantean resistance has a fight song? All sports teams and military coups should have a fight song. “Over coral and giant oyster shells/ Through the deepest trides of the sea…” It just seems correct. You have to assume the Atlantean military has a song or two to sing. Here’s my soundless review of Aquaman #30, listen up!

Explain It!

One of the most frustrating things about social progress is that it often happens so slowly. The eternal quest for justice and equity is continually undermined, redefined, and back-burnered throughout history for a variety of reasons, so that you sit reading this, after nine-thousand-plus years of human civilization, and people are still held in slavery in parts of this world. Weren’t robots supposed to be handling this type of work by now? I think the robots have already taken over, and they’re keeping Third World slavery camps in business to obscure their methods!

This “resistance” arc in Aquaman…it’s been going on for a while. Like, since July of this year. And while I think it was conceived initially as a twice-monthly story, it doesn’t forgive the fact that the last two issues were pure filler that nudged things along so slightly that it couldn’t be measured with an electron microscope. Add to this the changing cover images from solicit and release, and what I think happened is that the story had to be switched around quickly for some forthcoming reason. Because what we have here, folks, is nonsense. The book opens introducing a whole new group of rebels, calling themselves The Undercurrent, led by Jurok Byss—an Aquaman character, but not one introduced in this arc, and certainly not heading a squad of resistance fighters—and these guys basically save the day. They’re introduced at the eleventh hour, and that’s pretty lame for all the folks following month-to-month, expecting a more cumulative story.

Otherwise, Mera is incapacitated by walking through the Crown of Thorns with a busted amulet, and she gets captured by King Shark. He’s gunning for giant crab-man Krush’s position as crime boss of the Ninth Trides, so now we have a new fish-faced hoodlum to find out about. Aquaman and Dolphin reveal themselves to The Undercurrent, and Arthur agrees to lead them to victory against Corum Rath. Vulko and Delphine show up with the magic trident. I mean, it feels like we’re heading towards a great conflict next issue, but everything begins basically from here and we spent three issues treading water for no great reason. Hey, “treading water!” I made a funny and didn’t mean to!

Bits and Pieces:

Here, at what was intended to be the conclusion of this story arc, some new elements are introduced that render previous parts to the story pointless. So if you've been waiting to hop on the book, now's your time! But if you've been reading it regularly, you got hosed.

6.5/10