Tag: aquaman

ohmeohmeyer

replied to your

photoset

:


From Justice League #17, the end of the “Throne of…

oh man ive never really read any comics before but this looks really good! and the new movie has me v excited for these characters!

I had watched the animated movie from a few years ago that was based off of this arc – it’s pretty good, animated fight scenes are nicely done, everything except the annoying bit that is is the nu52 so there’s a few scenes of Superman/Wonder Woman, which aside from taking up valuable screen-time for what isn’t a long film, is a pairing that I loathe for many reasons. But the animated version removed Vulko and thus made Orm a more generic actual villain. I knew that the original comic had Orm as an anti-villain and that he didn’t kill his queen mother and wasn’t working with Black Manta but was just duped by Manta and Vulko. I wasn’t expecting “Oh gods, he looks like a baby without his helmet, this is Loki-fangirl feelings and you are better than this, stop.” I knew the Trench was the first Aquaman arc in the nu52 reboot, and that villain horde will also be showing up in the live action film. Plus interviews with Patrick Wilson who plays Orm are hinting that it might not just be straight antagonism between the brothers, that their hate will come from a place of love, so I’m expecting the live action movie to fall somewhere between the animated and comic version.

I’ve been reading the Rebirth Aquaman comics (and the recent Mera mini-series), but the movie trailer prompted me to go back and read the first couple issues of nu52 Aquaman of which Rebirth is a continuation.

The funniest thing for me, to be honest, is that while I never read any of the pre-Flashpoint Aquaman comics, at least according to the internet, for the period of the Post-Crisis to Flashpoint: Aquaman was the full Atlantean (and blonde) and Orm was the half-human half Atlantean younger brother – and his mother was First Nation. Now post-Flashpoint, Arthur is the half-human, Orm the full Atlantean, and now the live-action has Orm finally as the blonde and Arthur is the brunette played by an actor with Native American and Hawaiian ancestry (and Thomas Curry is being played by Temura Morrison)

From Justice League #17, the end of the “Throne of Atlantis” Arc, aka how to make someone turn around and pity-adore the antagonist. I’ve included the “I loved you like any brother should” speech and the panel where Orm fights on his brother’s side after relinquishing rule. But it’s the last two pages that pushed this into “Arthur, that’s your dumb baby brother! I love him; how could you?”

Overall Context: Vulko (the onlooker in the third image with the panel voice-over from Arthur about how alone he is) manipulates current king of Atlantis, Orm, into attacking the surface world as a plan to replace him with the elder half-human illegitimate Arthur – a plan that works out perfectly except for all the collateral Atlantean and human civilian causalities and having to also unleash the Trench (creepy fish monster people).

catching up on more Aquaman comics – Rebirth this time. What can I say, the long recent arc has been Atlantis politics stuff- these comics work best when doing the GoT high fantasy control of the kingdom stories. And for most of the issues it’s been Sejic and then Federici as artist -two different styles but both have been absolutely gorgeous. But now issue 34 switches over to another artist whose style is more Sale/old school with flat colors and more cartoon stylized and just…ugly.

Here’s the amount of downgrade. Went from this

and this

to this:

And these examples are just me picking vaguely similar panels showing the current villain.

Like, the main artists and colorists for Aquaman Rebirth until this Underworld/Arthur Dethroned Arc was not something I got excited for (I tend to think of it the generic in-house comic book art style). See Briones:

(and thus why Sejic was such a delight and relief). And I can deal with comic art that don’t like up to a point, but probably because I wasn’t reading these American comics as a child and teen, so the general conventional look doesn’t appeal to me.

At least the writer has been the same throughout these arcs

Going back and reading the Throne of Atlantis arc and Aquaman run from 2011. I’d seen the animated version but knew that Orm wasn’t the straight/only villain in the original comics, but seeing panels of his speech to Arthur for the last couple days where he confesses how much he loved his half-brother and just wanted them together on the same side convinced me to hunt down the full arc. And ouch. It was already tugging the heartstrings (the main difference between the two versions is that in the comics, a former adviser is the one to manipulate the attack that causes the war as a way to force Arthur to oust his brother and take the crown he doesn’t want) – but then the chapter ending on Orm locked away in prison and begging to talk with his brother (and looking so very young and hurt and betrayed when Arthur allows him to be arrested) – yeah, this is the woobie Loki shit of a million fanfics and I hope the hints are that we’re getting some of those mixed nuance feelings in the live-action movie. Also wondering if the live-action movie will bring in any of the plotlines about how Mera was sent to Atlantis as a double agent to assassinate Aquaman. I know a YA novel is coming out soon that focuses on that. But, yeah, every time the Aquaman books focus on the underwater political and family intrigue, I’m more interested than the outsider-esque team or the special forces marines. Or the meta narrative highlighting and debunking the ‘Aquaman is Useless Meme’. Nah, give me all this soap opera sibling drama and we mutually accidentally murdered each other’s fathers and thus locked in a revenge cycle stuff. Oh, and where’s the AU where Queen Atlanta successfully escaped Atlantis to return back to the surface world to reunite with Thomas Curry and Arthur, only this time dragging alone a twelve-year-old Orm? Especially with the Mera: Queen of Atlantis mini-series showing an Orm than adapted to enjoy a new life with humans and how many times Mera plays the part of a proverbial Nala looking for Simba. (Add in Mera’s twin sister for more comedy gold. and where is the Aquaman cast watches the The Little Mermaid? That has to be a fan comic somewhere…)