 Finally, the Return of the King in Obnibus form. Hey everybody, welcome to another exciting episode, another edition of A Week in Geekdom here on YouTube. My name is Jono Melendez, and today we're going to be talking about, finally, the Aquaman by Jeff Johns Obnibus. Now if you don't know much about me, do know that my favorite DC superhero of all time is the King of Atlantis himself. I love Aquaman and just the idea that we could get a full-fledged reboot and introduce this wonderful character to thousands and thousands of readers is phenomenal, spectacular. I love the idea of the New 52 because in 2011, I was not reading comic books. I knew about the characters, I had read about them in my earlier years, but it wasn't until the announcement of the New 52 where I went, huh, you know, I kind of want to check out comic books again. I wanted to see what all the fuss is about, but I don't want to deal with continuity. You know, all the problems that new comic book readers face, I had them back in 2011. Flashpoint was ending, so I picked those issues up, I read everything, and I was like, okay, I don't totally get what's happening, but I do know that it's going to lead to a new DC reboot with 52 brand new titles and one of them happened to be Aquaman. Now I had read the character in the 90s with Peter David and I loved reading that comic book back in the day. I also loved his appearances in the Bruce Timm animated universe, Superman the Animated Series and then the Justice League stuff. I always liked the character, but it wasn't until this famous revamp, if you will, from Mr. Jeff Jobs where we got to see this character in a completely new and interesting sort of way. Gone were the convoluted history of Atlantis, the relationship with Ocean Master or Orm, if you will. Because let's face it, all they did was just confuse everything. Regardless of, it doesn't matter which book you're reading, the origin is more or less the same, but it's slightly tweaked, and over the course of many years that piles up and you don't really know what is definitive, especially when it comes to the history of Atlantis because the city itself is shrouded in mystery, it's a living, breathing city under water, and Peter David wrote it beautifully in the way that the city just remembers its ancestors and when they pass on it says if part of them lives within the city, so the city itself is alive, then you have the complex history of the two brothers with Ocean Master and Aquaman and all that stuff. Nora's origins is different from book to book, whether she's a princess or a queen, or she escapes to an alternate dimension, that's another plane of existence, or she is trying to infiltrate Atlantis and murder the king, it varies, but there is a connective tissue between everything. This will always be that wonderful city that has been sunk and is under water, Aquaman will always be this quote unquote fish out of water, where he is in the middle of two roads, he answers to the surface world as a superhero and as a powered individual, and he answers to Atlantis as a half-breed bastard child, if you will, of Queen Atlanta and of course of a human father with Thomas Curry. Those elements will always remain the same, you've got Black Manta who will forever hold a grudge against our hero Arthur Curry, and you've got Ocean Master Orm who will always envy his brother for the traits that he lacks supposedly. So with that said, when the new 52 stories began, I was really excited, gone were previous continuities like I said and Jeff brings us a more sort of a royal drama if you will. You have Arthur that has recently denounced his royalty if you will, he doesn't want to be a king of Atlantis, he wants to do his own thing, he has to answer to surface problems, of course he's part of the Justice League. What this does is it brings us into his world in a very simple yet effective way and we get to see a more vulnerable and more realistic side to a character that for many years before the new 52 had been the ridicule of pop culture, whether it be TV shows or movie jokes or other comic books or real life people mocking the character for what they think or what they thought was a lame superhero. I happen to like the idea of a character that can explore the depths of the ocean because yeah space and all that stuff but underwater we really don't know all of what's in there and just the whole sunken city and the mythology of an Atlantis that once was at the peak of civilization and how their avarice and greed and power determined their own demise and of course beautiful characters like Mira, one of my favorite ladies in comics and how much of a badass she is in every single way plus Arthur himself, the idea that you can be of different backgrounds and have the strength, unity, passion and commitment to unite races to do good for a common goal, those themes speak to me and I really like it plus the whole thing with the marine life, how cool is it that you can command and influence sea life and do all sorts of amazing things, he's an underwater superman for Cry 6, I'd love the character so much and with the new 52 run I loved him even more, I thought the stories we get four major stories, you've got the trench, you've got the others, you've got a throne of Atlantis and the dead king. There is an underlying theme of royal succession, there is a theme of duality and the characters fighting against preconceived notions, of course stereotypes or misconceptions about what Atlantis must be like or what the surface dwellers are doing and how we can generalize people on the actions of few individuals. Those are some of the running themes in the book, of course it goes further along with the whole mythology of Atlantis and you get introduced to new elements like the trench and the trench monsters if you will which if you saw the movie you will recognize them as these humanoid piranha looking dudes that just want to eat everything up and they come from an abandoned section of Atlantis and a previous kingdom. Johns is able to do what he does best and it is expand these characters, we work them in a relatable human way and world build the heck out of the character. We get introduced to concepts like the trench like I just mentioned, we get introductions to the or I should say the concept of the Seven Kingdoms of how Atlantis operates, we get to look at the daily life inside Atlantis, we get to understand a little bit more about Zebel and how or why they're trapped in the Bermuda Triangle if you will, you get to explore solo issues with Mira and her train of thought, how she views the world around her and her admiration and love for the character of Arthur Curry, you get issues where it's dedicated to expanding Arthur's origin with the friggin the others team and that team is phenomenal it is a great swashbuckling story about one ancient Atlantis relics to the mistrust that Arthur has for humans as well as Atlanteans, you know being shunned his entire life for being one thing or another and then you got a throne of Atlantis which is sort of this epic culmination of the previous two stories and it gives us the full marriage of sea and land interacting with each other, the justice league has to intervene on a possible war that can spread, it's all sorts of crazy fun that I absolutely recommend for everybody it is a very blockbuster-y ride if you will action-packed the dialogue is fairly simple and fairly entry-level for a lot of people that they can get accustomed to a reading about these characters that you see here on this beautiful omnibus so when you do get a full blast of mythology with the dead king storyline you're already strapped in you are already game for whatever's gonna happen to these characters and I cannot recommend this book enough it is quite phenomenal I don't like spoiling things in my videos I don't I'm not a fan of that I just give you my honest review on the book so I can't really go too much into detail unless you guys want me to do like a spoiler discussion I don't know but I thought that seeing the evolution or the themes in these four stories continue to grow and present us with an Arthur that is very royal very sure of himself and very composed to see him evolve and grow into the king of Atlantis if you will is very awesome very cool like I mentioned earlier it's a very blockbuster type story in the is action-packed the one thing I would say as a negative would be that sometimes the story flows by really quick and I would have wanted a slower pace and that is that has to do with the story but also has to do with the actual art as well Ivan Reyes one of the best comic book artists in modern times one of my favorites same with Paul Palatier working on this book they give us a lot of splash pages a lot of cool panels and reveals but they're very big wide and cinematic so it makes the reading experience that much faster you can knock this off of us which is a couple hundred pages I can't remember the exact number right now but you can knock this out easily in a day no no sweat and it leaves you wanting more unfortunately Jeff left after writing 25 something issues and Jeff Parker took the reins I did a video on that stuff and Colin Bunn and Dan Amit on my channel if you want to check it out but overall it's just a really great fun ride if you want to get invested into why Aquaman is the character that he is and how much of an influence this book this whole book this whole run had on the billion-dollar movie you got to check it out it is phenomenal and I wholeheartedly recommend it I am geeking out and I've read it several times I read it when it came out in singles like I said I read it in trades and hard covers and now I upgraded of course to the omnibus the omnibus itself it's it's fairly you know it's lightweight and it has some really cool character sketches and artwork and behind-the-scenes and panels and stuff that I thought was pretty cool I'm usually like if the extras are there I don't mind I just like looking at the cover galleries but it's always fun to see sort of a sneak peek at what went into the making of these characters as for the art I gotta say man the art in it is phenomenal Ivan took this like I mentioned it's a very royal heavy book so everybody has this regal composure and they all look so frickin fantastic and beautiful doing their thing I was blown away it was a shame when Ivan left he left earlier than Jeff and Paul took over but at the same time Paul gives this this comic book pop feel that I really love and the usage of colors in this book are really vibrant especially when you are in Atlantis and you're seeing the marine life and costumes and jewelry and all that stuff both artists really did a phenomenal job bringing the story to life and kudos again to Jeff Johns for not only rebuilding reconstructing and just expanding on the mythos but making him relevant and making him cooler because he was already cool just you know he upped the ante if you will and just bringing us a story that everybody can enjoy and everybody love because the character is important he is part of DC history for more than 75 years and he deserves a top praise that he never got but I am thankful that since the new 52 up until this year 2019 we have gotten that it's a slow progress but I am so happy about it so yeah what do you guys think have you read the Aquaman Avnibus tell me what you think down below and if you haven't but you've read other stories let me know which of the many many runs that the characters that the character has had is your favorite is it Peter David is it is it Jeff Parker Jeff Johns and Keith Giffin and all these other great writers that have worked on my beloved Arthur Curry my favorite DC superhero Aquaman let me know number low I'm very interested in finding out thank you once again for liking commenting and subscribing to a week in geek them as always you can follow me on your favorite social media platform and we can keep the conversation going just type a week in geek them and I'm probably there for you all right I have got to go I will catch all of you on our next installment