 As king of the legendary Atlantis, Arthur Curry, known on land as the superhero Aquaman, is responsible for the lives of all the citizens of his underwater kingdom, but when saving his world means obliterating another, things are not so simple. To save his home and retain his throne, Arthur must figure out why the city is rejecting him, and that means unearthing a secret that goes back decades. Hey everybody, welcome to another exciting episode, another edition, another aquatic adventure here at O Week in Geekdom, we're continuing our Aquaman appreciation year here at this channel, and this time we're reviewing the later half, the later portion of the new 52 run of Aquaman. Now I have said this countless times on this channel that the character gets no collected edition love, thank goodness for a live action movie and the DC film universe, because now we're gonna see a bunch of trait paper bags being released from older runs that have never been collected, we're finally gonna get an omnibus for Aquaman, and all that other cool stuff, it's just a great time for us fans. So in honor of all that, I decided to go back and re-read some stuff, things I love about the character and do a bunch of cool videos for you guys, this time covering the new 52 era. Now you're wondering, part two, wait. What happened to part one, we're gonna have to stay tuned for that one. To go over it briefly, Aquaman New 52 reinvented the whole game and reintroduced this great superhero for a new generation, and I have got to admit I was one of them, I was not reading comic books at all, I think I read comic books in the 90s, but those were just random issues of Batman, Justice League Spider-Man, and Aquaman himself, I do remember picking up single issues of the Peter David run. I wasn't like a serious collector getting all the issues and knowing everything, it was just something you did back as a kid, you know what I mean? I picked up random issues, anyways, back that I guess in the early 2000s got switched over to video games, and then late 2000s, a former co-host of this channel and my good friend Brian, he suggested, hey, there's this thing called the Flash pointer van where they're gonna reboot the whole universe and it's gonna be a brand new start with new number ones, it's a perfect jumping on point so you can go ahead and read it, I'm like, okay, sure, why not, I'll give it a shot, I like the idea of a reboot because it gives new fans an opportunity to jump in and experience these things, and of course I did, I have loved the new 52 because of that fact and I will be forever grateful for that reboot because of people like me that jumped on board and fell in love with these characters and I do consider myself a DC fan, I quickly went back and read a bunch of older material, older events, and I quickly caught up to speed, now one of the characters that really captivated me was Aquaman, Jeff Johns really did a fantastic job of taking this hero which I thought was cool and just elevating it to a super stardom level, that is to me commended, now the run isn't that large, it's 25 issues and a couple one shots here and there and a crossover with Justice League title that he was riding with the Throne of Atlantis storyline, that in a nutshell, you know, he introduced the trench monsters, he reintroduced Aquaman's lore, Mira and all that stuff and he did Throne of Atlantis like I said and he brought back older lore with the previous King coming back and all that stuff, yadda yadda. I was really disappointed when Johns left the title because he brought something special, he made it accessible, he made it fun, kickass, swashbuckling, awesomeness and I remember at the time they announced that Jeff Parker was going to take part in the Aquaman new 52 title and I didn't know, of course now I do know that it was awesome but back then I'm like I'm not so sure about this. Regardless of my feelings the run actually was fantastic and in my honest opinion it felt like an extension of what Johns was doing, if anything Parker lightened things up even more and made it really, really fun with great snappy dialogue, great reads about these adventures, these undersea adventures of Aquaman, like I mentioned at the beginning of the video, there's stuff about a Kraken, there's stuff about a deadly secret that concerns the royal family, a bunch of great cool stuff with fantastic art from Paul Pilatier and many other artists. Now, one of the things that I really enjoyed about the new 52 was the artistic choices, some of these choices are spectacular Ivan Reyes, yes please, then you have Paul, he did an awesome job and these two artists are probably, when I think of Aquaman I immediately go back to their drawings I should say, I find them emblematic for some reason, especially Ivan and then Paul. But then you've got, by the way this is the trade paper bag Sea of Storms volume 5 of the new 52 run, really good stuff, you get this Chimera looking creature that is actually the concept behind it, it's really cool, the scientist that gets experiments on this dude and implements different aquatic sea life and all that stuff and essentially creating a Chimera type monster, really cool. You do get to see a Kraken, not every day you get to see that in a comic book and you get some Greek mythology thrown in with some Justice League cameos, mainly Wonder Woman, it's not until volume 6 which I do have here, sort of like the big big exposition and the big story that Jeff was writing where you find out that the royal family has this huge secret. Now I don't want to spoil it but it does pertain to the character of Atlanta Aquaman's mother, that story was spectacular. Oh and by the way I did forget to mention you do get a quick crossover with the character of Swamp Thing, that was pretty awesome as well, but yeah volume 6 is probably my favorite of the whole later portion of the new 52 run, just really awesome and you get to see characters like Tula and Merck and all these other great supporting cast for the character of Arthur Curry and more of what makes the relationship between Mira and Aquaman so special. Plus you get Salty the Sea Dog which I am happy about because who doesn't love an Aquadog. So yeah the secret behind the royal family, I'm not going to spoil it like I mentioned earlier but it's really fun because Jeff expanded on the lore of this character and there's something alluring and sort of mystifying to me to go in depth and learn about Atlantis because in canon they themselves don't know much about Atlantis and you sort of figure things out with the character. It's not my favorite type of storytelling but I do appreciate it and I like that idea that even the characters themselves they know that the history of their country of their nation I should say is sort of murky and it leads the way for writers to come up with new ideas and just build upon the foundations that was written ages ago when first created Aquaman in 1947 I'm gonna say I probably butchered that. Now to finish things off the low point of the new 52 is probably the big negative of this video is this whole trade exiled. I was not a fan this carries issues 41 to 48. Now you see after these two successful books are issues where Jeff really expanded on the history of Atlantis and these characters and what Aquaman meant to Atlantis and to the surface world what his title as the king meant and the weight of the crown and all that stuff in comes Colin Bunn and basically just shatters everything and throws us and throws us a story that is perplexing I I like the idea behind it this invading kingdom from a parallel dimension if you will it has to do with the whole mystical sorcery side of Atlantis that is really cool but the execution is just really bad in my opinion it's not a horrible story let me just say that before I get some angry comments down below it's a fun idea it's a great story the art it's 5050 sometimes I don't like it like like this interpretation of Aquaman right there with this dirt face but other times you get stuff that is really cool you get art like that which I do enjoy Aquaman of course getting this was by the time where BVS was coming out and we saw that first image of Jason Momoa as Aquaman so they wanted to do something you know to change up the costume and stuff so that's what we got that costume change I should say and his trident is magically empowered in this in this story you get Wonder Woman and Justice League cameos yeah anyways as you can see there's a big battle with monsters and stuff it just it's a fun concept but the contrast between what Jeff was doing which was high-energy fun swashbuckling family friendly awesome adventures and then you go into this unnecessarily grim and gritty and confusing story it was just a buzzkill in my opinion I did not appreciate that they did some really cliche things with the character of Mira and the Kingdom of Atlantis it's like everything that was built it ends and like Maelstrom volume 6 ends on such a high note and everything was just looking so well and then you read the following issue and it's like you're reading a completely different story a completely different title that I was just demfounded I'm like Colin what are you doing brother I understand plus it opens with like flash forwards and then it goes back and forth and all that stuff in the timeline so you do understand you know don't worry about it if suddenly you're like what is happening that the book explains itself pretty well but yeah the change is so dramatic that it just took me off the story altogether I did finish it and the ending was the ending was fine it was a little bit rushed as usual with our man stories I would I would say by the way and I will do a rebirth video later one of the things I don't like about Aquaman stories is that you have this huge kingdom this lore if you've read Atlantis Chronicles you know that there's a huge history behind the nation of Atlantis and the lineage of Arthur Curry and all that stuff you don't take the time writers don't take the time to establish this kingdom it it's like over at Marvel with the inhumans you get these characters that have such a huge history but you just want to do rushed stories where you get a lot of action and some of the world-building and a little bit of mythology and I think it shouldn't be that way I think the character is old enough where you can take liberties and you can explore the inner workings of Atlantis and when you get runs like Cullen Buns which really tried to do that in a different sort of way it's a little bit of a bummer that it ends so quickly so abruptly and it's such a rushed job I would say I I don't know what do you guys think and finally Dan Atmet took the helm at Aquaman and really this was a ton of fun and if you're planning to read the rebirth stuff it begins here after this after issue 52 then came the rebirth one shot and Aquaman rebirth now you can read rebirth by itself but the basis the foundation of all of Atnet's storylines or at least three of them come from this place plus you get issue 50 drawn by mr. bread booth one of my favorite comic book artists man this was so much fun I hope that I have enticed you to pick up Aquaman in any shape or form you can pick up the trades right here one of the first huge chunks of Aquaman material that I read now I know some older fans are gonna say no I liked the earlier stuff or the older material but hey to each his own I'd love every single story out there I've read most of Aquaman's history and I can I can wholeheartedly say it is fantastic I love the idea of the new 52 and what it did to characters like this that otherwise would not get such a huge exposition and thank goodness for the movie as well because more people are now jumping in to read about this wonderful character this video has gone on long enough I've talked at length about Aquaman and I will continue to do so throughout the year so thank you guys once again for liking commenting subscribing and just being awesome I love you guys thank you so much for making me a part of your daily internet life I guess as always you can follow me on your favorite social media platform just type a week and geek them and I'm there for you I've got to go I have got more stuff to read and review and all that stuff and I will catch yeah I'll catch all of you on our next video and his trident is whoa out of focus