TF Views

Green Lantern #12
April 1962

Green Lantern's Statue Goes to War!
The series returns to the 58th century as Hal is pulled into the future to once again act as Pol Manning, Solar Director, to stop three traitor generals from conquering Star City. "Manning" calls in the army (which seems an odd choice for a Green Lantern, especially "do everything myself" Hal Jordan), who lose the battle. Once the army loses, then Hal goes into action and captures the three generals rather easily. When he questions them, they have no idea why they revolted. The culprit turns out to be Aldebaran, a stage magician who used his "mento ray" to control the generals. Hal works out that he must be the culprit due to a couple of clues, but when Aldebaran turns his mento ray on Hal, thus keeping him grounded, Hal animates the statue of himself that the citizens of Star City constructed and sends it in to capture Aldebaran. The magician was motivated to revolt because he wanted to be Solar Director. Hal is returned to his own time, once again with no memory of these events, though he does find a small piece of metal stuck in his hair and wonders where it came from. It's a fragment of his statue.

I'm still not really sold on the whole Pol Manning idea, but this is a far better story than the invasion of evolved Gila Monsters we got last time. Supervillainy and political ambitions are not a bad storyline.

Zero Hour in the Silent City!
Tom Kalmaku writes up another of Green Lantern's cases. Hal, unable to solve a technical problem related to wing stress on his plane, takes the day off and goes to a baseball game, before going on a date with Carol (who could care less when Hal talks baseball). He has a sudden inspiration and ends his date early, much to Carol's chagrin. Hal needs to charge his ring as well. Suddenly while driving back to Ferris Air, the entire city goes silent. Investigating with his nearly dead ring, Hal catches some crooks using a "supersonic drill" to crack a safe, and he takes them out with seconds to spare. Somehow it was the sonic drill that cancelled out the other sounds within a mile radius.

Oddly enough, Green Arrow's second story ever involves a villain blanketing the city with silence, and I think that approach to this idea worked a lot better, though I did enjoy Hal trying his best to finish off the bad guys before the ring ran out of power. As a "race against the clock" story, it's decent.

Green Lantern #13
June 1962

Duel of the Super-Heroes!
All evil shall escape my sight. Let those who worship evil's might fear not my power, Green Lantern's light.

It's the first big Green Lantern/Flash team-up when Iris West is sent to the west coast to interview test pilot Hal Jordan, and Barry Allen goes on vacation with her. Meanwhile Hal is returning from a mission in space for a weekend at the beach with Carol, and as he's approaching Earth, he's suddenly in an alien city and crashes, knocking himself out. When he awakens, the situation is explained to him by Chi-Vam. He's on the world Spectar, which exists "beyond the speed of light", and that's how Hal entered it. The aliens send Hal home, but unknown to himi they've planted mental commands in his mind to prepare the way for an invasion of Earth. They want to learn how the Flash gained his speed, so they can replicate it for themselves.

Hal's not quite himself, and Tom catches it when Hal recites his oath incorrectly without realizing it. He keeps an eye on Hal as they head for the weekend at the beach to meet Carol and Terga. So the three couples hang out and spend time together, but of course Hal is secretly under the influence of the Spectars, enough so that Barry thinks his new acquaintance is a strange person. Tom confides in him (without giving away the Green Lantern identity), but Barry discovers it when he follows Hal to a seaside cave and sees him change to the Green Lantern uniform and contact the Spectars, promising to capture the Flash. Barry changes to his Flash costume, and confronts Hal, only to be forced to run. There a chase as Hal tries to catch Barry, who in the end allows himself to be captured so he can get to the bottom of the mystery.

The Spectars send GL home and begin their analysis of Flash. Hal has lost a day of his life and a conversation with Tom confirms the odd feeling he had. He commands the ring to tell him what happened over the last 24 hours, and learns what he's done. He returns to Spectar and frees Barry, and between the two of them they put an end to the invasion scheme. Barry confides his secret ID to Hal, and the two make up an excuse for the ladies about where they've been. This is the beginning of their friendship, which exists to this day. Typical for the day in which the story was written, there's an artificial reason for the hero vs. hero conflict, but it works pretty well.

I'm not sure "Wrath of the First Lantern" is all that retro, but I picked up the collected edition yesterday as part of that overstock sale. First impressions are that the main Green Lantern title leads the story, with the other three books treading water while they follow its lead, because all the GLC, Red Lanterns and New Guardians issues so far have the same plot, with Volthoom showing one of the other characters alternate versions of his life where things went bad and then feeding off the emotional energy. It's the same thing, over and over, whether it's Guy, Kyle, Carol, Atrocitus, Ganthet or John Stewart. The main story is fairly good, but these side issues seem very disposable and repetitive.

andersonh1 wrote:I'm not sure "Wrath of the First Lantern" is all that retro, but I picked up the collected edition yesterday as part of that overstock sale. First impressions are that the main Green Lantern title leads the story, with the other three books treading water while they follow its lead, because all the GLC, Red Lanterns and New Guardians issues so far have the same plot, with Volthoom showing one of the other characters alternate versions of his life where things went bad and then feeding off the emotional energy. It's the same thing, over and over, whether it's Guy, Kyle, Carol, Atrocitus, Ganthet or John Stewart. The main story is fairly good, but these side issues seem very disposable and repetitive.

Yeah, the side stories for Wrath of the First Lantern were pretty weak, just spinning their wheels until the inevitable finale that brings them all together to fight Volthoom. Kind of a disappointing send off for Johns as this was his last storyline before departing from Green Lantern.

Sparky Prime wrote:Yeah, the side stories for Wrath of the First Lantern were pretty weak, just spinning their wheels until the inevitable finale that brings them all together to fight Volthoom. Kind of a disappointing send off for Johns as this was his last storyline before departing from Green Lantern.

I finished the story and I have to agree, it lacked something. Again, it was clear that the main Green Lantern issues actually contained the core plot, with everything else being largely disposable, with the possible exception of the "great heart" plot in Red Lanterns, and the destruction of Korugar, which of course has a huge effect on Sinestro. I think that was in a New Guardians issue, not sure. I'm not sure if I'm supposed to be glad Sinestro killed the Guardians or feel sorry for them.... is he really any better than they are? Is Atrocitus better than the Guardian he killed? There's this odd mix of sentiment and sordidness that runs through the story which feels very uneven, and not much like a celebration of Geoff Johns' great run on Green Lantern.

I had dropped the Green Lantern series after the first annual because I so disliked sidelining Hal and the whole Third Army storyline, so I hadn't read most of this before. I still think that despite some great stories and great additions to Green Lantern, Geoff Johns had probably run dry creatively at the end, and reading this story doesn't really change my opinion. It's okay, but far from his best.

I picked up a couple of New 52 Aquaman volumes when I got "Wrath of the First Lantern", and I have to say, the art is beautiful. The coloring in particular really is outstanding, particularly the moody underwater look. Aquaman was the New 52 title I stuck with the longest (other than GL, which I dropped and returned to with issue 21), but that second storyline with "The Others" really turned me off the book. It looks like Aquaman picked up again with "Throne of Atlantis", and then the following two volumes, 4 and 5, "Death of a King" and "Sea of Storms" respectively. I might grab a few more volumes as cheap as they're being sold. We'll see how much I like these. Vol. 4 is the end of Geoff Johns run on Aquaman, so he only stayed two years on that book as opposed to nine on Green Lantern.

Aquaman vol. 4 - Death of a King
Geoff Johns, Paul Pelletier
Aquaman #17-19, 21-25

I read New 52 Aquaman for a year, and it started out pretty well. The first story arc was "The Trench", and in it Geoff Johns gave us an undersea colony of savage creatures, as well as tackling Aquaman's reputation as "the guy who talks to fish", which had become his in-universe reputation as well. The point of the book seemed to be in part to rehabillitate Aquaman as a character. I thought the book started out very well, writing the following:

Instant win. Aquaman turns every stereotype about the character on its head by having the DC citizens make all the common complaints about him and having Aquaman show why they’re wrong. This makes for entertaining storytelling, even if the main plot barely gets started. I love seeing Aquaman go buy lunch in a seafood restaurant. Superhero and former monarch in an everyday setting, paying with gold doubloons. Great mix of the fantastic and mundane that more comics should shoot for.

But the book went downhill fast. Geoff Johns is an excellent writer, but he can take his characters and plots to some pretty dark places, and that's where "The Others" storyline went, with a brutal Black Manta and a focus on a new set of characters from Aquaman's past. I found the storyline dreary and uninspired, and was dropping New 52 books at the time anyway, so after the #0 issue, I dropped Aquaman as well, right before the "Throne of Atlantis" storyline. That story was by all accounts pretty strong, and it went back to the first issue's "Aquaman is lame" storyline and hit it head on by having Aquaman stop Ocean Master from flooding the east coast and by making him king of Atlantis.

I say all of that to set up "Death of a King" which wraps up Geoff Johns run on Aquaman a lot more quickly than most people probably expected. The quality of the storyline makes me wish I had continued to read the series, but I'm happy to make up for it now. Aquaman is the new king of Atlantis, and not everyone accepts him as king. Atlanteans are gathering up weapons from Orm's invasion, Aquaman is distrusted and feared by some on the surface, and Amanda Waller sends the authorities to arrest Mera. In Antarctica, the dead king awakens and proclaims himself King of Atlantis. It's all setup for the issues that follow.

From there, all of these characters follow their own agendas and their own plotlines, most of which converge in the end. The dead king is Atlan, who is essentially a sort of undead creature, capable of creating ice and ice storms, who follows Mera to Xebel and enlists the Xebel inhabitants as an army to invade Atlantis and reclaim the throne. Aquaman, who has put Vulko in prison for instigating the surface war, has spent some time tracking down the Scavenger, a human trying to collect the lost Atlantean weaponry. When Aquaman goes after Mera, the Scavenger finds and attacks Atlantis. Aquaman rescues Mera from Atlan, and the two escape, only to arrive and find Atlantis under attack, with Atlan's army close behind. Aquaman attempts to defend Atlantis by controlling Topo, a giant monstrous squid thing, but the effort incapacitates him and he awakens six months later in a tent with Vulko watching over him.

Vulko reveals the history of who Atlan was, a king who wanted peace between Atlantis and the other nations, but who was betrayed by his brother Orin. Atlan went into exile after his family was killed, spent his time forging weapons (including the trident Aquaman has inherited), and returned to sink Atlantis. The drowning kingdom split into seven (and three fragments are Atantis, Xebel and the Trench with the others lost to history). The final revelation is that Aquaman is Orin's descendant.

The final chapter sees Aquaman take the dead king's sceptre, found during "the Others" storyline, and he goes to find the Trench, who he believes will obey the holder of the sceptre, thus tying the first two storylines of the series into this one. He attacks Atlantis and is able to drive off the army from Xebel, while Aquaman takes on Atlan, and this time is able to defeat him in combat and reclaim the throne of Atlantis. While Mera intially declines to be the queen, she changes her mind and the story ends with Aquaman and Mera together in the throne room of Atlantis.

In the coda, Orm is living in Louisiana with Erin and her son Tommy, building a life in exile on the surface, when Nereus (who Mera was arranged to marry, and who has played a fairly major role in the story as a leader of Xebel) arrives at his home and tells him that he found the other four lost kindgoms of Atlantis, and that the seven seas will rise, leading into the "Rise of the Seven Seas" storyline which Geoff Johns has promised, but which we have yet to see....

Overall: A strong story, albeit with a few plot holes, and the art is absolutely beautiful. The coloring for underwater shots is great, and Paul Pelletier is a very strong artist. Geoff Johns shows the same talent for layered storytelling and for doing new things with old characters that he put to good use in Green Lantern, but it's a shame he only spent two years on this book with essentially four main storylines (only three of which I thought were good, admittedly). I'd like to see where "Rise of the Seven Seas" goes if it ever becomes a reality. And though I'm not softening on the New 52, which I still think was a badly misjudged alteration of so many DC characters, I have to admit that Aquaman benefitted greatly from that initiative, and since this book focuses almost entirely on Aquaman and his supporting cast, there's very little that calls attention to the fact that it's a New 52 series, which is all the better in my opinion. This is a good story, well told, and more sword and sorcery epic than boilerplate superhero.

Green Lantern #14
July 1962

The Man who Conquered Sound!
Sonar/Vito Bladon makes his first appearance here as a citizen of Modora, a tiny east European nation that most people aren't aware even exists. Hal goes there to get a postage stamp for Tom's collection and learns of Bladon's plans to go to America and steal some electronics. Sonar's entire goal is to put Modora on the map. His costume is some sort of Modoran military uniform. After Hal fights him a few times and finally captures him, Sonar is quite happy because Modora's name is appearing in headlines at last.

My Brother, Green Lantern!
More hijinx with the Jordan brothers as Hal decides to disguise his power ring as a fraternity ring while in public, and it gets mixed up with his brother Jim's fraternity ring, meaning Sue is even more sure that Jim is Green Lantern. I'm just amused at how these characters started out, because of course now Sue is well aware that it's Hal who is GL, and she's even been to Mogo with her family to visit "Uncle Hal".

Green Lantern #15
September 1962

Peril of the Yellow World!
Odd accidents have been happening to Hal, and he thinks it may be Sinestro's doing. Sinestro should be under the control of his mind control machine (from GL #11), but when Hal goes to investigate, naturally he's escaped. Hal heads for Qward, correctly thinking that's where Sinestro will have gone. This is all a trap of course, and Sinestro intercepts Hal, who chases him through a dimensional barrier into an all-yellow desert world, and then abandons him there to die because it's "more evil" than just killing him outright, and Sinestro is trying to win a "most evil" contest on Qward. Gotta love that silver age characterization.... Sinestro returns and he and the Qwardians watch Hal attempt to survive an attack by the natives of the yellow planet. But Sinestro himself gives Hal the way out, because Hal is able to use his ring to track the "radiation" used to monitor him, and follows it back to Qward City, where after a fight he captures Sinestro, again returning him to the mind control device after adjusting it to command Sinestro never to free himself. I don't think that's going to work, Hal....

Zero Hour in Rocket City!
Hal solves the case of the "Rocket Robbers", a gang of thieves who steal while everyone is watching the latest rocket go into orbit. Hal had travelled to the east coast, while his power battery is on the west coast, so he's only got 24 hours before he has to return and recharge. At the last minute, he takes on the robbers, convinced his ring is out of power and he'll have to use his fists. But he still has power in the ring, not because of time zone differences (which is where I thought the story was going), but because his clock on the west coast had stopped, so he miscalculated how much charge he had.

Green Lantern #16
October 1962

The Secret Life of Star Sapphire!
Hal has taught Carol to fly a plane, and she's out flying when she has to land the plane. She's approached by the Zamarons, women in Roman-esque armor who reveal that they have chosen her to be their new queen. They're immortal, but they choose mortal women as queen and imbue them with the power of the Star Sapphire. Carol doesn't want to leave Earth, because she's mooning over Green Lantern. The Zamarons have a very low opinion of men, and send Star Sapphire out to defeat Green Lantern to prove how inferior he is. She fails to do so and asks for a second chance, and though her powers are pretty much equal to Hal's, his greater experience and willpower allows him to cut her off from the energy the Zamarons are using to direct here. She vanishes from his sight, and the Zamarons decide that she's not worthy to be their queen after all and leave her in the desert near her plane with no memory of the events. Hal finds her, having been worried that she's been gone so long, and takes her home, along with an odd sapphire found in the sand near the plane....

So, long before Geoff Johns had the Star Sapphires convert themselves into another ring corps, we get the original Silver Age Star Sapphire storyline, which does at least establish that the Star Sapphire power can do a lot of the same things the Green Lantern power can. And of course the Zamarons make their first appearance here, though a lot that's later revealed about their relationship with the Guardians has yet to be established here.

Earth's First Green Lantern!
Hal tells Tom a story about Abin Sur when Tom wonders why Abin was in a spacecraft when he crashed on Earth, because of course, Green Lanterns don't need spaceships. Hal had wondered the same thing, so he asked the ring, and it told him the story of Abin Sur fighting some energy beings, Larifars, who fed off of the intelligence of others. Abin thought he captured them all, but the leader was on another planet. When he returned to look for his fellow Larifars, he found them imprisoned and in orbit, and he went after Abin Sur. He tracked him to his home planet of Ungara, and attacked when Abin was asleep and his guard was down. Since Abin's ring charge had run out, the Larifar was able to force him to return to free the others, but being unfamiliar with how the power ring worked, Abin tricked him into thinking the power had almost run out, and he would have to take a spaceship to free the other Larifars so as not to use up any remaining power. Abin took his invisible power battery, waited for an opportune moment, charged his ring, and defeated the Larifar. It was on Abin's return trip home that he hit the radiation belt around Earth and crashed.

It's good to see a story about Abin Sur, but it's clear that the writers were going back and trying to explain plot holes that became apparent in retrospect as this series and its concepts developed. They even throw in a line about Hal always using a "narrow, radiation free corridor" when he leaves Earth to explain how he never meets the same fate as Abin Sur. And this is the first story to make an alien Green Lantern the protagonist, something we'll see more of in the future.

Aquaman vol. 3 - Throne of Atlantis
Geoff Johns, Ivan Reis, Paul Pelletier
Aquaman #0, 14-16, Justice League #15-17

Going back to volume 3, it's a bit odd to revisit the New 52 zero issue of Aquaman, the last one I bought prior to Rebirth. It has that narrative weakness in that the second half of the book hinges on an enormous coincidence: Aquaman has to be in the right place at the right time to rescue two people from a boat accident who just happen to know Vulko, the exiled Atlantean. I read a lot of Golden Age stories, and a good number of those plots hinge on coincidence, but that was a different time with shorter stories, and the writing standards were different. That aside, I did enjoy the three or four pages of silent panels as Aquaman leaves dry land for the first time, enters the ocean and spends his time searching for Atlantis, before being attacked by a shark and discovering his ability to command it. The zero issue has relevance because it introduces Vulko to the series, and he plays a major role in the story.

The main story is actually fairly simple and easy to summarize. "Throne of Atlantis" kicks off when a United States missile test goes wrong, and the missiles target Atlantis. In retaliation, Orm/Ocean Master, Aquaman's half brother and king of Atlantis, sends an enormous tidal wave that floods Boston, Gotham and Metropolis, basically attacking major eastern seaboard cities, and then leads an invasion by Atlantean troops. The Justice League and the military respond to the invasion, and over the course of the story it is revealed that the whole thing was orchestrated by Vulko, all for the purpose of getting Aquaman to take the throne. Aquaman does not learn this until after he's fought Orm and forced him to yield, making Aquaman king of Atlantis. The invasion is turned back once Arthur is king, and Orm is imprisoned on land in order to protect him from death by Atlantean law. The end result of the story: not only is Aquaman king now, but the world that formerly saw him as a joke, "the guy who talks to fish" now looks at him as a very dangerous person.

The details add character to the story. Vulko's villanous turn, doing a terrible thing to achieve what he sees as the greater good, is a major change for that particular character. Orm is written as someone who genuinely loves his brother, but who puts his duty as king above all, and to be very fair to him, his kingdom was attacked and people killed. Declaring war in response is what we would expect of a head of state charged with defending his country. Aquaman is simply trying to keep more people on both sides from dying, especially once Vulko's deceit is discovered. His goal is to save lives, and he does what he does to achieve that goal. This is a war, albeit a short one, and there is a big death toll, as you might imagine when a tidal wave hits a major city. It's amusing when Orm first arrives on shore and demands to see "the king", because he assumes Arthur has spent his absence from Atlantis ruling the surface world.

Flash and Green Lantern are absent from the story (I think Hal was sidelined in favor of Simon while this story was running). The New 52 character beats irritate. Superman and Wonder Woman dating, Captain Marvel named "Shazam", the "Savage" Hawkman slaughtering Atlanteans, covered with blood, Cyborg in the Justice League, etc. They don't ruin an otherwise strong storyline that has major ramifications for Aquaman, both in-universe and out, as Geoff Johns seems to have done a good job building up the character, particularly with this storyline. With Ivan Reis and Paul Pelletier drawing, the art is very strong throughout the story. The change in styles isn't all that jarring. And this is a story strongly centered around the character of Aquaman, who takes the lead in ending the crisis, with the Justice League taking supporting roles in the story, as it should be. I'm not sure this story deserves the hype it got, but it is a strong storyline, no doubt.

Aquaman vol. 5 - Sea of Storms
Jeff Parker, Paul Pelletier
Aquaman #26-32, Annual #2

Jeff Parker takes over the book, and it immediately becomes far more episodic in nature, with "Sea of Storms" being a collection of one and two issue storylines that aren't chapters in a larger plot, so there's an immediate contrast with Geoff Johns' style of writing. That's all well and good, but it does make the book feel less epic and more lightweight as the massive threats are behind him, and now Aquaman has a series of problems to deal with and enemies to overcome that simply aren't as interesting. On the other hand, considering that these originated from a monthly book, it's hard to fault Jeff Parker for not "writing for the trade" and giving the monthly reader more self-contained or done in two issues.

The first two chapters deal with Aquaman fighting a titanic creature from ancient Atlantis, the Karaqan. Then we get a story about Triton base, where some shady scientists are examining sea life, and Aquaman has to rescue a man mauled by sharks. Arthur and Mera attend Arthur's high school reunion (my favorite issue). Someone steals Aquaman's trident and unlocks a prison full of ancient "giant born" creatures and a crazed Hercules, which Aquaman and Wonder Woman track down and destroy. And while Aquaman comes into conflict with Swamp Thing (mainly through his own stubborn refusal to take Swamp Thing at his word that he's not a threat), some Atlanteans try to assassinate Mera. The quality of these stories varies quite a bit, and while they're perfectly serviceable, most of them are not as compelling as the earlier Geoff Johns material. And there is no overarching plot connecting these chapters, though elements will play into stories that appear in the next volume.

So I would have to say that the stories collected in this volume are fine, but they vary in quality and lack a certain weight and personal significance for Aquaman as a character, with the exception of the high school reunion. Not every story can be deeply personal for the main character of course, but it's a major tonal shift to go from 25 issues that were all about Aquaman to stories that are a bit more episodic and "threat of the month" in nature. I enjoyed this collection, but not as much as the previous two.

Aquaman vol. 6 - Maelstrom
Jeff Parker, Paul Pelletier
Aquaman #32-40 and stories from Secret Origins #2 and 5

This collected volume is an improvement on the previous one, but sadly it's the end of Jeff Parker's Aquaman run, as issue 41 would start the DC You storyline by Cullen Bunn which was very poorly received. Like all the DC You plotlines, it greatly upended the status quo and changed the main character's costume (think near-powerless jeans and t-shirt Superman in "Truth", renegade Hal Jordan, Gordon in a mecha as Batman, etc). However, Parker gives us some very good Aquaman storylines here, with plot threads going back to all his earlier issues, so like Geoff Johns, he was building to something bigger.

There are essentially two major story arcs in this volume. The first involves Aquaman fighting the Chimera, a shapeshifting creature created from the diver attacked by sharks that Aquaman rescued, a bit of the Karaquan's brain, and lots of other sea life so that this creature is a hybrid who can not only change shape to camoflage itself, it can control sea life to the point that it overrides Aquaman's control, leading to the bizzare sight of fish, sharks and whales attacking Aquaman as he attempts to order them away. The Karaquan's confused mind sees Aquaman as both rescuing him (human memories from the diver) and killing him (from the Karaquan), so it's a classic an example of confused monster created by mad science. Aquaman beats him by taking the fight to land and fighting him with fire, quite literally.

The remainder of the book is the "Maelstrom" storyline, involving more ancient Atlantean history, including gates that allowed the Atlanteans to travel to distant parts of their realm instantly (read: teleportation). This story feels very much in the vein of the type of thing that Geoff Johns wrote, as Aquaman discovers not only things about the past of Atlantis, but about his own personal history. Short story is that his mother Atlanna, long believed dead of an assassination attempt, actually set the whole thing up and made her escape from an Atlantis that she hated, after killing her abusive husband, Orm's father. She gathered up the purple-eyed refugees from far and wide and took them with her to a hidden realm filled with prehistoric creatures and a volcano-dwelling creature, where she rules as queen. The story involves a visit to Gorilla City, where Aquaman beats Grodd in a hand to hand fight, and a conflict with Atlanna herself, who refuses for the longest time to believe that Arthur is truly her son. She thinks the Atlanteans have tracked her down, but is finally won over by the love of Aquaman's queen, Mera, for him (something she wishes she'd had in her marriage) and Arthur's demonstration of his control over the sea life of this lost world. The parting is not on the best of terms, but in the end a connection is made, and Aquaman knows his mother is out there, still alive, with a hope of future reconciliation.

I find that I like these Atlantis based storylines and the world-building surrounding them. They often seem a lot more interesting than boilerplate Aquaman vs. villain of the month, though those have been good too. Some of DC's most successful characters are not characters in isolation, but characters with a good supporting cast and an established setting. Batman has Gotham, Green Lantern has outer space and Oa or Mogo, etc., and it seems to me that keeping Aquaman in the oceans and around Atlantis plays to the unique qualities of the character, though giving him links to land grounds him in something recognizable. In any case, this is a very good collection, and I have to admit that overall, the quality of storytelling for the New 52 Aquaman series was pretty high, "The Others" storyline excepted.

The Silver Age really was a different time. The Guardians were not always harsh and emotionless. From Green Lantern #46: