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Treasure of the Dead King

By: Andrew Hines

If you're new to the DCnU, then you probably aren't fully aware of how awesome Aquaman has become. Yeah, that's right, Aquaman! Not only has Geoff Johns made Green Lantern and the Justice League cool again, but he's also put a green ring back on Sinestro's finger and found a way to make Arthur Curry look like a badass. In the last few issues we've seen the group of "heroes" that Aquaman ran with prior to joining the Justice League. Dubbed the Others, they're an even looser group than the Justice League and Teen Titans have been this time around. In the last issue, Dr Shin revealed to Mera exactly why Black Manta despises Arthur so much, because Aquaman killed his father. Dun dun dunnnn . . .

This time, the focus shifts between six years ago and the present day. The surviving members have been drawn together to stop Black Manta from taking the last artifact and possibly destroying Atlantis and Arthur once and for all. At the same time, Arthur has been on a mad search for him waiting for the last member of the Others to make it back. The man called Vostok X, a super cosmonaut, has been alone on the moon for the last 6 years without any human contact, obviously. What are thou waiting for? I'm not telling you what happens. That would be spoiling everything.

Again, Geoff Johns' writing is pretty good. He has a way of pulling the reader into the story even though the character's history says we shouldn't care. He manages to weave awesome dialogue into what is already a fantastic story. He doesn't waste time on the right now, but balances between the moment and the bigger picture. Let's be honest, DC doesn't have a fantastic track record for larger arcs unless its some sort of universal event  for that year. Geoff Johns has been blasting that statistic into near-oblivion in the last few years since Green Lantern: Rebirth, joining the ranks of some of DCs greatest scribes, including Alan Moore, James Robinson, Grant Morrison and Neil Gaiman.

The art for this title has been fantastic since the beginning, as one of the few titles to keep the same creative team for almost the entire year. Ivan Reis' pencils, his brother Rod Reis on colors and with Joe Prado, Jonathan Glapion & Andy Lanning as the inking team have done a wonderful job. They've all managed to make the art fit Johns' script. That's a hard thing to do and they've done a sensational job. Big props to these guys. Doing the interior artwork is one thing, but they've also done some truly poster-worthy covers as well.

With this creative team, and Geoff Johns being DC's Chief Creative Officer to boot, how could this have been anything other than an A+? This one of the few comics that I have a hard time waiting the whole month for, but it's worth the wait every time.

Where In The World Is Black Hand?

By: Andrew Hines

Anyone who is familiar with Green Lantern should know that the GLs weren’t the Guardians’ first attempt at amassing an army. Before the first rings were handed out, they had the Manhunters, an intergalactic android police force that eventually went all HAL 9000 on all sentient life. They figured the GLs would be better since they could actually distinguish between, right wrong and that pesky grey area that lawyers live in. Then Hal Jordan had to become Parallax, kill half of the Corps and bring us around that whole Blackest Night fiasco. Now the Guardians want to bring about a mysterious Third Army. Apparently, Hal's old sparring partner Black Hand may have something to do with it. He seems to also be a Black Lantern still. Just sayin'...

As far as issue 11 goes, the “Revenge of Black Hand” (there’s a clue somewhere in that title), it starts off with Hal turning the tables on Sinestro, which made me smile. They’re starting to figure some things out and thankfully just said that Blackest Night definitely happened. There’s some great dialogue and Hal makes a rookie mistake or two. All in all Geoff Johns has done a pretty good job of pacing and storytelling. I’d go into more detail, but you should pick up the issue to read it for yourself.

The art really only ranks at a B. Doug Mahnke is a decent artist, but this really isn’t the title for him, especially since it started with Ivan Reis. The last half dozen or so, haven’t been as great as his potential has shown in the past. Likewise for Christian Alamy’s inks. It just seems excessive in places where some extra color could make a big difference. The same goes for Tony Avina and Alex Sinclair’s colors. Sinestro’s more pinkish than purple, but you’d never know it by the deep colors here.

As a whole, it earns a B+ from the art team and Johns’ writing. I recommend the title, but this issue isn’t their best.

Update: Comments and critiques are welcome and encouraged. As usual, please be constructive with them rather than negative. Thanks.