Aquaman #19: DC - Story didn't seem to hold together very well, possibly as a result of a cancelled tie-in LS. Neutral. $1.75/$2.50Cn

Ironwood Memorial "What's THAT Cover Doing On THIS Story?" Award to Aquaman #19

Gee, the cover of Aquaman has NOTHING to do with the story inside. Inventory cover, I suppose.

Aquaman "Brother's Keeper": In many ways, I felt like I'd missed an issue's worth of setup here. Oh, all the information needed is there, but the tone is that of recap, not first revelations. In the case of Garth's reappearance, this is because he was supposed to have an LS. But in Ocean Master's case, suddenly he has a new power from Neron, that requires he constantly hold his funky new staff, and which can kill anyone who touches it beside him. Now, while this sounds like a rather interesting setup, I would have liked to see the backstory a few months ago when Neron was still around. Otherwise it feels like Crisis-induced changes that popped up years after Crisis.

The main plot has Arthur and Dolphin go to the Himalayas to seek out one of the Five Cities, where Ocean Master has already taken over. Fighting ensues, and Strom tries to get into Arthur's craft using a "master key" to the alien technology before he gets frozen by Garth. Dolphin spends a lot of time telling Arthur she loves him, and he just kinda grunts. At the end there's a deathtrap that Garth frees them from. Oh, and Atlan gets a comic relief scene evacuating his eye-bearing-pyramid before the Others get to him.

As you may be able to tell from the previous paragraph, I didn't find a really strong sense of story here, just a lot of events that happened around the same time. I felt kinda dislocated during most of the issue. Like the plot had been derailed by the nixing of the Aqualad LS and never really got back on track. And where's Koryak and Kordax?