The Atlantis Chronicles #4
Title: Full Scale War
Cover Date: June 1990
Writer: Peter David
Artist: Esteban Maroto
Colors: Eric Kachelhofer
Lettering: Gaspar
Editor: Robert Greenberger
Cover: Esteban Maroto
Cover Price: $2.95
OVERVIEW:
The fourth chronicler, Regin, has just lost his mother, Illya. She has died young in battle, trying to tell the accurate and true story of the war now upon Poseidonis and Tritonis.
Cora is now queen, Bazil her husband and Warlord. Orin the technocrat, the reason for the survival of all these people, is still alive and leading the fight for life against the attacking Tritonians. Dardanus rules the Tritonians, whose children are being born without legs, with fins instead, because of Shalako's curse. Although the domes of both cities were flooded for their benefit, the resentment still boiled in both peoples, just below the surface, and thus led to war.
Or rather, the fact that Dardanus's jealousy had led to a forced "romance" with Cora led to the war. Cora gave birth to Dardanus' son, the hideous, blond, monster: Kordax. And Kordax, at Dardanus' urging, claimed the throne of Poseidonis after Cora. Unfortunately for all involved, he announced this during the ceremony when Cora declared her daughter by Bazil to be the heir apparent. By denying Kordax the "right" of his royal birth, Cora sentenced both cities to war.
Regin, who has kept away from the battle, intending to live to tell the tale of it, joins his lover, Cora's daughter, just as the battle is about to begin...
COMMENTS:
Peter David sends Aquaman back in time to this battle to meet Orin, in Aquaman #33 of the current series.
Regin isn't a coward, he's just sensible. Until he realizes that he needs to be there, in the battle, to understand it.
CONCLUSION:
Rating: 9
The story just keeps getting better and better, reading like a soap opera in fast-forward, and an epic in the making.