Aquaman #12: Good, if wasp-waisted, Egeland art and great PAD story. Strongly Recommended. Not shiny. $1.75/etc.

Catfight of the Month Award to Aquaman #12

Best Book: I'm gonna wimp out and say it's a tie between Legionnaires Annual and Savage Henry: Headstrong, with Aquaman following by a length.

Aquaman: Whee, catfight! Or would that be catfishfight? Whatever. First other events.

We get to see Thanatos and the other Arthur Jr. Apparently Thanatos (Mera's other husband) has a few things in common with Arthur, such as blond hair and taste in costumes. This is the issue for Old Aquaman Costumes, as Thanny's wearing the undersea camoflage costume from the old Aquaman LS with all the Celtic stuff. Junior's the subject of Thanny's abuse, but is about ready to stand up for himself (not that it works).

Back in the bedroom, Dolphin has apparently heard enough about Mera from others to really hate her guts, and has decided Mera needs to be seriously killed for Arthur's sake. She actually does pretty well, breaking Mera's nose, until Arthur finally recovers from being collateral damage and separates the two. NIIIICE catty comment from Mera about Arthur's missing hand. Dolphin goes to change out of Mera's old nightgown while Arthur tries to figure out what's going on.

Meanwhile, the refugees from Poseidonis are crashing in Tritonis and generally kicking up old prejudices. Vulko and Kory want to use the ancient (cursed) tunnels from Tritonis to the legendary other cities of Atlantis, but the king will have none of it, already catching flak from his people about his queen being a blonde (and therefore cursed). Then the legged and finned Atlanteans outside get in a scuffle and there's plenty of cursing.

Deciding she's had enough with the cutoffs, Dolphin puts on one of Arthur's old orange shirts as a dress, bringing another round of snippiness from Mera.

Mera apparently has no memory of her time spent in the other dimension, nor of trying to kill Arthur. In fact, she thinks she's only been gone a very short time (her figure of five minutes is no doubt exaggeration). However, more reminiscing is cut short as Thanatos gets a lock on her and she's forced to return to the bottomless pit, with Arthur and (despite his insistence she not come along) Dolphin in pursuit. While they're on their way, Junior stands up to Thanatos and gets the snot kicked out of him.

Apparently this other reality is somewhat malleable to Thanatos's will, since Arthur wakes up in a guillotine during the French Revolution. Kill the royalty, after all. Of course, the crowd is rather aristo too....

Gaea has been emailed about Firestorm, according to the lettercol.