Can a comic strip be a very interesting and unreadable work at the same time? The answer is yes, after I read “Aquaman – Andromeda”.
A work published by Panini Comics, created by Ram V and Christian Ward, belonging to the Black Label series, comics not bound to the continuity of the regular series, in which the authors are given full freedom of creativity, also addressing adult themes.
The book in question presents us with a very different Aquaman, both stylistically and psychologically, so much so that we don’t recognize him: silent, very reflective and trapped in a personality linked to the past.
The script is based on a mysterious extraterrestrial object, whose density of matter with which it is made, excludes that it is a meteorite that enters the earth’s atmosphere, crashing into a point in the Pacific, known as Point Nemo, called the cemetery of space ships .
A ship, Andromeda, is heading towards this place on a secret mission, made up of a crew, all of whom have a history of drama behind them, a ship that hides a terrible secret…
The script, a mix between a psychological horror and a spy story, keeps the reader glued to the register, a pity that Aquaman is a supporting actor, therefore a story that could have been titled with another name and one could very well have done without this superhero A.D.
The cinematic-style narrative structure brings to mind cult films such as “The Thing”, something can happen behind each page, creating a strong pathos in reading. The mystery thickens table after table, to then begin to give their own answers that must be sought in the past of Atlantis and in the powerful sorcerer-king Ahri’Ahn.
Each protagonist has a story or perhaps better than the ghosts that they carry around and that continue to haunt them in their subconscious. In all of this moves an Aquaman whose authors have made it unwatchable, both in terms of graphics and personality. A massacre towards a hero who dominates the seas and who here instead is dominated by them, so much so that he speaks very little and the moments of action are very limited.
One gets the impression that whoever dealt with Arthur Curry does not know his history at all, as the king of Atlantis could, as he has been described, be anyone. One gets the impression that they wanted to use Aquaman, to attract readers to the web, in the purchase of an interesting book but without a famous name on the cover, without buyers. Even graphically it is unrecognizable, except that on the cover there is the title “Aquaman”.
Not even the stroke helps, it seems to see everything in a blurred way, the faces of the actors in the story, just mentioned, almost as if they were preparatory sketches, with a confusing and excessively intense coloring that negatively affects the vision of the scenes.
A half-successful comic on an artistic level and which dissatisfies the traditional readers of Aquaman.