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pluckyredhead · 2 years

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Please Care About Aquaman With Me: Sub Diego

Welcome back to...not Atlantis? Last time, Arthur was deposed and sentenced to death, but after defeating an existential threat or two against...water...he was ready to return home. But, uh, something comes up.

Specifically, half of San Diego suddenly topples into the sea, along with 40,000 residents, all of whom drown. The panel above is one of the few that isn’t deeply gruesome and upsetting. Arthur is horrified, and determined to help the people of San Diego figure out what happened.

And then suddenly...survivors appear.

This is Lorena Marquez. Like about 10% of the people in the submerged half of San Diego, she survived the deluge - and now inexplicably breathes water instead of air. This means that the survivors can never return to the surface.

Also, Lorena is THE BEST:

UGH SHE IS SO CUTE I LOVE HER

(It eventually turns out that Lorena can, in fact, stay out of the water for indefinite amounts of time. This is never explained. Part of a proud tradition of the comics being wildly inconsistent over whether or not Atlanteans who aren’t Arthur can breathe air!)

(Also, if you’re younger than me and wondering if The Teens were wearing tube tops in 2003...they weren’t. SIGH, COMICS.)

Arthur and Lorena discover a massive machine underwater that clearly had something to do with the earthquake, and manage to trace it back to a scientist who is still on land, named Geist. Geist claims that he did it because of the threat of global warming: if sea levels continue to rise, eventually everyone will be underwater, and the only alternative to drowning is to learn how to breathe water, so he made it happen by tampering with San Diego’s water supply:

Arthur realizes that this means he knew the earthquake was coming, and Geist says he works with a group that caused it but never knew who any of them were - and now they’ll be coming after him, because he’s a liability. Arthur helps him fake his death, then forces him underwater in a scuba suit to confront what he’s done. Geist will stay down there (there are rooms with the water pumped out where he can live) and use his scientific abilities to help, or Arthur will tell the residents of Sub Diego who he is and what he’s done, which would pretty much instantly lead to Geist being murdered.

A whoooole bunch of issues go by with Arthur trying to figure out the logistics of helping to make Sub Diego functional. But that doesn’t mean he doesn’t have time to date!

“But wait!” you might be saying. “Isn’t Arthur still married to Mera? Mera, who the last he heard, was being held prisoner and forcibly drugged by evil wizards? Mera, the supposed love of his life, who he has not seen or tried to help since he learned that?” WELL YOU WOULD BE RIGHT. Arthur is garbage! Again! Forever!

You know who’s not garbage? LORENA, THE LIGHT OF MY LIFE:

She is so stinkin’ cute. She is also only the second member of the Aquafam smart enough to realize she doesn’t need shoes underwater (after Dolphin, who has webbed feet anyway). I adore her. Arthur, go get her a seahorse pet like Garth had, she deserves a pony.

It’s around this time that we meet SHARKCOP:

He’s like...basically the only cop in Sub Diego, so he asked Geist to do shark experiments on him to make him really, really good at it. Arthur’s like “Letting Geist do more weird experiments on people makes me really uncomfortable.” Meanwhile Lorena just fucking hates Malrey, because she is my ACAB queen.

Among all these new faces, we find an old one: Vulko, who would really really like Arthur to come back and be king again. Arthur’s not having it:

Arthur has every right to be pissed at Vulko, who claimed to be his friend and then manipulated his son into attempting a coup against him and THEN personally attempted to carry out Arthur’s death sentence, but for the rest of it...Arthur, grow the fuck up. Being king doesn’t mean your people like you all the time. Also, you’re a shitty king.

Arthur decides to focus on figuring out who was behind the submerging of Sub Diego along with his new love interest Esther Marris, in between makeouts. Sigh. Meanwhile, Vulko invites a group of Sub Diegoans to tour Atlantis...AND GUESS WHO’S BACK? IT’S MY BOY!!!

HE’S BACK AND HE’S BEAUTIFUL AND HE’S SIGNIFICANTLY MORE CHILL THAN BEFORE. I guess he just sort of unbanished himself? Fair enough! Also, Lorena continues to be HIGHLY relatable.

Koryak is like, hey, maybe instead of the traumatized Sub Diegoans living in the rubble of their destroyed city, they could...live here?

THE GIRLS ARE CONTINUING TO FIGHT!!! *delighted noises*

Garth, Koryak, and Vulko appear to be just sort of...running Atlantis now? There’s not really a functioning government of any sort. Koryak’s like “I could be king?” and Garth’s like “Fuck kings” and Vulko’s like “I wish Advil existed underwater.”

Anyway yes, Koryak did just call Garth racist. He points out that he’s literally the only POC in Atlantis and that sucks, and also that they’re talking about refugees here, but Garth and Vulko aren’t listening, so he decides to go talk to Arthur instead.

Aw, that’s nice! I bet it will end really well for everyone!

Koryak fills Arthur in on what things are like in Atlantis - and more specifically, what’s going on with Mera. Arthur immediately heads to Atlantis, where Garth ORDERS THE GUARDS TO FIRE AT HIM ON SIGHT:

These pages are fucking incredible. This whole sequence makes me lose my mind.

Garth is absolutely 100% fucking done with Arthur and his irresponsibility and selfishness, but when Arthur insists on seeing Mera, Garth begrudgingly agrees:

He is THE WORST but these panels hurt my heart anyway. He loves her so much! When he remembers! (She’s hiding her face because she didn’t want him to see her like this. UGH MY HEART.)

Anyway, turns out that when Hagen the evil sorcerer was defeated, he turned Mera’s gills into lungs in a last ditch effort at revenge because he’s a dick, hence the emaciation and the tubes. Only the sorcery of some random follower of Hagen’s is keeping her alive.

Y’all are so lucky I’m not just sharing every single page with you. Shut the fuck up, Arthur!!! You knew! You knew Mera was a prisoner and being medically abused while you were cheating on her! Sorry you’re ANNOYED by Garth pointing out how bad you suck!!!

ps garth’s so fucking hot

Arthur’s like “Okay, she has lungs, I’ll take her to the surface” and Garth’s like “No, I’ll make Hagen fix her.” He points out that Mera would be miserable on the surface, which is totally alien to her, AND that Mera is the only semblance of a ruler they have left, AND that Arthur is punishing all of Atlantis because he’s mad at a very small group. (Also Mera is his mommy and he loves her.) Arthur’s like “No one in Atlantis stood by me, waaaah!” as if Garth didn’t ESCAPE HOUSE ARREST TO COME FIND HIM.

Anyway THEN THEY FIGHT:

Have I mentioned that Garth is so OP lately? GARTH IS SO FUCKING OP. LOOK AT HIM STOP THE OCEAN.

Arthur says Garth will have to kill him to stop him from taking Mera to the surface and Garth can’t quite bring himself to go that far, so he lets them go.

MEANWHILE KORYAK FLIRTS WITH SHARKCOP???

Like, the joke here is that Koryak is into Malrey and Lorena is finally clocking this. I’m not kidding. That’s the joke. YOU GIVE ME (maybe) QUEER KORYAK AND THEN YOU IMMEDIATELY KILL HIM, DC??? (Uh, spoilers.)

Unfortunately, just when things get super juicy and emotionally fraught is also when the series gets unbearably bogged down with all the awful crossovers the mid-2000s had to offer. Arthur takes Mera to see Geist...and Geist turns into an OMAC because that was a thing that was happening in every comic then. OMAC-Geist kicks Arthur’s ass all the way onto shore, where his new girlfriend Esther runs to his side - just in time to meet Mera. Meanwhile, Koryak takes the fight back to the ocean, not knowing the OMAC has a regular human inside, and, uh...accidentally drowns Geist when he turns back. Oops. (Also Koryak’s powers have evolved from a hydrokinetic spear to full hydrokinesis like Mera, which is never explained.)

Arthur continues to be a HUGE ASSHOLE:

YOU CHEATED ON YOUR DYING, IMPRISONED WIFE, ARTHUR. STOP BLAMING OTHER PEOPLE FOR IT.

Meanwhile Esther is like “You’re married?” and then Koryak comes up in conversation and she’s like “You have a kid?” and Mera’s like lollllll girl he’s trash. Then Mera and Esther become best friends because they’re great.

Koryak, meanwhile, feels terrible about accidentally killing Geist, who might have been able to reverse what Hagen did to Mera with science, so he decides to go back to Atlantis and help Garth do it with magic. (They continue to bitch at each other the whole time, which makes me so happy.) Garth assembles all the sorcerers left in Atlantis to try to undo Hagen’s spell, but this attracts the attention of the Spectre, who has gone evil because of yet another crossover, and who shows up to destroy Atlantis:

GARTH IS SO OP. He’s fighting the fucking SPECTRE! I mean, he loses, but still!

But yeah, he loses. Atlantis is destroyed. Some Atlanteans survive - we are shown one very clear shot of Dolphin and Cerdian escaping with others on a submarine (remember this for later) - but not many.

Back near San/Sub Diego, Arthur is fighting all of his major villains because something something Infinite Crisis, but when he hears what’s happened to Atlantis, he obviously heads there immediately with Lorena. Clutching a scrap of Garth’s costume, he identifies Vulko’s body, and then Koryak’s. Lorena is devastated, and Arthur finally acknowledges that he was a shitty father:

Meanwhile Mera and Esther are organizing relief efforts because they’re amazing:

I LOVE THEM. DUMP ARTHUR AND DATE EACH OTHER.

The surviving Atlantean refugees flee to Sub Diego, instead of the planned other way around. And as a bonus, Malrey is killed by Black Manta, just kind of randomly. Because killing off Garth, Koryak, and Vulko wasn’t enough, I guess!

Anyway, there’s nothing left for Arthur but sadness now: