My Pick of the Week (Week 5)

In all the years I’ve collected comic books I cannot remember purchasing more DC comic books than Marvel. Of course my excuse this week is that it was a light week and I only purchased five books; three were from DC. I picked up the following and in order of reading were The Ultimate’s #6, Teen Titans #5, FF #602, Justice League #5, and Aquaman #5. Every week I try to leave what I think will be the best book for last, and I never read a DC comic last.

I read the first three on my list while taking public transportation home and the last two when I finally arrived. Once I finished Justice League #5 I was seriously questioning if Aquaman #5 could be better.

!!WARNING!!Spoilers!!Ahead!!WARNING!!

Justice League #5 has the newly formed team fight against Darkseid. His vaunted Omega Beams split up between Superman and The Flash. The Flash used his wits to get away from the one beam and Superman wasn’t so lucky and took the hit from the other, then carted away. Green Lantern shows why his will power can control the ring with a never give up attitude, even after having his arm broken in two places (“that’s better than three, kid”). The Batman even surprises me by revealing himself as Bruce Wayne before going after Superman to rescue him.

So with an issue this good, packed with action, could Aquaman #5 be better?

Aquaman (in its 7th volume) issue #1-#4 had a complete story arc which poked fun and showed potential of the weakest (arguably) JLA member. Issue #5 seem to be in intermission of sorts but still had action spread amongst the Geoff Johns developing story ala “Lost” and /or “Alcatraz” flashbacks.

The first story arc had the reader discover the staff Aquaman carries once belonged to someone else, someone who might want it back. In this issue Aquaman is thrown in the desert at the beginning of the book, and the story goes back and forth discovering that Atlantean’s are still around and Atlantis was attacked by some unknown menace. This information was discovered by Aquaman via a “black box” recorder and ended in the way the transmission ended in Firefly, when Mal and his team learned about The Reavers.

Atlantis is one of the curiosities I had when I was a boy. The mythical story of a lost civilization always piqued my imagination and I am curious as how DC will change the mythos of Atlantis going forward.

End spoilers

DC is approaching my six-month barrier. This is the amount of time I give for new titles (unless of course it’s a limited series). I am willing to continue on with the four titles I decided to try since DC’s re-launch as long as the story, art, and covers continue the way they have been going. I almost spent the extra money on the variant covers because of how cool they looked. Eventually I will get Aquaman #5 sketch variant but I will wait until I find it in CGC 9.8 with white pages.

As for my pick of the week, as good as Justice League was I have to choose Aquaman #5 as my official pick of the week. For my runner-up I am going to go back across company lines and pick Fantastic Four #602 for bringing back a story of cosmic proportions

For the collector that has limited space I recommend a digital copy of X-Men Legacy #261.

Thanks for reading

CGC Lee

Tags: Aquaman, CGC, CGC Lee, Comic Books, DC, Geoff Johns, Justice League, Marvel

About the Author

Written by CGC Lee

I remember my parents once telling me to get rid of all my junk because it will never be worth anything. I kept my comic books but they never left.

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