Who Are The Others And Why Do They Make Arthur So Angry?

Aquaman 7-9
DC Comics
Geoff Johns, writer
Ivan Reis and Joe Prado, artists

We're back around to this wonderful title today for the first three chapters of The Others arc. As "off" as Johns' portrayal of the Justice League feels to me right now, he is firing on all thrusters on this title, and Reis and Prado are turning in some truly marvelous artwork that just makes me smile. I will be sad to see this art team leave this title in a few months, but they definitely deserve to go on to bigger and better things if they can't stay here.

About the story: We start off seeing the vile evilness that is Black Manta hunting down and killing people, especially an Iranian woman who has visions of the future. After those brutal scenes, we switch to Aquaman and Mera going to consult with Dr. Shin about the Atlantean relic Aquaman found during the Trench story arc. Shin is the world's foremost authority on myths and lore concerning Atlantis, but he also has some ties to Manta that make Shin's and Aquaman's relationship strained. Talk of the Atlantean relic is interrupted, however, with the sudden arrival of a panther and its mistress, Ya'Wara, bringing news to Aquaman of the Seer's death at the hands of Black Manta.

It seems that both of these two women, the Seer and Ya'Wara, along with Aquaman and three others formed a team of sorts named the Others before the formation of the Justice League. (On a side note, it seems that some of the DCnU timeline is very muddled, even for chief creative officer Johns. Some of the flashback information provided in this arc takes place six years ago, which would place those events just one year before the formation of the League. Yet other events, chiefly Aquaman's time with the Others, are revealed to have happened one year after the events which were six years ago. Unless Aquaman helped form the League almost immediately after spending a fairly short amount of time as one of the Others, these time clues are not going to line up correctly.)

Getting back to the story, Manta is hunting down and slaying all of the members of the Others, presumably ending with a final confrontation between himself and Aquaman. While Ya'Wara and Aquaman go off in search of the other members and Manta, Mera stays with Shin and learns what she can about these events in Aquaman's life before her arrival. The reader, along with Mera, learns that when Aquaman began displaying signs of his powers, his human father, Tom Curry, took him to Dr. Shin, who helped the boy master his abilities. Shin also learned what he could from the pair about Atlantis and tried to cash in on that knowledge. We also learn that Aquaman blames Black Manta for his father's death. Tom Curry died of a heart attack while intervening on his son's behalf during a fight between Manta and Aquaman. Out of revenge, Aquaman killed Manta's father!

We are getting quite a grisly picture of the younger Aquaman through the course of this arc, which is an interesting contrast with the more calm man he was depicted as in the first issue of this series, walking away silently as he did from the taunts and jeers of some of the people in the crowd. There has also been no mention so far in this series about Aquaman and Mera's son, Arthur Jr., who was slain as a child by Black Manta in the previous DC Universe. We're not yet sure if that is still a part of the character's continuity in the DCnU, but the part about the deaths of both men's fathers certainly adds deep roots to the animosity these two antagonists have always felt for each other.