Aquaman 80th Anniversary 100-Page Super Spectacular (2021) #1
Aquaman 80th Anniversary 100-Page Super Spectacular (2021) #1
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A collection of eleven short stories and some nice splash art, this is a decent decadal anniversary piece, but no more than that, and hardly somewhere you'd want to start reading the line. Some of the stories are simple fights, albeit dealing with some of the typical themes of the comics such as marine conservation and the rulership of Atlantis. But there are a couple of character pieces in here, too, one for Aqualad trying to come to terms (again) with his estranged father, and the other showing Aquaman and Ocean Master's differing perspectives on a tropical storm.
The desire to cover a wide range of styles means that the whole is disjointed, with radically different costumes and looks for the main character indicating that they're scattered over his timeline/reboot history and without the space to provide the necessary context. (The one set in the Bombshells universe is fun, though, with Arthur and Mera dealing with Rhine Maidens enslaved by the Nazis). But it also means that Tempest and Aqualad get their own stories, even if there's no appearance by Aquagirl or Dolphin, leaving Mera as the only significant female character.
The last two stories are teasers for upcoming series. Each has differing strengths and weaknesses – one works as a short story in its own right, but doesn't seem to be heading anywhere especially interesting, the other is more promising, but is clearly just the first few pages of something larger and ends abruptly without anything approaching a resolution.
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1 primary book2 released booksDC Anthology Specials is a 15-book series first released in 1996 with contributions by Tim Seeley, Bryan Edward Hill, and 144 others.