Aquaman: Deep Dives

A set of nine short stories released digital-only to fill the schedules during the pandemic. Since most of the stories are single-issue, and the issues themselves are comparatively short, they don't have much complexity. The majority are just fights interspersed with some arguing, vignettes that elucidate aspects of the Aquaman mythos without doing anything significant - although Arthur does team up with some Greenpeace types in one story, and they show up again in the three-parter that's the longest story of the set. (It's counterbalanced by four half-length stories at the end that keep the total at nine).

The best story of the set to my mind is one featuring Aqualad, in which he's trying to come to terms with his father. Aquagirl, on the other hand, comes across quite negatively in the two stories she features in. The short length arguably makes the ecological messages come across as a little preachy since there isn't much to do except for Arthur to stand up and say “hey guys, dumping pollutants is bad!” - one can hardly do a (ahem) ‘deep dive' on the subject in a 16-page comic book that also has to fit in a big fight scene.

But this was an entertaining stop-gap in the absence of more regular comics, and it does at least bring in some of the regular supporting cast, with Arthur himself absent in some stories.