Aquaman, Vol. 3: Manta vs. Machine

The first half of this consists primarily of the big fight with Black Manta that we were promised in the previous volume. It's not bad as fight scenes go, with some fun use of Mera's powers and flashbacks to Manta's childhood to contrast his relationship with his father to that with his own son - although the latter aspect isn't really explored, since they don't talk much. After that, though, we jump back to an earlier point in Arthur's life, for a story that's supposedly about his feelings about having a child, but is largely another random fight. After the main plotline resumes, we then jump forward to a particularly lame fight and a story about a missing dog. (I'm guessing this might be intended as a comedy? It doesn't really work, if so). The really good bit is in between, with Mera's life in the balance, but that ends prematurely, so that the climactic story beat comes five-sixths of the way through the collection.

Yes, there's some good stuff in this volume, but the jumping about in the second half detracts from the main thread for no particularly good reason (well, okay, partly it's because they had to put the story from the annual somewhere, so it likely worked better in the individual issues). At least the mandated “Year of the Villain” inserts are minor enough that they don't get in the way.