Some thoughts about Aquaman #49

What torn apart Aquaman and Mera?

Arthur is finally remembering his past and so he will remind of the most important woman in his life but such memories will also bring many sad ones.

This issue would be actually interesting if it wasn't because it gets its characters REALLY wrong.

Kelly Sue DeConnick delivers a new installment where she plays with the last cliffhanger concerning Mera and her role as Arthur's killer. This actually offers intriguing developments about the story due that it shows the fall out between Arthur and Mera, what lead them to their current status and what could prompt her to take such a radical decision. Is overall an interesting twist.

THE PROBLEM is that to do so, it betrays some of the core aspects of Aquaman. It turns out that Mera was pregnant and Arthur was afraid that he could become a bad father and fail his son just like his mother did to him by being absent which could be a compelling development... if it wasn't for the fact that what happened to Arthur's mother was not her fault, he was still pretty happy to have her back in her life once that she returned and even if all that wasn't enough, he already had a pretty responsible father who took care of him anyway. This development makes no sense whatsoever.

Oh, but it gets worse. Arthur is so afraid that he apparently doesn't want to take responsibilty for his child and I don't buy the excuse of "maybe they're better without him" because that's total bullsh*t, that's the excuse that irresponsible assholes make when they don't want to take care of their family. I could see Oliver Queen making such excuse but not Arthur Curry who has a long history of being a good family man and suffered for decades after the death of his son. This is just bad characterization.

Also, DeConnick makes Mera say something like "there's no man or woman alive that can make me act against my will" when talking about falling in love which might be a huge hint about her possible bisexuality which seems to be heavily inspired by Margueritte Bennett's fanficky work on the Bombshell series and is... whatever because is not like it matters too much due that I'm sure pretty much everyone wants Arthur and Mera to stay together anyway.

Viktor Bogdanovic handles the art and is gorgeous as usual from him thanks to his beautiful characters and precise storytelling.

Aside from that, thought that I would like this one at first but I thought too much about it and got ruined. Great.