Aquaman #9 (June 1995)

As a tribute to Peter David, who had passed away recently, I wanted to look at a comic he wrote this week. The man had brought his pen to numerous characters over his long career, and some of his runs on certain characters have become quite influential. As such, I wanted to cover a comic from one of his runs. And since I also wanted to look at more DC stuff here, why not look at another issue of his Aquaman run? We have visited it before, after all. And I'm quite fond of it, so...yeah. This is Aquaman #9!

The cover is a Joe St. Pierre, Howard M. Shum, and Tom McCraw piece. I think it's pretty good. It depicts Orin and Deadline fighting in the sky. Not much else to say about it other than it looks neat.

"Dreaded Deadline Doom"
Writer: Peter David
Penciler: Joe St. Pierre
Inkers: Howard M. Shum, Rodney Ramos
Colorist: Tom McCraw
Letterer: Dan Nakrosis
Editor: Kevin Dooley, Eddie Berganza

The story begins with the mysterious metahuman villain known as Deadline shooting through a coin to demonstrate his skill. We've met this man before, in my review of his first appearance: Starman #15 (October 1989). He admits that being paid in old coins is a new one for him, as he's been paid for his work in many other ways before. He'd have to have the coins checked to ensure they're the real thing, of course.

He asks his employer who he wants whacked. The target? Aquaman! Duh! Well, that makes sense, this is the King of the DC Universe seas' book, after all. He orders Deadline to wait until our hero gets on land, as that is where he's the most vulnerable. Speaking of Aquaman, this is his book, so what's he up to? 

"Yeah, I'm trading this in for a bigger car."

Yeah, they're heading home. They just dealt with a whole adventure that involved the mother of his son Koryak being transformed into an Elemental called Corona, and they're heading home to the kingdom of Poseidonis. Perhaps seeing it will cheer the kid up, but Orin fears that it may not help so much. After all, he's taken to being a bit broody. Like father, like son. The three come up to the city and note that it's gotten crooked. Literally. 

"I swear, I leave this place for five minutes..."

They arrive and a brief conversation with King Thesily, who runs the place. Orin has something else on his mind right now: repairing his harpoon prosthetic. It got damaged by Corona, but he's already contacted STAR Labs and contracted them to make a new one. He asks Dolphin to show Koryak around the city. He also wants to know how Garth, aka Aqualad is doing. Despite his codename, Garth's hardly a "lad" anymore, so Orin thinks he'll be fine.

He turned out to not be fine at all.

Ohhhhhh, Aquaman is not going to be happy that Garth is a spooky scary skeleton...well, when he finds out, anyway. Because he's at STAR Labs getting his new harpoon hand prosthetic put in. And it's quite purty.

And Peter David wondered why people thought Aquaman had a hook.

It has all sorts of fancy new features! It slices, it dices, and it can cut through an aluminum can in less than a second! The harpoon is also cybernetically linked to Orin, allowing him to control it with his mind like it was his original hand. It can even retract into the casing. Which is when Deadline shows up, with a gun. He blasts at Aquaman, while the former monarch gets the scientist to safety. Afterwards, Deadline hits our man with a gas attack. After the gas weakens the monarch, the assassin plans to finish him off, thinking he'll be a lot easier than Starman ever was.

Back in Poseidonis, Koryak demonstrates his ability to create blasts of "hard water" (think hard light, only water). Vulko notes it's remarkable that he has this ability, as Mera (Orin's ex-wife at the time) could also do it. Koryak couldn't do the things Mera could, but his hard water blasts are more devastating and powerful, able to easily punch a hole in Posedonis guard armor. Vulko wonders how he got this power. After all, Mera came from another dimension. Koryak has no idea; he's just been able to do it for years. I think this was meant to imply there may have been a connection between Koryak and Mera, but my theory is that he's a metahuman. 

So, how's Aquaman doing? Deadline thinks he has the easiest assignment ever. After all, Aquaman has a rep of being a bit of a goofy superhero. He's seen as the guy whose super-gimmick is "swimming and telling fish what to do". At first glance, it would seem kind of goofy. Thing is, this is Peter David's Aquaman. And this Aquaman...is arguably one of the most dangerous men in the entire DC Universe. He easily manages to get through the fog, and they start fighting.

Deadline blasts Aquaman out of the building, realizing that because our man is of the ocean depths, he is quite tougher than the average man. His eyes are adapted to see in low light, so he can find ways past the gas. But the superpowered assassin realizes something: Aquaman can't fly. Well, of course. He's not Namor the Sub-Mariner. He doesn't have the little wings on his ankles. Thus, he can just simply drop the monarch from a very high up in the sky.

As this is going down, Vulko tries to explain to Koryak that the people of Poseidonis have been through a lot, including being conquered. As a result, they're a bit paranoid and untrusting of outsiders. Koryak is both, being the son of Aquaman and a Native Alaskan woman. Say, is Koryak still canon? I keep thinking that he is and is not at the same time. The conversation is interrupted by Koryak witnessing a piece of a building about to fall on some kids. The Son of Aquaman shows that he's just as much of a hero as his father, saving the kids. The Posiedonians nearby are very grateful, which is nice.

Back to dry land! Deadline drops Aquaman, but his new harpoon prosthetic has some new tricks. One of them is the ability to shoot the harpoon/hook. It's attached to a line, which he uses to catch the flying Deadline.

"You nearly punctured my favorite foot, you Aquajerk!"

Deadline tries to get Orin off of him, by blaster and slamming him into buildings. But the prosthetic reels Orin in, allowing him to wreck Deadline's flying discs. The two then end up falling into a sewer. Orin taunts Deadline to take shots at him now, but he's vanished.

Meanwhile, it turns out that Garth wasn't made into a spooky scary skeleton after all. His death was faked, and he has actually washed up...somewhere. 

"This is the fifth time he's washed up on my beach this month!"

The story ends with King Thessily watching over Koryak basking in the praise of his people. The King grumbles about his people seeing him as a figurehead. He can't stand the fact that Aquaman, Koryak, and Dolphin are more beloved than him. He holds up an old coin, revealing he was the man who hired Deadline to kill Aquaman. The story ends with Thessily presumably cursing everyone out. Aquaman, Koryak, Dolphin, and even his own people. And in the next issue, Orin will meet the then-only Green Lantern left: Kyle Rayner. 

I enjoyed this issue. It had a lot of whiz-bang action with the fight between Deadline and Orin, we get some political intrigue, and we also get some character moments. As is also the David style, we also get some bits of humor here and there. I do wish we did get a bit more of Koryak and Orin trying to build a father-son bond, but we did get some intriguing mystery regarding Koryak's hard-water powers. After all, as established earlier, only Mera could do that before, and she was from another dimension. 

One of the things David wanted to do with Aquaman was show that he can be one of the most dangerous superheroes in the DCU, and I think he had done that. Orin is shown here to be no cakewalk for Deadline. He's tough, and he is a fighter who can think on his feet. I also liked the scene with Koryak saving lives on Poseidonis. It helps show that at heart, he's a good man. 

Joe St. Pierre is an artist I don't remember seeing much in Big Two books. Searches on him tried to get me to a Belgian artist who died in 1960. From what I can find, he also worked on Wolverine's book. I do like his style. It almost has a cartoony vibe to it, and I think he would have been a perfect fit for a Plastic Man book. I also liked the panel shapes he used in the beginning when Orin, Koryak, and Dolphin travel to Poseidonis. Helped sell the ides of undersea motion. 

If you want to read this for yourself, I recommend tracking down the 2018 trade paperback Aquaman by Peter David Book Two. Thanks for reading this blog entry! If you liked it, show it off! Take care of yourselves and each other! See you next time, and thank you for everything, Mr. David.