Review by Ian Keogh
Kurt Busiek and Butch Guice were handed Aquaman’s title as the continuity jumped forward a year across DC’s superhero line in 2006, and Once and Future was until 2019 the only collection of what proved a successful reboot lasting almost three years.
Aquaman is missing, yet Busiek picks up on one Arthur Curry having no trouble swimming underwater, sent on a rescue mission and meeting an enigmatic figure who makes several prophecies as to his destiny. Arthur, though, is more concerned about what’s happened to his family and friends at a marine research lab endangered by a tsunami when he was swept to sea.
The Sword of Atlantis subtitle indicates the direction taken. Busiek treats the sea depths as a fantasy environment with a new Aquaman on a quest for his identity and the people he meets as versions of stock fantasy characters with a marine twist. The role of the Sage falls to the Dweller in the Deep, a telepathic guy with writhing tentacles replacing hair, while the staunch ally is a bulky shark man. A merman puts in an appearance, and while this Aquaman might be new, it’s the old Mera who turns up in the second chapter with concerns about undersea barbarians.
Buch Guice and colourist Dan Brown keep the atmosphere gloomy. Guice uses shadow to conceal people so they’re not clearly seen very often, while Brown’s colours are dark, most predominantly blue. In the absence of Atlantis, revealed as destroyed, Guice constructs a makeshift world, jerry-rigged and using debris rather than the opulent throne room of old, but ensures Arthur stands out among it, providing a visual nobility.
Having made his predictions, the Dweller in the Deep supplies the portentous narration in hindsight, giving the impression he’s got something to hide, but that’s never greatly investigated here, as for the final few chapters Busiek’s more interested in resurrecting some old characters. The most interesting of them is the former historian of Atlantis, Vulko, always visually distinctive and here given a makeover resulting in essentially the same personality, but in different circumstances.
By the time Once and Future ends a few things will be clear to readers (if not yet given reasons), in what’s been at times an inventive reboot, but one bogged down with too many unnecessary characters. The Sea Devils, for instance, lack any purpose other than bulking the cast. Perhaps a continuation would have tied everything together more pleasingly, but there was no such volume. Instead in 2019 these chapters were republished along with a few more as Sword of Atlantis Book One. Book Two still hasn’t appeared.
