Aquaman The Becoming #1

Aquaman The Becoming #1

DC Comics 2021

Written by Brandon Thomas

Pencilled by Diego Olortegui

Inked by Wade Von Grawbadger

Coloured by Adriano Lucas

Lettered by Andworld Design

Jackson Hyde finally has it all. Mentors who support him, a community that loves him, an honest relationship with his mother, a cute new guy in Amnesty Bay who’s caught his eye, and access to Aquaman’s private training facility in Atlantis. Well, he had it all-until that training facility and half of the Atlantean palace got blown to kingdom come with Jackson in them. Now Jackson stands accused of wrecking the life he worked so hard to build. Aqualad’s going to need all of his skills, wit, and cunning just to prove his own innocence, let alone graduate from sidekick to Aquaman!

I’ll be the first to admit I am not up to date on anything that has to do with Jackson. I wasn’t reading much DC at the time and since I’ve been reading more and more of their titles he hasn’t really been around so for me this is my real introduction to the character. Growing up Garth was my Aqualad and he never got this kind of spotlight because it seemed no one really knew what to do with the boy with the purple eyes. So seeing Jackson being given a chance to shine is really nice.

I am enjoying the way that this is being told. The story & plot development that we see through how the sequence of events unfold as well as how the reader learns information is presented exceedingly well. The character development that we see through the dialogue, the character interaction as well as how we see them act and react to the situations and circumstances which they encounter is magnificently well rendered. The pacing is excellent and as it takes us through the pages we see every aspect of Jackson’s life represented and it creates a nice larger picture.

How we see this being structured and how the layers within the story emerge and grow are exceedingly well rendered. I like how we see these layers open up various avenues to be explored. Some of these avenues will be explored and others won’t be and regardless they add all this great depth, dimension and complexity to the story. How we see everything working together to create the story’s ebb & flow as well as how they move the story forward is exceptionally well achieved.

The interiors here are fabulous. The linework is sensational and how we see the varying weights and techniques being utilised to create this level & quality of detail within the work is astonishingly well rendered. The inks on top of the pencils are seamless and it feels like one person did it all. It's that well done. Backgrounds are utilised extremely well throughout the book as they enhance and expand the moments. They also work within the composition of the panels to bring out the depth perception, sense of scale and the overall sense of size and scope to the story. The utilisation of the page layouts and how we see the angles and perspective in the panels show a remarkably talented eye for storytelling. The various hues and tones within the colours being utilised to create the shading, highlights and shadow work showing a dynamite eye for storytelling. I mean the blends and gradation are exceptionally well rendered here.

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I’m pretty impressed with the events that we see throughout this issue. Jackson is at that age when teenage years turn to manhood and he’s wanting to become the next Aquaman. So with Arthur’s help and helping him in return we’re seeing Jackson grow up and it might be a lot faster than he’s thinking it’ll be and a much more painful process than anyone expects to see. That we see such strong imaginative writing and interesting characterisation wrapped up in these gorgeous interiors make this a great read.