By: Jeff Parker (story), Paul Pelletier (pencils), Sean Parsons (inks), Rain Beredo & Rick Magyar (colors)
The Story: Apparently, no one read Frankenstein before this whole human chimera project.
The Review: We have an interesting relationship to science, don’t we? In the real world, we can hardly get enough of it; see the hordes waiting for the newest iPhone, watching the Curiosity rover putter around Mars, buying into anything that says it was “scientifically approved.” And yet our fiction is replete with plots where a scientific experiment/product goes wrong, leaving us the message that we’d be better off approaching science with caution than enthusiasm.
Just as you can expect any story starting with a huge technological leap will lead to a fall, you can bet that if a story begins with people in lab coats mucking with someone’s body, he’s going to arise in some monstrous form to terrorize us all. There was never any doubt that Orson’s gruesome surgeries on the technically dead Coombs was going to hell eventually; Orson has too little conscience and too much arrogance to avoid it. So when the hideously transformed Coombs (who later identifies himself as “the Chimera”) escapes Orson’s control, we view it with as much weariness as horror.
There’s little to say about the Chimera’s rampage on Triton Base other than everyone gets exactly what they deserve; Shin survives a face-to-face encounter with the monster by sheer virtue of being one of Aquaman‘s only major supporting characters while everyone else dies painfully. Obviously, the Chimera will be a worthy match for Arthur, especially with its superior telepathic power—which is kind of a cruel way to neutralize Arthur’s one exotic ability, when you think about it. But the more interesting question is whose voice we’re hearing when the Chimera speaks. Is it the hapless diver Coombs, twisted by the trauma of his death and Orson’s experiments? Or is it the remnant of the Karaqan which Orson used to bring this creature to life. I’m guessing the latter; when referring to Arthur, the Chimera mutters, “I can…see…the one from before. The king.”
But none of this is half as entertaining as Mera’s continuing trials as Queen of Atlantis. The great thing about her character is that she and Arthur both have the same prejudices to deal with, but while he swims off to deal with other distractions, she tackles the problem unflinchingly. Given the impression she leaves on the denizens of the Underrealm (and Koah) after she and Tula take down a band of conspirators, it may very well be that Mera finds acceptance before Arthur does.
Pelletier is in fine form this issue, proving that when he puts his mind to it, he can deliver a stunner of a page. The lucky page in this case is the title splash of the Chimera bursting out of his tank, every part of its sea-creature anatomy in clear detail: the uncomfortably supple and round mouth, rimmed with fangs, the flaring suckers on each side of its face, the billowing fin down its spine, stinging tentacles from its back. Beredo and Magyar’s colors are a bit too bright and vivid for the tone of the sequence, but Pelletier does give it a horror feel, albeit a bit B-movie at some points.
Conclusion: Solid throughout, although Mera is quickly becoming the real star of this series.
Grade: B
– Minhquan Nguyen
Some Musings: – Even Arthur has to admit that Bruce knows a lot more about Atlantis than anybody would expect. “How does
he do it?” Arthur mutters to himself. Well, this is the same man who also discovered another mystical city, so he’s got the experience for it.
Grade
Conclusion