Best of this Week: Ocean Master – Year of the Villain One-Shot – Dan Watters, Miguel Medonça, Ivan Plascencia and Wes Abbott

Ocean Master was happy once.

With a loving surface dwelling girlfriend, Erin, and a potential new stepson, Tommy, he threw away his lust for power and hatred of his brother in order to live a peaceful life. All of that was upended, however, when Queen Mera came to his doorstep asking for help. With his homeland in political peril, he chose to leave his happiness in order to restore it to proper glory, hoping to return back to his loves. However, seduced by Mera’s relatives from Xebel with promises of power, he betrayed the Queen only to be defeated and imprisoned. 

When he resurfaced shortly after during the Drowned Earth event, free of Atlantis’ prison. He did everything in his power to make it up to Mera and Aquaman himself. He aligned himself with his family to take down the old Ocean Gods, but was defeated then as well. It was a long time before he was heard from again until now.

This book begins with Erin walking out to the shore that her home sits on, calling out to a mysterious figure she noticed in the darkness – Orm himself, somehow still alive. She responds to his reappearance with anger, saying that he abandoned his family and demanding answers for why he left. He recounts the story of his fall with amazing art by Miguel Medonça, capturing the grand scale of Atlantis, accentuated by Plascencia’s fantastic colors. He then tells her of how he lived among the homeless of Atlantis until he was finally able to escape.

Erin questions how a kingdom like Atlantis could possibly have homeless and vagrants of any sorts and Orm responds with one half of overall theme that this story lays out, “Atlantis has beggars, madmen and other rejected people of the street.” Amongst the homeless, Orm hears of a fairy tale, the story of Dagon, and learns of a mad king that sought to control an ocean elemental with an amulet around his neck. Dagon’s people, fearing his encroaching madness, slit his throat and cast the amulet into the deepest depths of the ocean.

Soon after, the madman who believed the tale found a way out of Atlantis and allowed Orm to follow him towards the calling of the amulet. Erin interjects in the middle of Orm’s story that at no point has he apologized for abandoning them and asks him why he was there. He replies that he missed them both and asks to see Tommy, but she declines. She has every right in the world to be furious at him for the way he disappeared. Granted, Mera could have told Erin what happened, but that likely would have made things even worse.

As Orm continues his story, he reveals that he had every intention of returning once he escaped, but the madman that he was following was kidnapped by someone, so Orm chose to go and save him instead. Mendonça shows the trepidation on Orm’s face as he decides what’s the best course of action and when he arrives to some kind of rig, he’s met with a daunting structure that he had no idea about. When he enters, he encounters many horrible creatures and Palkor, the madman. He then draws the conclusion that all of these creatures were once vagrants from Atlantis turned into monsters.

Before he can commence in freeing them, he is attacked by F-List villain, Marine Marauder (the female one). She tells him how Lex Luthor offered her one of his Gifts and how she’s using it to sell mutated sea life to various militaries. She and Orm engage in a fight which sees Palkor mortally wounded and Orm needing to escape and regroup. Mendonça and Plascencia give the escape a real sense of gravitas as Palkor’s blood pours as they reach the water. With his head shaped like a clam, he weakly says Dagon, insisting that he finally reach his calling before his end. Mendonça actually makes Orm look like a caring guy in the moment as he carries his dying “friend” to the trench.

Mendonca then draws a sequence of a dead Palkor falling into the depths and Ocean Master following just to see if Dagon’s story had any merit. Mendonca shows how the walls of the trench encroach on Orm, getting smaller and smaller as he descends into absolute darkness. Plascencia accentuates this scene by showing the water getting darker and darker the deeper he goes. Watters dialogue gives the situation some poetic weight as Orm describes how the weight of the ocean is pressing down on him, but his curiosity is stronger.

Amazingly, the story of Dagon rings true as Orm discovers the water elemental, a girl named Lernaea and upon seeing that he stays to speak with her, despite the weight of the water bearing down on him, she gives him the amulet and raises him from the ocean floor into the sky, calling him King Orm. The scene is beautiful as Leraea looks at him like he’s saved her from a terrible fate of loneliness and the moon shines on him ever so brightly. He looks regal, even as shadows obscure his face. It’s as if destiny called to him.

Soon after, he returns to the rig and confronts Marine Marauder. Though we do not see their fight, Ocean Master returns with her defeated body on his trident and rallies the mutated creatures of the sea and forms a new city, the City of Dagon. He tosses Marine Marauder into the crowd and tells them to feast and cheer. Soon after, Luthor appears to Ocean Master, offering him a gift. In quite possibly one of his biggest flexes, Ocean Master shows Lex that he has an amulet that could control Lernaea and make her do as he commanded…and breaks it, granting her her freedom from all control. She chooses to stay with Orm and Orm, in turn, says that he needs nothing from Lex or Atlantis as Lernaea sinks the rig.

After everything, Erin asks Orm what he wants and he wishes for Erin and Tommy to come to Dagon and rule beside him, but Erin declines. She tells Orm to never come back to her home after a tender embrace that could have seen them become one again. Orm is hurt, but unsurprised. As he walks back to the sea, he adds one final note that he considers Tommy to be his son and that when he’s older, he may come back to see if he wishes to rule beside his father, which sends Erin into a fury. Our final shot is of Ocean Master sitting on a throne of his own, something he had actually been avoiding since his arc in the New 52.

Here we get the second half of the theme. Atlantis has those it has cast aside and Orm is there to take and keep them safe.

I never thought I’d see the day where I’d look at Ocean Master with anything other than pity and disrespect. Sure, he did cause a giant flood in his attack on the world during War for Atlantis, but he’s always had this… sadness to him. His new 52 characterization portrayed him as a man that just wanted a normal life without a throne, but destiny pushed him towards that kicking and screaming. 

Dan Watters portrays him as a more tragic figure than we’ve come to expect, seeing him full of regrets of lost love as well as a newfound confidence similar to that of General Zod in Bendis’ Superman right now. Mendonça and Plascencia stunned with amazing visuals and colors. Ocean Master stands out as being a dark mirror of Aquaman, being far more ominous and melancholic. With this creative team, we really feel how low he’s fallen and how he’s had to claw his way out of his despair.

Overall, this is a very good showing for a villain that I have a newfound respect for and I actually can’t wait for the ensuing Aquaman story that’s soon to follow. High recommend!