Ladies and gents I don't often review graphic novels but I thought that i'd break that streak right now with this review. I'll be honest outside of the Aquaman movie I have no idea who Mera is or how she's supposed to act so starting with this graphic novel was perhaps not the best idea i've had but it's been getting some solid reviews from other news sites and well those reviews convinced me to give a shot and so here is my review of Mera: Tidebreaker.
The plot of this book is that a teenage Mera goes to assassinate the young prince of atlantis but things don't go according to plan as Mera finds herself falling in love with him. I'll admit I wasn't expecting the version of the character that we got to be a teenager since I only found out about this book on Wednesday and in terms of the story it was pretty thin it does contain an element which i'm going to talk about later but if you know the story of Aquaman even if it is from the movie then it offers nothing new.
The Mera that's presented to us in this graphic novel is someone who is pretty much every single YA heroine ever seen. What makes her standout from those characters tho is the fact that she's actually an interesting character and not a blank slate altho I do feel that they could have gone a better route with her since making her a teen rebel is an over played idea but tho maybe the character was already a rebel prior to this book making her one.
I honestly got the feeling that this book would have been better served if it was an ongoing miniseries since there are a lot of times in this book where there would have been a natural place to end an issue. I don't know if the plan was to always release this as a graphic novel or not but if it was then they could have removed those natural points and if this was an ongoing series then there would have been more room for character development which is something that is sadly lacking in this book.
Writing this book is Danielle Paige who's the writer behind both the Dorothy Must Die series and the Stealing Snow series. As far as I can tell this was her first graphic novel and I hope that it's not her last since she is a talented writer and I want to see more comic books from her in the future but at the same time i'd understand it if she didn't writer any more comic books since she writes alot of books anyway.
Drawing the book is who's mostly worked for DC working on various Justice League issues as well as the the ongoing Wonder Twins. His artwork in this book I found to be very simple and that was something that I actually enjoyed altho I will admit to missing alot of the crazy splash pages that we usually get it was nice to see something that's quite simple in it's approach. One of the things you'll notice is that there's very little colour and i'm not sure why that's the case at all but that's only a few minor issue that I have.
This a lier revelled story and for those of you who don't know what that is it's basically someone tells a lie in order to project someone and then around the end of the second or start of the third act that person finds out and then causes some drama. It's a cheap way to get drama and it's not needed here at all since all if the drama is already built into the story so there's really no need to add fake drama and in all honesty all stories would be better of without using the lie revelled idea.
What is kind of interesting but given that this is a prequel you just know isn't going to end well is that both Arthur and Mera start out with different love interests for Mera it's a member of The Trench called Larken and for Arthur it's someone called Ellery. I give them credit for trying to add in something new but the fact that they made this a prequel means we already know what's going to happen we don't know how it will happen but we know that both Mera and Arthur will break up with the other person to get with each other.
I'll straight up admit the Ellery character didn't sit right with me to me she just seemed like the typical popular girl and that just wasn't interesting at all. I honestly think that the only characteristic they gave her was typical teenager because that's how she acts throughout the whole story she just acts like a stereotypical teenager. I seriously cannot think of a single personality trait which if she was a one of character wouldn't be so bad but she's a key side character so it really sticks out.
The same could kind of also be said both both Larken and Arthur I don't know if Larken is in the comic books or not but here he's just kind of stoic which wouldn't be an issue if we found out alot about him but we the only thing we really know about the character is that he has the hots for Mera and that's enough to make him the main villain. As for Arthur he's basically a boy scout he's always doing the right thing and i'm pretty sure at some point he helps an old lady cross the road.
Now shockingly there is some action in this I say shockingly because this isn't really an action book if anything it's more of a romance book. That being said the action seen in the book is serviceable at best like it's there just to serve the purpose of the story and that's really it the action really adds nothing and it doesn't last long at best it would last two or three panels and then that's it because god forbid we have an action scene in this superhero book.
Overall this was a fun read but it's also something that has a lot of problems and it's those problems that keep it from being a perfect ten in my eyes. I have a feeling that the target audience for this book was teenage girls and if that's the case then they might like it but it in my opinion the book gets an 8 out of 10 from me.