DC's Aquaman/Green Arrow: Deep Target #1
- WRITER
- Brandon Thomas
- Artist
- Ronan Cliquet
- Letterer
- Josh Reed
- Cover Artist
- Marco Santucci, Arif Prianto
- Publisher
- DC Comics
- Price
- 3.99
- Release Date
- 2021-10-26
- Colorist
- Ulises Arreola
For the past 80 years, Green Arrow and Aquaman have established themselves as two of DC's greatest heroes. Both have soared to heroic heights as individuals and as members of the Justice League. But, their new adventure will put their legendary abilities to the test as they struggle to fix a broken timeline that has put them in a Freaky Friday-like situation. Arthur Curry and Oliver Queen swap powers and identities in author Brandon Thomas and artist Ronan Cliquet's Aquaman/Green Arrow: Deep Target #1, an over-the-top but fun debut.
Aquaman/Green Arrow: Deep Target #1 presents a mangled version of the DC Universe's timeline where Arthur Curry is the Green Arrow, and Oliver Queen is the king of Atlantis. Sensing that something has gone terribly wrong, Curry swims to Atlantis to confront Queen about their swapped lives. Meanwhile, the mysterious General Anderton is researching a strange new technology that allows him to interact with living things in the ancient past -- including dinosaurs. Aquaman and Green Arrow endeavor to get their lives back.
In their respective 80 year histories, neither Aquaman nor Green Arrow has ever been called subtle characters -- making them well suited for this series' absurd premise. Thomas establishes a fun, contentious relationship between the two heroes. Despite the duo walking literal miles in each other's shoes, they still resent one another. Thomas waits to reveal that the heroes have traded places until they are already fighting about it. In this way, he subverts the reader's expectations and establishes that this version of the DC Universe can't be trusted.
As good of a job as Thomas does writing Aquaman and the Green Arrow, this issue works because of its compelling and mysterious villain, General Anderton. Thomas shows the audience just enough of the general's nefarious activities for audiences to infer that his actions are wreaking havoc on the DC Universe and its timeline. Thomas' captures the character's capacity for cruelty, and Anderton's dangerous machinations add high stakes to Aquaman/Green Arrow: Deep Target's goofy situation.
Cliquet's drawings of Aquaman using a bow and arrow and Green Arrow wielding a trident are inherently silly. Subtly, he illustrates the duo's discomfort at using each other's powers in scenes that are simultaneously tense and funny. The scene when Curry and Queen fight works as a standard action sequence and illustrates how poorly they're adjusting to their lives. Colorist Ulises Arreola's work adds a sense of realism to the comic that helps to ground the madcap story in a world that feels like it could be real -- were it not for the ridiculous events transpiring on every page.
Aquaman/Green Arrow: Deep Target #1 tells an outlandish story that would feel arbitrary if it weren't for the mystery at the source of Curry and Queen's Freaky Friday experience. The entire creative team seems to delight in blurring the line between the ridiculous and the compelling, and the result is a fun comic and the promise of a surprising series.