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In the second issue of Aquaman: The Becoming, a Young Justice hero is battered badly as he finds himself at the heart of DC’s next civil war.
WARNING: The following contains spoilers for Aquaman: The Becoming #2, now on sale from DC Comics.
In Aquaman: The Becoming, Jackson Hyde is honing his craft as Aqualad, a hero who’s been shot into the limelight even more due to the Young Justice cartoon and his portrayal there as Kaldur’ahm. Across the first two issues of his series, Jackson has been far from a leader, working under Arthur Curry to understand what it means to truly be a hero and someone who can lead their people forward. However, things take a drastic downturn as he finds himself at the heart of DC’s next oceanic civil war, without a clue as to the real puppet master behind the tragedy.
Jackson is now a wanted man in “Until Proven Innocent,” despite being attacked by a mysterious Atlantean soldier in the king’s training room. He’s left beaten badly, and things get even worse when Atlantis’ guards think he’s been planting bombs around the kingdom to destabilize things in Aquaman: The Becoming #2, by Brandon Thomas, Diego Olortegui, Skylar Patridge, Andworld Design and Adriano Lucas.
This all leads to a brutal fight with Jackson fleeing and seeking out Mera, the former queen. She helps him out and sends him away to recuperate, but it only gets worse from there as Mera realizes Xebel is going to be at war with Atlantis soon if she can’t solve the mystery. As she’s interrogated, the guards throw nothing but xenophobia her way, openly hating on Jackson as they see him as an outsider.
His mom, Lucia, was a Xebel soldier, and his dad is Black Manta so they believe he’s a traitor, especially since footage seems to show someone looking like him did plant the bombs. Mera points out this could be faked, but they already have their minds made up about how they see the Xebellians. However, there’s suspicion around Mera too since she’s a former Xebel roy, who renounced her crown to marry Arthur.
It’s ignorant since they’re painting narratives without proper evidence, but it calls to mind the wars these undersea kingdoms fought and the discrimination that occurred surrounding them. The guards are even interested in using Mera’s daughter, Andy, as a bargaining tool so the fact they can’t see how this would make Arthur angry shows how blinded they are. Mera eventually escapes and goes to the surface at Amnesty Bay, where it’s revealed that Lucia’s actually extracting people from Xebel. It turns out that they have a suspect in mind who’s trying to frame Jackson, but the ocean’s politics are once more creating deadly waves.
This all throws back to Orm’s power struggle and attempted coups as Ocean Master, which pit kingdoms against each other. This also touches on Jackson’s recent tiff where Xebel terrorists used the Trench as pawns. Atlantis hasn’t forgiven them for this, and it heaps more onto what’s already a tumultuous past. King Nereus was never liked by Atlantis either, especially as he and Mera have such a storied past of wanting Arthur’s kingdom to break years ago.
It remains to be seen exactly how interested Xebel is in destroying Atlantis or if they’re truly part of this conspiracy. Past alliances, after all, have been uneasy at best, so there is a chance some extremists want Atlanteans dead. What’s for certain is Mera and Lucia need to find answers fast with the secrets they’ve been holding. With Jackson being hunted, this war is coming to Aquaman and Atlantis, with this unseen figure manipulating things quite easily and leaving everyone scrambling for cover.
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