Welcome to The Not-So-New 52, your digital Swampflix comic book (adaptation) newsstand! Starting in 2007, DC Comics and Warner Premiere entered the direct-to-home-video market with animated features, mostly in the form of adaptations of well-received event comics or notable arcs. This Swampflix feature takes its name from the 2011 DC relaunch event “The New 52,” and since there are (roughly) fifty-two of these animated features as of the start of 2024, Boomer is watching them in order from the beginning with weekly reviews of each. So, get out your longboxes and mylar sleeves and get ready for weekly doses of grousing, praise, befuddlement, recommendations, and occasional onomatopoeia as we get animated for over fifteen years of not-so-new comic cartoons. 

It’s been a bit since our heroes first met and all of that during Justice League: War, and they’re not exactly keeping in touch. When a U.S. submarine carrying nuclear warheads is sunk, Cyborg is tasked with investigating, and as he examines the wreckage, he uncovers that the nukes have been stolen, before he is attacked by unseen enemies. Back at headquarters, he manages to get the team to assemble to watch a holographic recreation of his investigation, which reveals the form of his assailants; Wonder Woman recognizes them as the sea-dwelling Atlanteans. Elsewhere, new character Arthur Curry is drinking his grief over his recently deceased father at a seaside bar and expositing about his woes to a lobster in a tank. When said crustacean is selected to be another patron’s dinner, this escalates to an altercation in which Arthur finds himself squaring off against four other men, and emerging victorious – even having an attempted stabbing fail as the blade breaks in his attacker’s hand. This is reported to Queen Atlanna, the widowed ruler of Atlantis and Arthur’s mother, who sends her lieutenant Mera to bring Arthur home. As the child of two worlds—Atlantis and the surface—she hopes that his ascension to the throne will build a bridge of peaceful coexistence. Unfortunately, her younger son Orm has his sights set on becoming king, and he’s willing to fly as many false flags as needed (and commit matricide) to get there. 

After a little bit of a rocky start, this franchise is operating like a well-oiled machine at this point: functional and reliable. And when we’re talking about machinery, that’s what we’re hoping for: that our car starts when we’re ready to go somewhere, that our coffee mugs and spoons come out of the dishwasher free of debris, that our oscillating fans both fan and oscillate. We don’t really pay attention to those things until the car doesn’t start, your drinking glasses have crud on them, or you wake up in the middle of the night and you’ve sweat through your pillow (again). There’s nothing bad to say about Throne of Atlantis, but I’m trying to think of adjectives other than “serviceable” and “adequate.” I didn’t see the live-action Aquaman (I have my limits), but I’m positive it’s better than that – no offense to Nicole Kidman, who I’m sure had a bit of fun and could hardly be bothered to care about the film’s reception in this here swamp.

That’s not to say that there’s nothing that stands out. Mera’s “hard water” powerset is fun and is used in a lot of fun ways, and her slaying of swathes of enemy combatants and sea monsters of approximate sapience is fun to watch, especially given how grisly it is. There’s a Lovecraftian monster down in the deeps that our heroes have to fight; that’s pretty neat. Arthur even gets to throw in a declaration of “Outrageous,” which was the catchphrase of Aquaman in The Brave and the Bold, the characterization that, alongside his appearances on Justice League, credited with “saving” the character from the sillier version of him that appeared in Superfriends and became the primary image of him in pop culture. If you cared about that fact, you would probably already know it, but heaven help me if I don’t mention it. The humor mostly lands, especially with regards to Hal Jordan’s ongoing rivalry with Batman; in this one, he responds to the Caped Crusader’s delay in responding to a memo by going straight to Gotham and helping him take down the goons he’s tailing, except now he’s ruined the fifth step in a ten step investigation with his showboating. These little character touches are what are most pleasant about these films overall, and is the thing that most makes them feel worthwhile.

This one’s good. It’s not going to be anybody’s favorite (other than dyed-in-the-wool Aquafans), but it’s violent, colorful, funny, and seventy-two minutes long. 

-Mark “Boomer” Redmond