Go back in time to the queen of the sea’s teenage years where she faces the conflict between duty to her people and duty to her heart.
Cover by Stephen ByrneWritten by Danielle Page
Illustrated by Stephen Byrne
Colored by David CalderonPrincess Mera is teenage royalty and heir to the throne of Xebel, a colony ruled by the other no-so-lost land under the sea, Atlantis. Her father, his court, and the entire kingdom are expecting her to marry and introduce a new king. But Mera is destined to wear a different crown….
When the Xebellian military plots to overthrow Atlantis and break free of its oppressive regime, Mera seizes the opportunity to take control of her own destiny by assassinating Arthur Curry—the long-lost prince and heir to the kingdom of Atlantis. But her mission gets sidetracked when Mera and Arthur unexpectedly fall in love. Will Arthur Curry be the king at Mera’s side, or will he die under her blade as she attempts to free her people from persecution?
An astonishing story that explores duty, love, heroism, and freedom…all through the eyes of readers’ favorite undersea royalty.
From New York Times best-selling author Danielle Paige (Dorothy Must Die) and artist Stephen Byrne comes a Mera -and-Aquaman story that explores Mera’s first steps on land, and her first steps as a hero or villain, forcing her to choose to follow her heart or her mission to kill.
Heavy is the head that wears the crown, as many a princess throughout history and literature knows. And that doesn’t matter if you’re on land or sea, as Mera soon discovers in “Mera: Tidebreaker.” On paper this looks to be the “rebel princess wanting to follow her heart” story that is a tale as a old as time: arranged marriage, desire to live life on her own terms, the blushes ofr first love and teenage romance, rebellion against convention, adults and children learn valuable lessons about growing up and letting children be free to live their own lives.
All of this is there with “Mera: Tidebraker” – – but with a few twists. Mera’s bethrothed is an old friend, not someone she has just met. Mera is not the royalty of Atlantis that fans know from the comics and the Aquaman film; this takes her back to her Xebellian youth – – and Xebel is under control of Atlantis. And unlike the initial Aquaman-Mera meetings from comics history, where Mera specifically seeks out Aquaman for his help in taking back her kingdom, she’s looking to kill him (or at least beat the Xebellian military to the task) to help take back her throne. The standard love triangles of Mera-Arthur-Larkin (Mera’s bethrothed) and Mera-Arthur-Ellery (Arthur’s girlfriend) play second fiddle to that of Arthur-Mera as lover-Mera as murderer, and it gives a needed depth to this standard young adult romance story. But don’t think the puppy love gets the short end of the trident; there’s plenty of meet-cute for Arthur and Mera to keep romance fans happy.
Along with the shifted focus on Mera’s internal conflict, Page also does well to avoid making Mera a complete fish out of water (pun intended) when she’s on land. There are moments of Mera reveling in the wonders and shocks of life on land, everything from joy over a hot dog to the horrors of the evening news. These moments are few and far between, not dwelled upon, but there to add just a pinch of context and remind you that Mera is in fact out of her element. What drags this book down is something common to many young adult prose noves: pacing. Story elements that would seem to have significant weight on plot direction when they are revealed are discarded, and the script slams the reader with information in the final third of the story. And that final third packs it in so fast readers don’t have time to focus on one revelation before it’s onward to the next. Just as we’re joining Arthur in his shock at finding out his dead mother was a princess of the sea, we find out his mother is also alive – – and just as we’re adjusting to that, we find out her connection to Mera’s late mother. All this comes together in a conclusion that is stilted, rushed, and out of place. Perhaps an extra 40 or 50 pages would have allowed the narrative to breathe better.
Continued belowWhere pacing and plotting stumbles, artwork picks the book and puts it back up on its feet. Stephen Byrne imbibes the underwater world of Xebel and Atlantis with life, using bubbles and soft lines throughout hairstyles on Mera and other women to show the fluidity and movement of the sea, animating it right off the page. He takes care to draw strong but age-appropriate women, with realistic body proportions in bust, hips, and legs. This Mera is equal parts charming and mission-focused, and you can’t help but be won over by her smile for Arthur one minute and her laser focused desire to kill him the next. The landlubbers – – Arthur’s father, friends, girlfriend, and townspeople – – also move with a effortless and youthful grace and charm that lends a sense of endless summer, a more than appropriate tone for a young adult graphic novel.
Color choices from David Calderon also make this book stand out. It’s a limited color palette: black, white, blue, and brown, perfect for a story of the sea, though those whose knowledge of Aquaman come from the recent film may be a bit put off by the lack of Technicolor. The pop of color comes in the fiery red-orange of Mera’s hair. It draws the reader’s eye to Mera, reinforcing that this is her story, but weakens the effectiveness of panel-to-panel storytelling. Your eye goes right to her no matter where she is on the page, and that can disrupt story flow. The limited colors do tend to bleed together, making scenes heavy on action or activity muddled. Within this palette, Calderon also does a decent job toning down his colors slightly for the sequences on land to show the change in scenery. It works but only to a fault, showing weakness when the story switches quickly between land and sea, as it can be hard to tell which is which. This tactic would have been more effective with a more diverse array of colors.
There’s a lot on the shoulders of “Mera: Tidebraker” as it launches the DC Ink line. It’s by no means a perfectly scripted story, but succeeds in providing an suitable young adult tone in its artwork. It gives a fun identity to a character seeing renewed attention in the DC universe, and its lessons, no matter how routine they may be, are themselves timeless. It may not be the big splash of a debut that was expected, but it’s certainly made enough waves to keep readers’ attention for the rest of the imprint.
