Who'd Like A Cocktail? #202

Not something you read every day.

Sunday afternoon comic round-up.

AQUAMAN #13 - Aquaman and the Others finally catch up to Black Manta and, after Arthur gets a pep-talk from Mera about how Aquaman's not a loner any more, they launch their final attack against Manta and his mysterious Atlantean allies.

It seems to have taken a while to get here but the finale's pretty good; Manta gets his comeuppance, there's a new villain on the horizon, and Mera's made him realised he doesn't need to be a whiny loner any more. As to the mystery Atlantean? Ocean Master would be the obvious choice, but I wonder if it's someone else?

FATALE #9 - Miles and Josephine plan a way to get into the Method Church's HQ in order to find out what's going on but they don't realise that the key to their plan, Suzy, has met an untimely end. Invited to a party by someone interested in the snuff film Miles has leads him to being spotted by one of the Church's members who intends to follow him and Jo home.

Splendid stuff - the horror mixed with the grimy 70's noir just makes this work a treat.

PHANTOM LADY #3 - Phantom Lady and Doll Man go up against Funerella and her hordes of zombies, Phantom Lady proving herself adept at lateral thinking: how best to stop a bunch of undead running towards you? Use your black light beams to chop off their legs. As the fight continues, there's a nice cameo by the Ray and Uncle Sam, the latter sending the Ray in to help our two heroes. They manage to temporarily despatch Funerella and head back to their base.

Another cracking issue which, with the introduction of the Ray and Uncle Sam (who looks a lot different from the classic image) and the forthcoming Human Bomb miniseries just begs for a new Freedom Fighters title.

SWAMP THING ANNUAL #1 - the Parliament of Trees reveal to Swamp Thing a memory of his and Abby Arcane's first meeting which had been erased and which they never told him about until now. Turns out he and Abby'd met years before when Anton Arcane had tried to kill him long before he became the avatar of the Green. All this leads to the Parliament telling him that Arcane has killed Abby, sending Swampy off into a rage where he swears to kill Arcane.

It's not bad but blimey this whole Rot world thing has been going on forever.

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And what made me smile:

Zombie humour!