Since the first moment I heard that Aquaman was getting a new ongoing series I was excited. The fact that the creative team of Geoff Johns and Ivan Reis would be handling it was the icing on the cake. Johns’ take on the character is finally here and for me it’s been worth the wait.

“Aquaman” #1 is an introduction issue in almost every way. Johns goes to great lengths to introduce Aquaman, tell about his history, show off his powers, explain his current situation, and reveal him to be a frustrated yet complex character. The intent seems to be to lay the foundation for Aquaman and for my money it works really well. There’s a fantastic action sequence in downtown Boston and also a tender, well written scene that introduces Mera. All of this is bookended by a look at Aquaman’s first threat, a group of man-eating underwater creatures. Now I readily admit that Aquaman walking into Sam’s Seafood in full costume for some fish and chips is a little silly. But it was also a lot of fun and offered a better look at Arthur and his complexities.

Let me go ahead and get this out of the way – Ivan Reis is amazing. His realistic art style brings an energy to every page. One of the most attractive things about his work is his amazing character designs. The characters have a genuine look to them and Reis’ rich attention to detail brings them to life. Speaking of detail, not a panel went by that I wasn’t grabbed by Reis’ gorgeous backgrounds and environments. Even the spectacular opening action sequence is second to none thanks to this sharp detailed approach. This is just a wonderful looking book.

Johns is known to take his time in telling his stories and this is an example of that. That doesn’t mean it’s a bad issue. Actually it’s quite good. Johns obviously felt the need to do a heavy introduction issue probably due to Aquaman’s rather checkered past in regards to his own book. But I had no problem with that. It sets the character up well and introduces his first threat. And knowing Johns’ history of transforming classic characters, this issue could be the first in bringing Aquaman to the forefront of the new DC universe.