Review: Fathom Vol 7 #1

Last year, Fathom, under the watchful eye of Blake Northcott made quite a splash in a mini series that served notice on social commentary as much as anything.Â Now, Aspen Mathews is back, this time Ron Marz is on hand to scribe her tales, along with the uber talented Lola XOXO creator Siya Oum.

For Aspen and her roomie, Tyler, things have settled down a bit.Â True, there is always something to save be it a plastic ingesting turtle or Aspens own brother who seems to have been kidnapped, despite having the same sort of powers that Aspen has.Â Soon it is not long that Aspen is setting off to save her swimming sibling, much to the annoyance of her new government body man, Emmanuel Okoro.

Ron Marz is a comic veteran of many, many books over a lot of years.Â Whilst some would say he may not have hit the heights of some writers, his work has always been consistent.Â Here, the plot is somewhat simple, at least at this stage of the game.Â The script carries on from previous iterations of Tyler, though Aspen does seem a little preachy, debating the evils of plastics in the ocean (which I support), whilst may seem like something a character with an aquatic intimacy would engage with, why engage in it with someone who can’t change anything?Â It does go someway to show where Aspen’s heart is, which is slightly more hard core than her previous “of two worlds nature”.Â In this, Marz will have to be careful not to turn Aspen into a bikini wearing Namor or Aquaman.Â The action in the book is easy to follow and the certain story beats that you would expect to see are here; the water magic and the Bond girl leaving the ocean scene all make an appearance.

Siya Oum provides pencils and inks for the book in her usual excellent style.Â Fans of her work from Lola may be disappointed that on this book, the pencils are a little less distinctive.Â I think that this due to the fact that Aspen is a clearly defined character; this is volume seven!Â On Lola, Oum can create and shape her own heroine as she wants; here the overall look has to be consistent to a certain point, an idea clearly shown through the various alternative covers you can choose from.Â Oum’s pencils are as expressive as always, with a smooth curvy line in play in various areas, which emphasises the female form without the need to be overly sexual.Â Yes, Aspen spends her time in bikinis and swimwear, but as I said during the last mini series, she is in water a lot of the time, what do you really expect?Â AddingÂ a high level of texture to Oum’s fine lines and finely drawn characters are colourists Peter Steigerwald and John Starr, both of whom give the land and waves of Aspens’ world an extensively mature look.

The mini-series model is one used by many an independent publishers, from Aspen Comics to Zenescope, because it works for a variety of reasons; shorter arcs translate into trades easily, interest in characters increases not diminished by the fact the latest issues isn’t just one of many in a long run.Â The problem is of course, when you get a book of this quality, you want to see more issues.

Writing – 5 Stars
Art – 5 Stars
Colors – 5 Stars

[yasr_overall_rating size=”large”]

Written by; Ron Marz
Art by; Siya Oum
Colors by; Peter Steigerwald & John Starr
Published by; Aspen Comics

Author Profile

Johnny "The Machine" Hughes

I am a long time comic book fan, being first introduced to Batman in the mid to late 70's. This led to a appreciation of classic artists like Neal Adams and Jim Aparo. Moving through the decades that followed, I have a working knowledge of a huge raft of characters with a fondness for old school characters like JSA and The Shadow

Currently reading a slew of Bat Books, enjoying a mini Marvel revival, and the host of The Definative Crusade and Outside the Panels whilst also appearing on No-Prize Podcast on the Undercover Capes Podcast Network