Warning! Contains spoilers for Aquamen #6!
The terrifying Trench monsters from the Aquaman movie are being turned into a joke in the comics. Despite being a horde of horrifying fish-monsters, they are now seen as barely a threat, quite different to how the movie portrayed them. This is also a vast change from how they were originally portrayed in the comics.
The Trench were first introduced in Geoff Johns and Ivan Reis’s ground-breaking Aquaman run, which was largely seen as an attempt to make Aquaman seem cool again after decades of being ridiculed in pop culture. As such, the Atlantean’s enemies needed to be intimidating enough to measure up to Aquaman’s badass reimagining in the first issue. The Trench certainly satisfied this need, being terrifying monsters from the deepest and darkest part of the ocean, and sharing the horrific appearance of many real-world creatures who dwell there, like the angler fish. Perhaps the scariest thing about these man-eating monsters is that they were once Atlanteans just like Aquaman who evolved into the Trench after years of living in the Marianas Trench. This raises an interesting dilemma for Aquaman, as instead of just being a mindless swarm of dangerous monsters he can eradicate, they are relatives of his own species and offshoots of his own empire. All of this terror and nuance is being lost in the latest issue of Aquamen.
In Aquamen #6, written by Brandon Thomas and Chuck Brown with art by Max Raynor, two of Aquaman’s oldest allies Garth and Tula are spending some quality time together in the Curry family training grotto fighting off some of the Trench. Despite the horde of monsters they face, they barely give any thought to the enemies in front of them, dealing with them with ease. After they drive back the Trench, they wonder how long it will be until the Trench will be back and hope that it is long enough for them to get romantic with each other.
The mere sight of the Trench was originally enough to strike fear into any of their enemies. Now however, they are apparently used merely as enemies to train against, given that Garth and Tula were fighting them in the training grotto. In addition, the two Atlanteans dealt with them easily and still had ample time to flirt. Ironically given how Aquaman has often been viewed as a joke, the Atlantean King and his allies are now thinking of the Trench in a similar way. This is a shame given how cool of an antagonist they were previously both in the comics and the movie.
The Trench have also recently appeared in the Monkey Prince series by Gene Luen Yang and Bernard Chang, where they seem to retain some of their initial intimidating nature. But in that series, the King of the Trench sends his daughter to masquerade as a human high schooler on the surface, something which the original Trench would never do. And given the cancellation of James Wan’s horror movie based around the Trench it seems fans may not see a more horrific version of the creatures any time soon. The Trench have greatly changed from their comics roots and their portrayal in the Aquaman movie, unfortunately becoming far less of a major threat.
Aquamen #6 is now available from DC Comics.
