Aquamen #3 (2022)

Arthur and Black Manta escape the collapsing station, but they are swarmed by Atlantean security drones. The soldiers who are supposed to be monitoring the drones are slacking off and do not get the alert, so Arthur and Manta are able to destroy the drones and escape. One of the soldiers, who is secretly an operative for Mera, privately passes their location on to her while ensuring it does not get reported to the Atlantean authorites. Meanwhile, Mera goes to Mars to ask Frankenstein what happened to Arthur, but Frankenstein tells her that Arthur was only on Mars for three hours before leaving again, despite being away from home for days. When she returns to Atlantis she receives the message about Arthur and Manta's whereabouts. She then tries to locate Jackson and sends Garth to the Aquarium, his last known location. At the Aquarium, Orm is being treated for serious injuries after Jackson beat him in a rage. Garth arrives looking for Jackson and Orm tells him that Jackson interrogated him, but was enraged by his answers and attacked him. Orm tells Garth that Jackson is out of control and is acting more like Black Manta than Aquaman, but Garth believes the Aquaman Family can help Jackson overcome his anger and tells Orm to tell him exactly what he told Jackson. Orm told Jackson that the man who activated the sleepers was Peter Mortimer, aka Scavenger, who Jackson hates for once threatening Andy. Jackson heads to Gotham City, where Orm told him Mortimer will be attending a museum opening that night. Mera calls him, worried at his increasing aggression, but Jackson tells her he is fine. He initially plans to make contact with the Batman Family to help him search the city, but is distracted by an explosion nearby. On the outskirts of Atlantis, Mera tracks down and captures Arthur and Black Manta, demanding that he explain what is happening. He tells her that some of his memories still have not returned since he came back to life but he can remember that at some point in his first reign as king, an Atlantean general named Mako took him to a secret vault and told him about the Atlantean sleeper agents hidden on the surface, to retaliate in the case of a catastrophic attack on Atlantis. Arthut claims he shut the program down, and yet the sleepers were still somehow activated anyway. He says they need to get to Jackson and stop him before he makes things worse. In Gotham, Jackson fights a fire at an apartment building caused by the explosion. He is attacked by an activated sleeper agent, but Batwoman arrives and knocks them out. They meet up on the roof and Jackson tells Batwoman what's going on, and she in turn tells him that there have been three similar incidents in Gotham that night. They attend the museum opening in civilian clothing and Batwoman detects a strange heat spike, which Jackson recognises as one of the guidestones from the tropical island where Jackson and Andy were attacked by Scavenger, set into a ring which Mortimer now wears. Jackson confronts Mortimer, who is ready for him, as Orm apparently promised to send Arthur to Mortimer so he could take revenge on him. Mortimer attacks Jackson, demonstrating super-strength equal to his. Mortimer dons a new set of armor which Orm upgraded with Atlantean technology, tripling his strength and allowing him to easily overpower the young hero. However, Arthur and Manta arrive to save him.