Fantastic Four (1996) #3

All right! In the event that you stumbled here following a search and are not reading this chronologically, this is essentially a continuation of this blog entry from March 25th. FF3 is the second part of a modernized retelling of Fantastic Four #4 from 1961.

Looking a little rough with the ladies there, Avenging Son.

Giganto was released at the end of the previous issue. We open this one with a brief recap and the Avengers' attempt at stopping the giant whale. It fails, to Namor's great glee.

Tell 'em, boss.

Susan Richards tries to talk Namor and even though she seems to be making headway, the men in the family take a more direct approach and ruin everything. Namor dispatches each one individually, culminating with this gem.

Wham indeed!

The Avengers step in. Thor is itching for a scrap but Captain America takes Sue's more peaceful approach. Well, Krang will have none of that!



Enthralled? I know Namor tends to like blondes, but I'm not sure that extends to...

Anyway, as everyone begins to make peace, Namor suddenly takes ill, apparently due to catching the plague that triggered Atlantis' attack on New York in the first place. And so, Krang seizes the moment.

While a hybrid Avengers/FF team fights back the invasion, Reed Richards treats Namor and finds that the prince's illness was actually Atlantis-borne. Namor believes Richards and calls off the sea dogs of war.

More appropriate channels! Atlantis would invade the surface another half dozen times after this. But in fairness, I don't recall a single time that Captain America has helped make Namor's voice be heard, sanctimonious ass that he is.

Everyone makes their farewells and that's that! A year later "Heroes Reborn" would become "Heroes Return" and everyone would be in the regular timeline. While this was enjoyable enough to read, I look forward to going "home".

Fantastic Four (1996) #2

It seems I inadvertently bought the same book twice!

In 1996, Marvel made a dismal attempt at being trendy with a "Heroes Reborn" marketing campaign. My memory of this period is a little hazy, but I believe that Marvel's A-List heroes were believed to have died but instead had been transported to an alternate universe or some damn thing. Once there, they basically ended up reliving the key moments of their origin stories, unbeknownst to them.

Most of the material appeared to be quite craptastic to me and since I'd pretty well given up on Marvel by then anyway, I didn't buy into this whole scheme. Until yesterday.

Heroes Reborn was far out of mind when I bought this book. It wasn't until I had a closer look at the creative team that I realized what I'd purchased.

This issue, however, is pretty much a retelling of the story I read and wrote about yesterday from the fourth issue of the original Fantastic Four series. So what the hell, let's see how they managed this.

Being the second issue, things are already in motion. The FF have just acquired their powers and are battling the Mole Man (Ugh...). As they escape his tunnel lair, they appear to be surprised by a sudden flash of light.

We switch to Atlantis and the HR versions of Krang and Dorma, looking quite good.

Orthus, with paler skin, could be any number of the early Image Wolverine ripoffs. I'm not sure why Krang feels the need to remind him that they are cousins, but there you have it.

Krang, being an asshole, sees the above tragedy as an opportunity to goad Namor into attacking the surface world.

So none of this seemingly random crap about being found with amnesia in a homeless shelter and needing a shave. To this point, the Namor material feels more like it is meant to update the beginning of Daredevil #7.

We cut to the SHIELD Heli-Carrier. The earlier flash of light was SHIELD abducting the FF. SHIELD, having no shame, now asks for help to subdue repel Namor's attack.

He IS a legend! Is that a little admiration we see in Sue's demeanor? Not certain if I'm seeing what I expect to see, but I do know the expression on The Thing is spot on.

The Fantastic Four go to meet Namor and things go about how you'd expect.

*Groan*. Why does EVERYONE throw Namor back in the ocean? Think! Do you use a flame-thrower to beat The Human Torch??

Understanding that he is outnumbered, Namor calls on his own "Doomsday Weapon".

Giganto! Now there's a post tag I didn't expect to use a second time!

I got swerved into buying Heroes Reborn material that I expected to be putrid, and I'd planned on avoiding all alternative reality versions of this character to focus on the "primary" version, but I'm not disappointed that I got this issue. I suspect that it was among the better books at the time. It's a decent enough attempt at that cleaning up wonky history and the art is spectacular.

I'll get around to #3 sooner rather than later to complete the "re-imagining" of Fantastic Four (1961) #4 then get back on track.

Fantastic Four (1961) #4

I am becoming more and more convinced that Marvel is basing its Comixology discounts on my reading habits. After enabling me to load up on some Invaders, Defenders and original Sub-Mariner series issues on the cheap, they now have a Fantastic Four sale for no reason I can determine.

Whatever, I shall not squander the opportunity. I grabbed a few early issues including Namor's first appearance in that book way back in issue #4. I was aware of that story as a kid but not really buying into what a big deal it was supposed to be. Human Torch had found this guy, gave him a shave and it turned out to be the Sub-Mariner. Okay, great.

Having rapid access to information these days makes the "big deal" a bit more clear. Namor's adventures had been published regularly from 1939 to about 1955. This book, cover dated May 1962, was his fist appearance in seven years.

He may not be one of Marvel key characters but considering that he has not gone a whole year since without showing up somewhere (team book, guest-appearance, whatever), that was quite the dry spell for him and therefore a significant comeback.

How does it all happen? With the usual strangeness and leaps of logic of the time, of course, as only Stan Lee and Jack Kirby could provide them.

Johnny Storm has had an argument with The Thing and blown off the Fantastic Four. Wanting to keep a low profile, he decides to spend the night in a homeless shelter, because who hasn't done that? Like most homeless shelters, this one is well-stocked with classic comic books.

That creepy bum at the bottom right sees what Johnny is reading and points out that one of his fellow vagrants is as strong as that Sub-Mariner fella. When the residents try to goad this strong homeless man into displaying feats of strength, he beats the hell out of all of them. So, I suppose he granted them their wish in a roundabout way. Good man.

As they gang up for another round, Johnny recognizes that this mysterious stranger seems to be suffering from memory loss (a common affliction for this character) and tries to be the voice of reason. All right, boys, first things first: Let's give him a shave.

What are the odds???!

Well the only logical thing to do now is to dump him in the ocean.

Sounds good, but...Atlantis is devastated, apparently by atomic testing. That doesn't go over well and so Namor...Are you ready for this?...Swears to take revenge against the human race! Maybe you should have left well enough alone, Johnny!

Namor wakes a giant walking whale creature named Giganto and commands it to attack New York.

The Thing detonates a nuke inside Giganto to kill it (no, really). When Namor promises to unleash all sorts of other sea beasts on New York with his magic trumpet-horn (lol...), Invisible Girl Sue Richards swipes it from him.

Way to go, Namor, you old smoothie. Nowadays that's sexual misconduct though.

He makes Sue a pretty sweet deal: Marry me and I won't destroy mankind. While she's weighing the pluses and minuses of that arrangement, The Human Torch creates some sort of tornado vortex in which he captures Namor and his horn and tosses them both out to sea. Without the ability to call upon giant sea bastards, Namor decides to chill for a bit, but with a promise...

We haven't heard the last of that guy! For a while, he was basically a series regular, appearing every two to four issues, then again in a couple of early issues of The Avengers, completing the comeback.

Defenders (2005) #1

All right, let's get this over with...

I typically detest these kinds of books. It's not that I don't care for humour in a comic book. It certainly has its place. I just don't like it when it's overdone and in this book, it (predictably) is.

I can list three reasons why humour-heavy stories generally don't work for me.

1. The humour eats up too much space. 

Nightmare visits Doctor Strange to warn him that Dormammu and Umar The Unholy have joined forces to invade Earth.

I've recapped the first six pages. That revelation is surrounded by jokes surrounding Wong's place in the Doctor's household and an explanation as to why Nightmare is suddenly the comical type even though he's never, ever, displayed that personality trait in the past.

2. It can overshadow some quality moments.

Writers Keith Giffen and J.M. DeMatteis have been around quite a while. They know their stuff. And here they have Doctor Strange capture The Avenging Son rather well, I think.

Pretty cool way to describe Namor, actually. It took a long, rambling argument to get there, of course. At one point, even Namor says "There is no point to this prattling" and he's right. Half of it is filler. The writers might as well admit they're wasting our time because their story is so thin.

3. It diminishes the threat. 

Here's would-be planet conqueror Dormammu complaining about his mom.

And I'm supposed to believe that this guy is dangerous.

The next few pages are mostly of Namor and Bruce Banner tossing insults at one another, because that's what Giffen and DeMatteis enjoy, until Strange teleports all of them to Dormammu's realm. But of course, hilarity ensues!

I suppose Namor had to be told that the Hulk was on the other side of the barrier. In case you can't see him either, that's him at bottom left.

Anyway, I hated this book and unlike some of the other series I've read recently, I don't look forward to continuing it. It's clear that nothing of consequence will happen anyway so why bother? There is so much material involving The Sub-Mariner, I'm sure I can keep busy until I have to force issue #2 down.

Daredevil (1964) #7

I may have gotten a bit of a break earlier today. The book below was available on Comixology for $0.99, down from $16.99.

It was apparently released today so I can't help but think that the price was set in error. The book is not part of a current sale and even if it were, 94% would be a pretty incredible sale!

So I bought it, of course. It collects 20 books in total; 18 issues of Tales To Astonish, one of Tales Of Suspense and, somewhat surprisingly, Daredevil #7.

This is actually the first book in the collection. While Stan Lee indeed wrote this issue, it was drawn by Wally Wood and not Gene Colan, as the Masterworks cover might lead one to believe.

The book starts with Namor sitting on his throne (as he often does), being questioned about why he hasn't taken over the surface world yet. Check this out...

Now that's Krang and he's full of shit. Among the reasons he states for invading the surface is a desire by his fellow Atlanteans to "bask in the heat of the sun". Yeah. Say that again slowly, Krang, and think it through.

That's Dorma on the steps.

Namor decides to go negotiate...something...unclear...with the surface so he hops on his Turtlecycle and heads for New York.

I'm three pages in and absolutely loving the ridiculousness of this book.

Namor's is unfamiliar with human law so he looks for a good lawyer or, alternatively, the very first one he comes across. Of all the wild coincidences, that happens to be Matt Murdock!

In Murdock's office, Namor lays out his master plan.

Hey, leave me out of this!

The absurdity of the plan is explained to Namor. The Sub-Mariner doesn't care for the response so he goes to plan B, which is to demolish the city in order to be arrested. Then "the man" will have to bring Namor to court. It's brilliant!

But not really. This book is full of such leaps of logic. When Daredevil attempts to stop Namor, his reasoning is that he should kick him off the pier because maybe "a dash of cold water will cool him off and make him listen". How can you possibly think that's a good idea?

Shortly thereafter, Daredevil recognizes that Namor is essentially invincible in water and, well, gets his ass kicked in record time. Namor recognizes that 'devil's a solid dude though so he doesn't let him drown, even if his handling is a little rough.

Namor decides this is as good a time as any to surrender so he can get himself to court which, apparently is an overnight process because he's in front of a judge the next day. But during the trial, Dorma shows up with a fish bowl on her head to let Namor though that that bitch Krang has attempted a takeover of Atlantis. Ah, shrimp!

Namor naturally wants to head back to Atlantis but now he has crimes to pay for. The puny humans attempt to stop him but it's pointless. Namor makes short work of police, military, etc. He gets a HUGE power push in this book, to use a pro wrestling term. He is made out to be unstoppable.

Daredevil, however, won't quit (and is fearless, as we know) and it is his courage that gets underscored. He loses the fight, but earns respect. 

Can't measure heart, baby!

Namor heads back to Atlantis to kick Krang to the curb, a story which I hope to read in the next issue of this compilation.

This issue, by the way, is also notable for being the first one in which Daredevil wears his red suit.

The Invaders (1975) #3

While my original intent was to read and review Sub-Mariner appearances one random issue at a time, a recent sale made the book below impossible to pass up.

Collects Giant-Size Invaders #1; Invaders (1975) #1-22, Annual #1; Marvel Premiere (1972) #29-30; Avengers (1963) #71.

All the books above for $11, if I recall correctly. It would have been foolish to pass that up in order to follow a self-appointed process.

The first part of this compilation (Giant-Sized Invaders #1 and the first two issues of the Invaders regular series) is not particularly good and while Namor has his moments to shine, he seems completely out of character. It isn't until issue three or so that we start to see his impetuousness start to shine and it is for that reason that this is the first issue from the volume to be featured here.

In those early issues, Namor is quick to throw out silly nicknames (particularly for his on-again-off-again rival, The Human Torch), bad puns and cheesy tough guy talk. Captain America is the leader and therefore understandably the more stoic, serious member of the team but such behaviour from Namor still reads awkwardly.

Because it isn't a party until the savage avenging son arrives!

To be fair, Captain America comments on Namor's odd speech patterns and Namor points to his dual human/Atlantean ancestry as a cause. I'm not sure that makes a lot of sense but at least it's acknowledged.

Anyway, the real conflict begins when a German sub is captured. Namor wants to beat some information out of one of their prisoners but Cap-Am explains that that's not the way they do things. So we have a slight disagreement in methodology, a nice change from every character "sounding" the same to this point.

But the big blow up takes place when The Invaders are given their next mission, which is to clear a path for Winston Churchill to sail from Bermuda to England. They are shown a video of a big bastard who is expected to cause trouble.

Being racist assholes, everyone assumes that because he has blue skin, he MUST be from Atlantis (okay, maybe it's not so bad in this case). If that's the case, Namor wants to handle this on his own.

None of his colleagues want him to go alone but instead of just following him and jumping in if he ends up needing help, they fight him instead.

Namor fights them off and, with Bucky's help, flies off in his Atleantean ship to do battle with U-Man. But that titanic battle takes place in issue #4!

After a bumpy start, this feels like the first time that Namor has appeared in this book and I was looking forward to reading the next issue. More on that later!

X-Men Red (2018) #1 Variant Covers

The first issue of X-Men Red was solicited a few weeks before I started this little blog so since I wasn't looking for him at the time, I was not aware that Namor is actually a part of the team.

THE FIRST SENSATIONAL ARC OF AN ALL-NEW TEAM OF X-MEN STARTS HERE! 

JEAN GREY is back! Returned to a world she doesn't recognize, the First Lady of the X-MEN gathers an unlikely team — NIGHTCRAWLER, NAMOR and LAURA KINNEY (A.K.A. ALL-NEW WOLVERINE) — to face an evil that threatens to tear down XAVIER's dream by any means necessary!

I haven't read this book and if it continues to be priced at $4.99 for the digital version, it will be a damn long time before I do. But I did find out that, in typical Marvel fashion, it comes with several variant covers. One of them happens to include some biographical info about our Prince so I've set up a page specific to displaying it. It is called "Basics" above. It lists some (debatable) key moments in Namor's history and therefore might make for a handy reference guide as well.

There's another variant cover which displays Namor very prominently but unfortunately, it was "drawn" by the notorious Rob Liefeld. You can have a look at that below or, alternatively, stab yourself in the eyeballs with rusty butter knives. The end result will be similar.