Avengers vs. X-Men #8, "Round 8"

When it comes to Namor's appearances in team books, whether as a guest-star or as an actual member of said team, I sometimes struggle to choose where to direct my attention between the Avengers, Defenders, X-Men, Invaders and Fantastic Four. As a result, the next three posts (perhaps more) will be about times that those teams have met either as allies or foes.

We begin with Avengers vs. X-Men #8. From what I can gather, Namor appears in the earlier issues of the mini series but being that he gets cover treatment here, we're going to start at the end. It seems that he does not appear in issues 9 through 12.

Marvel's attempts at bringing us up to date sometimes only add to the confusion but they do a nice job here.

So Stark messed everything up again. Got it.

I'd heard that there were some...uhm...strained feeling about Namor/Atlantis and Wakanda so I'm actually eager to read this now even though nearly everything of Marvel I've read that was published in this century has been complete ass. So let's go!

Sure enough, Namor and his "fish army" (Iron Man's words) are devastating Wakanda. The Avengers retaliate, getting their shots in on Namor one by one.

But once a Phoenix-powered Namor decides to stop dicking around, he quickly regains the upper hand.

There isn't much more to it than that. Namor wrecks stuff, takes some ineffective hits and delivers some blows. Much of this book is a giant fight, as one should expect.

How does he ultimately get taken down? Well...We're not really told but the Scarlet Witch is the one who pulls it off.

That seems plausible enough. Her ability to, in effect, cause unlikely events to take place could cause the Phoenix Force (or whatever the hell it is called) to exit Namor's body as it did as a result of the confrontation above. Fair enough.

A couple of things are unclear but perhaps that is simply from lack of having read the earlier issues.

For one, I believe it is known that the Phoenix corrupts its host. So why is everyone so eager to shit on Namor over this attack? Captain America (granted, an arrogant asshole, IMO) mutters "Damn you, Namor" at some point and later tells him he should be ashamed of himself.

Perhaps the Phoenix force is like having too much booze? It "releases" you to do things you normally wouldn't?

And nice behaviour by The Thing over on the right. Granted the two of them have a history and Namor essentially devastated a city (perhaps a country) but again, he was not of sound mind at the time. As Captain America and Spider-Man look on, who are the heroes in this story again?

And what IS Namor's motivation here, exactly? He tells the Black Panther at some point "You must know I would not stand for this". For...what? He also says that they (The Avengers) have brought this on themselves. It certainly sounds like Namor's actions were an act of retaliation.

Following its exit from Namor's body, The Phoenix Force was spread (presumably equally) among the remaining four people who shared it with him.

The Avengers, realizing that it took all of them to beat just 20% of the force, decide to bail to K'un-Lun (home of Iron Fist) rather than to attempt to battle all of them.

I would argue that it technically only took one of them, the Scarlet Witch, but that would diminish the gruesome, massive compound fracture that Red Hulk suffered and that was completely ignored throughout the rest of the book. He's just standing there in a group shot at the end like having an arm nearly severed was just another day at the office.

Acknowledging that I'm jumping in well into the story so that a lack of clarity might be caused by that alone, this was a pretty entertaining book. I've read enough Marvel books published in the 2000s that are little more than characters having extended meaningful glances (can you even call that reading?) that the large scale action of this one was a refreshing surprise.

Namor The Sub-Mariner (1990) #3, "Meeting Of The Board"

Today, we're going to move forward in Namor's 1990s series begun by John Byrne. The first two issues were reviewed earlier, just seek the label at right under title's name to check out those entries, if you're so inclined.

Issue #2 ended on a pretty sharp cliffhanger as Namor fought the Griffin in the waters outside the statue of liberty. Its final panel was of the Griffin emerging from the water, prepared to maul Namor's current budding love interest, Carrie...something.

Issue gives us resolution.

Boo! Hiss! Bullshit!

The Griffin was unconscious and thrown out of the water so he was never a threat to Carrie Whatever. What a friggin' letdown.

Namor then flies this Carrie to visit her dad in the hospital since pops had a heart attack in the previous issue. Little does he know he is being watched.

Nobody dies forever. This "Headhunter" has been reading comics for a while then!

Namor uses his access to the Avengers files to track the Griffin back to Roxxon oil. He believes that his foray into the business world has drawn the wrong kind of attention so he's off to make a point.

He starts by taking the Griffin, whom he'd caged nearby, and uses the beast as a sort of wilder Pegasus.

Worthy steed indeed! I would have kept that going for a while!

He crashes into a Roxxon board meeting and questions one of the fat cats there but gets no answers. He shrugs off the failure to gather information but leaves them to deal with Griffin as a "reward". We also find out that the creepy Marss twins are still keeping tabs on him.

Aside from the dud resolution to issue two's cliffhanger, this moved moved things along nicely and began to build interest in another character in this Headhunter chick. Not a bad read on a Sunday afternoon.

Fantastic Four (1961) #103, "At War With Atlantis!"

It struck me a few days ago that I overlooked a first anniversary with this silly little blog late last month. The first post, reviewing Fantastic Four #102, went up on January 24th last year.

It seems to make sense to review #103 today then.

In 102, Namor had found an unconscious Magneto and brought him back to good health. Magneto wasted no time showing his prick ways in response; he began to manipulate events in order to trigger a war between Atlantis and the surface world. Some gratitude!

The first few pages of this issue revolve around the Fantastic Four trying to cool down the U.S. military. They want some time to try to prevent the battle from taking place at all.

Well, most of them do. Reed "Mr. Fantastic" Richards sends his wife "Invisible Woman" Susan off to take Franklin to be babysat. If there's one member of the superhero community that Namor might actually listen to, it's her, yet Richards dispatches her to do mom stuff. Good plan.

As they reach the main Atlantean ship, Magneto plays his next card.

What he does is launch a missile at the Fantasticar. Namor, being opposed to that course of action, chases after the rocket. The FF blow the missile out of the sky from a safe distance but the Sub-Mariner is caught in the blast and falls into the ocean.

This gives Magneto the window he was waiting for.

His plan is inadvertently assisted by the Invisible Woman's appearance. Evidently she made good time. Thinking that she would also make a great hostage, Magneto hauls her in.

And where are the remaining Four at this point? Well, making the same mistake everyone seems to make when facing off against the Sub-Mariner, and ignoring advice to the contrary, The Thing jumped into the ocean after him.

Results were predictable.

As he resurfaces, Namor sees that the Atlantean flagship is not where it is supposed to be. Sensing something is amiss, he seeks it out.

The FF interfere, of course, having so sense of what Namor is up to. Once they do manage to restrain him, he spills.

Germany, I believe.

But that's not important right now. Coming to the realization that they've all been had, the FF and Namor enter the ship only to be greeted by the master of magnetism and his prisoners.

Hey, it's Dorma! I don't recall her involvement in the earlier issue. Regardless, there she is, captive, as usual.

And so we reach the conclusion of this chapter. What will Richards and Namor do??  Maybe we'll find out a year from now. ;-)

Iron Man (1968) Annual #10, "Two If By Sea"

I'm full of shit. I've been saying for a while that the annuals the year of the Atlantis Rising were tied-in to that story but that's not true at all. They are years apart, in fact. The 1989 annuals, rather, told the story called Atlantis Attacks. I was confusing the two events.

That means I get to read this book after sitting on it for so long. I had been avoiding it to avoid Atlantis Rising spoilers but it has nothing to do with that story so let's finally have at 'er..

This is part two of Atlantis Attacks. Part one was, unexpectedly, in the Silver Surfer annual that year.

We open with a dude named Ghaur making a pitch to a who's who of Namor enemies. In particular, we have Llyra, Krang and it seems that Attuma sits on the Atlantean throne as this point. Crickey!

Meanwhile, Iron Man is tracking a criminal organization called the Maggia as they, in turn, are tracking a ship. And wouldn't you know it, Namor just happens to fly by as he searches for spawns of his late wife, Marrina.

I...didn't know that was a hobby of his. I am learning a lot from this book so far.

Namor spots the ship that the Maggia is eyeing while Iron Man is eyeing them. As Namor approaches said ship, they open fire on him.

But why?? Because the ship is full of Hydra agents, that's why, which Iron Man spots with his spy-cam.

Hydra doesn't want some hero type hanging around so they figured they'd just waste Namor but with Iron Man arriving as well, and now facing sure defeat, the terrorists blow up their own ship in a mass suicide.

The heroes head to Stark's office where they track the ship using its serial number. At this point, I'm asking myself why Namor would give a crap about any of this but the writer's got that covered.

Fair enough!

As they head towards the business to which the ship is registered to investigate the Maggia/Hydra connection, Namor feels the need for a rejuvenating dip in the ocean and in yet another incredible coincidence...

They sure could! So the boys split up.

Iron Man visits the visits the business and finds it crawling with Hydra agents preparing to delivering a highly addictive drug to the States. He trashes the place, murders their leader (there's no other word for it) and heads off to rejoin Namor.

Upon their reunion, Namor reveals his own findings to his bullet-headed friend. There are Atlantean (they may be technically Lemurians, I have yet to make a clear distinction) soldiers hiding under ships at nearby locks.

They'd planned to use the ships to provide cover for an invasion of their own, I guess.

Iron Man decides that he'll take on the soldiers while Namor prevents the Hydra ship from getting away, which he does to great effect.

But much like they did with their first ship, Hydra has the vessel ready to explode should they be met with defeat, and so...

Iron Man is therefore convinced that Namor has died at this point. That may explain why Namor doesn't seem to appear much in any of the other 1989 annuals despite the Atlantis-based theme.

That story had enough Namor content to make it worthwhile but this book is 64 pages long and the "main event" only accounted for about half of that. Some of the remaining material is little more than filler but there was another story which had my attention.

Andromeda gets what I believe to be rare spotlight material as she stars in her own story. She heads to Atlantis to confront Attuma about his invasion of the surface world and in doing so reveals a connection between the two of which I was not aware.

Wow, no kidding? I only knew of Andromeda as some Atlantean warrior but saw little reason for her to stand out. That she is the daughter of one of Namor's classic villains was cool to find out and I kind of want to read more about her now.

Namor The First Mutant (2010) #1, "Royal Blood, Part One"

I approach this book with some trepidation. Just about everything I've read involving Namor that was written in this century so far as been complete ass. This series was rather short-lived so I'm a little suspicious. Nonetheless, we dive in.

Even though this is the first issue, apparently we need an explanation as to what has happened in other books prior to this. Let's see...

Dracu...what?

Dubious premise but let's roll with it.

All right, so Namor seeks out this old one-eyed crone to obtain the location of the...*checks notes*...Aqueos, which I guess is what we call underwater vampires.

Namor orders her to get to the damn point then, with location in hand, seeks backup. He heads to Atlantis, currently a dead city (again??), to command the help of one General Kadar but finds the military man to be mortally wounded and many of his soldiers slain.

The Vault Of Law. That's what he's about to say. And he confirms that the damage was done by these Aqueos creatures.

Namor recruits the buff dude holding Kadar, named Husam, and his little brother Husni. The brothers and the hot redhead we later find out is called Abira are collectively known as the Tridents and while Namor makes it clear that he is settling for them and they are clear that they are cooperating out of family obligation rather than respect for Namor, an uneasy alliance is forged nonetheless.

Off they go.

If you feel that Husni sounds something like a Star Trek red shirt, I compliment your sound instincts.

On the way, Namor explains that the Vault to which Kadar referred is a chest that only an Atlantean king can open. The reluctant team finds a cave so deep and dark that they struggle to see their way inside despite their superior Atlantean eyesight.

Husni, in a very well executed moment of tension, zigs when he should zag and takes a different path than the rest of the group. They can hear him but not see him. They eventually track him down but not before he meets an apparently grisly demise. He does, however inadvertently, lead them to the prize.

I'm not sure I understand how the head was put in the Vault in the first place. Perhaps that was explained in an earlier X-Men issue.

The Namor-led Tridents are now surrounded by underwater vampiric assholes though. Namor scraps with their leader and for a moment feels like he might recognize him. That's got me a curious.

Husam, noble warrior that he is, provides Namor with the weapon the Avenging Son needs to dispatch his enemy and get away so, well, they do.

The vampire leader is not going to take this lying down, however.

Well goddamn. I doubt there are many books out there featuring Namor that would fit in the horror category but this one firmly does, in my opinion.

A lot happened in this book, which is a nice change from some of the stories from around the same time which are little more than people staring at one another from across a table.

I quite enjoyed Husam as a reluctant ally though I can't help but feel I shouldn't get too attached to him either. He'd make a good sidekick of sorts though, assuming he makes it through this series.

A mystery around the identity of the Aqueos leader was set and we end on a cliffhanger. There was a lot to like here.