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. ;-)