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.