Captain America (1968) #365, "Submission"

It surprises me that, in light of how often Captain America has been included in this blog, this is the first time a book from his original series is reviewed. Continuing to spotlight Namor's appearance in various cross-company events, today, we look in on Acts of Vengeance.

There doesn't appear to be much more to Acts of Vengeance than villains swapping out heroes to harass. The reasoning is that the lack of familiarity with the villains' abilities will give those evil bastards an edge.

The Red Skull appears to be engineering this though it seems a well-dressed, mysterious man is perhaps manipulating him as well. My guess is it's Loki but that is not revealed at this point.

Captain America flies into the scene in an aircraft referred to as Flagship, He is headed for Avengers Island (they had an island?) then dazzles us with his power of observation.

Are you absolutely sure? Check again if the island has disappeared.

Once on land, Cap gets an explanation from the Avengers' butler, Jarvis.

Yes, of course. Would you have been less surprised if it had been blasted into space? Shifted into another dimension?

While Cap recovers his wits, we encounter Namor while he is searching the seas for the spawn of his recently deceased wife, Marrina. At this point in his career, this is a common hobby for him. it seems to always be what he's doing when he happens to swim by.

Namor is approached by the mysterious man from earlier and offered a partnership with the likes of the Red Skull, Magneto (again) and Doctor Doom (again) but the prince basically ignores him and moves on.

Namor then arrives at Avengers Island hours later which is odd because he wasn't going there. Presumably he was giving his spawn-quest a rest for a moment.

Namor is also quite perceptive.

He roams the inside the mansion a while looking for clues and is caught unaware by...The Controller!

What the hell was he doing down there? If he didn't know Namor was a member, he might have been waiting down there a hell of a while for someone to swim by.

Controller (typically an Iron Man villain, hence his appearance in this book under the Acts of Vengeance banner) has Namor under his control (hence his name) and he aims him right at Captain America.

It just so happens that the Captain was recently told by what appears to be an Avengers employee that Namor has been spotted swimming nearby. As he goes out to meet with his Avengers teammate, he is met with a hell of a greeting.

The fight is on!

During the scrap, Cap notices the disc on Namor's neck and concludes that it must be one of the Controller's control devices.

He had to be told an island was missing but THAT he noticed. And Controller isn't even one of his typical foes.

Namor's power and the dangers of facing him are both highlighted very well during the fight but knowing that the Avenging Son is under control leads even a dimwit like Cap to make the obvious connection. Destroy the disc and you should be able to sever that control.

Hyaaa!  Nice move, flag man!

Namor's brain pretty shorts out so he loses consciousness. Cap expresses some concern that he might have turned a long-time friend and ally into a vegetable and directs his anger towards the Controller.

That fight is scheduled for the next issue but being that Namor is incapacitated, I doubt he'll play much a part. But he kicked plenty of ass in this one.