Marvel Two-In-One (1974) #2: "Manhunters From The Stars!"

After spending some time focusing on one of Namor's less common foes/allies, we're going to have a look at a book featuring one of his most frequent in the Thing.

The book starts with an appearance by Namorita, which is a nice unexpected treat. A character named Wundarr falls from the sky into the ocean near Hydrobase where Namor's cousin is conveniently hanging out. She leaps to the rescue.

She gives him mouth-to-mouth and starts to crush on him right away. This Wundarr guy is clearly confused though and when Namor shows up, Wundarr panics and beats it. Namorita knows something's up and begs Namor to help her help him.

Cease your prattling, woman! There are so many such scenes in the comics of the time...

But what IS the deal with this Wundarr fella? We sneak onto a spaceship to find out. Would you believe that is dad was an astronomer who predicted that their planet was going to be destroyed and...

How ludicrous, right? 😐 

We'll ignore the familiarity of all that (I assume it was done with a wink anyway) and see what happens when Wundarr reaches dry land again. He crashes into New York city, wrecking a couple of cars and getting plowed into by a cab. His child-like minds perceives the cab episode as an attack against him and he seeks to defend himself. 

Wouldn't you know it, the Thing is walking nearby. It seems that wherever Wundarr goes, a member of the Marvel pantheon happens to be out chilling. The Thing sees Wundarr freaking out and decides to put an end to it.

I would buy a book of nothing but punches drawn by Gil Kane. 

Namor and Namorita and arrive and, for a change, Namor attempts to prevent further fighting. 

The aliens who had been tracking Wundarr feel that Namor's sudden presence will probably make it less likely that the Thing will end up killing Wundarr so they beam down with their robot assassin. For all that their "mortoid" got partial cover treatment, the two heroes dispatch it in a page and a half.

The aliens are impressed by this and decide to beam back to their ships. Namor and Namorita, who was so concerned about Wundarr's well-being earlier, essentially say "okay bye!" and take off as well, leaving the Thing holding the bag, so to speak.

Apparently they can.

 
I had a few of the later issues of this series as a kid and hated them because the Thing was among my least favourite characters. I tended to buy them for the guest star.

This one surpassed expectations and while the panels above may not demonstrate it fully, a big reason for that was Gil Kane's dynamic art, particularly during fight scenes. I've owned this book for months,  picking it up for a buck during a sale at the time, and I'd been holding off reading because I wasn't particularly looking forward to it. If I'd have known Kane had handled its art chores, I would have read it much, much sooner.

Incredible Hercules #122: "Love & War (part two)"

We recently had a look at a Hercules appearance in a Namor book, and a time when they were both members of the Avengers, so let's close out this little theme with Namor appearing in a Hercules book instead. 

Ha ha ha ha ha! I love Namora's expression back there...

See, she and Hercules have been getting on quite nicely of late, and when Namor shows up at the end of #121 in the following manner, Hercules can't help but jump to conclusions.

But it's not about that at all, as Namor makes abundantly clear. 

Namora straightens the boys out, pointing out that they are actually on the same side, since the Amazons have attacked Hercules as well.

Oh. 

So the three gang-up to confront Hippolyta, Queen of the Amazons, about the whole thing. 

That's Hercules asking for a moment. Namor generously gives him 15 minutes to charm Hippolyta.

Once at Triton, Hercules is instead again attacked, and blinded, by the Amazons. Namora rescues him.

Namor accesses the station through underwater tunnels but finds out the hard way that they were rigged with explosives. 

As Namor begins to tear the place apart looking for Hippolyta, he is surprised to find...

Ah, well, I guess Namor appears in the next issue too. I did not know that. 

That's good news, actually, because I've enjoyed this story thus far. I've criticized the 2005 Defenders series for trying so hard to be humourous and, in my opinion, failing miserably at it. This creative team (Greg Pak, Fred Van Lente, Clayton Henry) is far better at pulling it off because the humour doesn't dominate the story or reduce the threat.

Also, a character like Hercules lends himself to humour far better than a Doctor Strange, Silver Surfer or, for that matter, Namor, who isn't there for laughs.

Love & War is a five-part story and it wouldn't kill me if Namor was involved throughout, but I suspect he will exit after the next one. Too bad.

Avengers (1963) #268: "The Kang Dynasty"

Writing up a post yesterday about an early team up between Namor and Hercules reminded me that I still have a few Avengers issues from the 80s to read. The two characters were both team members during that run but egos got in the way and they didn't always get along so well.

Let's see see if they get chummier as the story progresses.  For that matters, let's see if Namor even shows up because he was not a big part of the previous two or three issues (the recaps for which can be found by clicking the "Avengers (1963)" tag at right). 

The team is split in two at this point. Time-hopper Kang has abducted a few members (specifically they are The Wasp, Black Knight and Hercules) and dropped them in limbo in an elaborate scheme to control the various alternate timelines.

To the rest of the team (Namor among them), they seem to have vanished without a trace. By analyzing the machinery the abducted members were using at the time, they are able to deduce that Kang is the kidnapper. 

Hm. That conclusion was reached rather quickly...

The book then cuts to Kang's captives for a while as they find their way to his lair in limbo but upon our return to the real world, we find Jarvis watching protests, and counter-protests, surrounding Namor's Avengers membership. This has been going on for a while now so clearly they're going somewhere with this and I'm eager to see where that is. 

Namor doesn't care about all that noise, at least at the moment, because his segment of the team is working on a time machine of their own so that they can find and assist their teammates. It proves to be frustrating work, as you might expect time-machine building to be, and Namor is not the most patient dude around.

They do get it to work though, of course. When they arrive in limbo, they struggle to find their teammates until they get a huge clue, literally.

Hercules seems like the most likely suspect so they head in the direction from which this android emerged. They find the other members in no time and help subdue Kang, but another Kang takes the entire team down. 

Ha! I love that next title...

Not bad, we moved along a fair bit, which is good because this series has had a tendency to drag at times. I don't blame writer Roger Stern for that, I think he had to pace around that awful Secret Wars II mini series that ran at the time but it was good to get back to a normal pace. Namor is starting to fit in better and his difficulties in doing so were an interesting aspect of Stern's handling of him. I suspect this story concludes in the next issue so we'll probably get to that fairly soon.

Sub-Mariner (1968) #29: "Fear Is the Hunter!"

Namor's rivalries with other strongmen such as The Thing from the Fantastic Four and with the incredible Hulk are more celebrated, but in reading his adventures across the Marvel universe, I've come to enjoy his interactions with Hercules as well.

The Olympian demigod and the Avenging Son met up in the latter's own series in the early 70s. It would have been among their first encounters (they met earlier in an Avengers book, Hercules even makes mention of it in this issue) so we're going to check out how that went.  

Namor had spent the previous couple of issues on land and he's on his way home, however...

See that staff he's holding? The Huntsman has been tasked by Zeus to bring Hercules home as Zeus feels Earth is no place for one of Hercules' stature.

Huntsman uses the staff to call sirens to enchant Namor to do the Huntsman's bidding. 

It takes very little time for Namor to reach the island and therefore Hercules. And of course it also takes little time for them to come to blows because as Herc ponders whether he can ever have some "me" time, we go all FKOOM and BTOK...

Their titanic clash causes a huge boulder to crash down towards the town. Namor is able to fly down towards it and destroy it and in doing so, clear his head of the mind-control spell cast by the sirens.
 

The Huntsman knows his control over Namor has broken so he uses his magic staff to call upon three huge monsters to destroy the two heroes. Namor and Hercules waste no time mounting an offensive.

That's interesting. I wonder if this inspired the "Fastball Special" that Colossus and Wolverine of the X-Men used to do?

Anyway, they battle the monsters for a while but Huntsman strikes Hercules down.

Namor seeks to help his fellow warrior and achieves greater success than he'd anticipated. One of the monsters is made of stone. Namor chucks one of its fragments at Huntsman, separating him from the staff. 

Separating Huntsman from the staff causes the massive creatures to disappear. Hercules is preparing to beat Huntsman senseless when his dad pops in.

Namor impressed Zeus. Not bad at all. There's a reason Namor is so arrogant. As the man said, it ain't braggin' if you back it up!  

So Hercules goes home, Namor busts up Zeus' staff and heads back to the sea and we conclude our little one-and done!

It was a little hard to perceive that goofy-looking Huntsman as a credible threat, even with that magical staff, and I wish more panel-time had been devoted to the scrap between Namor and Hercules. When Namor goes to encounter Hercules, he passes Atlantis in what is a largely pointless scene. That page space could have been better used to expand the battle the two heroes but aside from those two minor criticisms, that was an entertaining read. 

Uncanny X-Men (1963) #513: "Utopia, Part 2"

X-(Wo)man Loa's appearance in the last book I reviewed reminded me that it had been quite some time since I checked one of Namor's appearance in an X-Men book. Having read one as a result, I'm reminded why that is. 

As the cover reveals, this is chapter two so let's include the handy recap.

It seems that whenever I pick up an X-Men book which features Namor fairly prominently on the cover, he ends up being an afterthought inside. This is the case again.

Emma Frost is being introduced to the team of Dark X-Men she is going to lead. It is rather underwhelming.  Norman Osborn allows her to add members and she requests but a single one.

Frost probably has a scheme of her own brewing so perhaps Namor's role in future issues will increased and significant.

As it is, Osborn apparently has the authority place a curfew on the city of San Francisco. A group of young mutants chooses to challenge said curfew so Osborn's team of X-Men are sent out to, supposedly, maintain the peace.  That includes Namor.

The real X-Men are watching the proceedings from afar so one would expect the two teams to clash in the following chapter. Or have a nice long chat, these books seem to enjoy those. 

This book gives a little context to the only other Utopia book I've read, the dreadfully tedious Dark X-Men: The Beginning #1. That's about it.