X-Men Red (2018) #4: "The Hate Machine, Part 4 - Small Problem"

Since the earlier review of a Vision and Scarlet Witch issue turned out to be quite brief, I thought I would knock another one off with this X-Men Red offering.

Namor appeared in the first issue of the series but did not show up again until this one, and barely so. But the first panel below at least explains his purpose in this book. 

They mean that literally. Certain people are being infected with some nanotech that causes them to be susceptible to mind control directed towards killing mutants. The clothes to which the ladies (the Laura Kinney Wolverine on the left and someone annoying named Gabby who goes by Honey Badger on the right) refer include a dampener that negates the tech's effects.

The X-(Wo)Man named Storm had been earlier affected by it and attacked the always lovely Jean Grey. They certainly don't want Namor turning on them.

So again, that's the extent of Namor's inclusion. His appearances in this book, at least first few issues, tend to be quite brief but they do have some significance. 

Namor The First Mutant (2010) #4:

With Halloween just around the corner, let's wrap up Namor's involvement in the Curse Of The Mutants story and his battle against a vampiric version of his grandfather.

You may recall that what was left of Atlantis was under siege from a great number of aquatic vampires. An ancient Atlantean wizard, named simply Logomancer, had found a spell which would eliminate those vampires but its requires the blood of a king. Namor just happens to be one. Knowing it would kill him, he prepares to take one for the team and leads his small army to face undersea bloodsuckers on their turf.

(For a slightly more detailed synopsis of issues one through three of this series, click on the "Curse Of The Mutants" tab under the "Story Arcs" heading at right)

Namor figured out that the leader of the vampires (Aqueos) is none other than his grandfather, Thakorr. While he faces off with him inside the vampire lair, his army outside get a little support.

Ah, there's 'mancer now! The wizard casts a spell that will reduce the power that the vampire horde draws from Thakorr, so that's a start. 

Inside, meanwhile, Namor and Thatkorr are squaring off rather bluntly.

Thakorr is a tough old bird though and starts to turn the tide against Namor, so to speak. Abira is there for the assist, however.

Guess so.

With his advantage restored and again with Abira's assistance, Namor begins the spell Logomancer had provided him with which he could destroy the vampires. It required the blood of a king and he is no longer the only king in the room.

Thakorr's still finds a way to get a final dig in.

Where Thakorr sees failure, Namor sees opportunity. He claims the city in which the Aqueos resided as part of his realm and offers the remaining wretches a chance to continue...huh...living, I guess, if that's what they call it. Don't raid us and I won't kick your ass, is what it boils down to. 

And so ends the Curse Of The Mutants story.

There was a lot packed into these pages including Loa discovering that she could breathe underwater. I thought it had already been established that she could with the aid of the amulet around her neck or something. Perhaps reading these books out of order has confused me there. They do not dwell on it in this book but it seems clear that it will discussed in future stories.

Unfortunately, the book ends with the confirmed deaths of two Atlantean brothers, Husam and Husni, who were fairly prominent in the earlier issues of this series. I enjoyed Husam in particular though he had that feel about him like he wouldn't be around very long. Mind you, in comics, he could pop up in the next line-wide event for all we know.

Rise of the Black Panther (2018) #2: "Coffin For Head of State"

To avoid getting into a tired loop of reviewing Fantastic Four / Avengers / Defenders appearances, I try to choose my material based on whatever might be happening in the real world. It's often dictated by a movie release or an upcoming comics event (lord knows there are many), something along those lines.

Obviously, in this case, it was the sad passing of Chadwick Boseman. I will not pretend that I was a huge fan or any such; I haven't even seen the Black Panther movie. But by all accounts he was a great person making his corner of the world better and on that basis alone, the news came as a shock nonetheless. 

This book is actually far more recent than I realized, having been published in 2018. It takes place very early in T'Challa's (Black Panther, I assume you know) reign as king of Wakanda and debates whether Wakanda is best-served by remaining a secret to the rest of the world or by "going public", as it were. 

But first, Wakandan citizens have gone missing. As Black Panther searches form them, he hears an explosion miles away. Thinking it may be a lead, he heads towards it and finds an Atlantean ship has been shot down.

This upsets Atlantis' most hot-headed monarch who was with said ship and is still a little miffed at the whole thing.

The tradition of two heroes fighting upon first meeting is short-lived in this case as, after Namor mentions seeking traitors to Atlantis, Black Panther deduces that perhaps the two are looking for the same thing. 

Meranno? Isn't that U-Man from the original Invaders books?

Black Panther tracks down his missing countrymen to what appears to be a large barn out in the country. Namor gets tired of waiting for Panther to crack the password to break in stealthily so he uses one of his own.

And we find out that it is, indeed, U-Man! 😀 Dude has teamed up with some asshole from a neighboring country that has it out for Wakanda.
 

We only see Namor land one punch on U-Man and even that is in the background of the panel. Of course, it's not his book, so we can only expect so much, but it was still a little disappointing. 

The prisoners are released, the villains are captured, everyone's relatively happy. 

Black Panther is polite and diplomatic but he again weighs the question of exposure. Namor knows where Wakanda is. He's a friend now but Panther wonders if he will be the next time they meet? That was a nice way to work in more current tensions between Wakanda and Atlantis.

It took a long time for Namor to show up, to the point that I feared he might get the last-panel cliffhanger treatment, but that was not the case. It is clear that this is meant to be their first meeting and I'll be curious to see if it clashes with past material. These two characters have good chemistry. The line between respect and a wicked throw down always feels very, very thin. 

Secret Empire: Brave New World #2: "Sanctuary, Part 2"

To cap off the year, I'm going to knock off a couple of "partial" Namor appearances, meaning anthology books in which he's involved in only one story or so.

I'll start with the second issue of this Secret Empire mini-series. I didn't care for the first one so I do so with some trepidation and low expectations.

The guy above is the new Patriot. We skip his story and that of "Bob from Hydra" to get to Namor's

In issue one, the original Human Torch from the Invaders days and his former sidekick/fellow Invader Toro sought out Namor in Atlantis to seek sanctuary (hence the title of this story) from the terrorist organization known as Hydra. Namor jailed them, fearing that if he helped them hide, Hydra would come after him for it.

We know Namor is often on the wrong side of a conflict but this decision seemed frustratingly inconsistent with his willingness to fight Nazis in WW2. And yet...

 

Okay, maybe that's a bit better. He's offering sanctuary of a sort without appearing to be doing so to save himself the headache of dealing with Hydra. That's one way to look after your peeps. We'll go with that.

Shortly thereafter, Atlantis is attacked. Namor goes to the fray to see what's up. He captures one of the attackers.

Ah, but to what end?

This damage caused in the attack enabled Hammond (the Human Torch, that is) and Toro to escape their cell.  In their attempt to get out of Atlantis, they encounter their rescuer, of sorts.

Nice! I've been jumping about Namor's history for a couple of years now and this is the first time I come across Namora. I only know the basics of her background so am aware that she is in effect a female version of the Avenging Son but know little else about her. Seeing the two butt heads should be fun.

Way to turn this story around after a disappointing start, Marvel.

New Avengers (2013) #7, "Thrones"

Early into the creation of this little blog, I decided that I would follow Namor's adventure from the point that he was brought back into continuity in Fantastic Four #4 in 1962. The material prior to that is often brutally drawn racist nonsense.  Yes, different times and such, but I found it impossible to enjoy.

I might do something similar and block out the last decade or so. It seems that whatever I read in the 2010s is dreadfully dull, especially when it involves around events such as Secret Empire, Dark Reign and Avengers vs. X-Men. I'm going to get into Namor's recent "heel turn", to use a wrestling term, in Avengers then Invaders soon so hopefully those stories are more entertaining.

This one, as is often the case, seemed to have some promise based on its cover, but that's misleading. It's just another gab-fest.

Tony "Iron Man" Stark and Reed "Mr. Fantastic" Richards are discussing the state of affairs and the subject turns to Atlantis. Richards explains that the Wakandas have captured some Atlanteans and plan to try them for war crimes against the Wakandan capital. And so...

"Something went wrong" seems like an understatement based on the image above. Something goes wrong when you clog your toilet. The massacre above looks like more than just something going wrong.

Be that as it may, we cut to another conversation (because that's all this book is) between Namor and T'Challa, the Black Panther. Going contrary to nature, Namor actually offers peace.

The "she" that Panther refers to is his sister Shuri who appears to be in charge at this point.

T'Challa turns out to be quite correct. The next day, as Wakanda's leaders meet. T'Challa recommends a peaceful course of action but Shuri decides against this and declares war on Atlantis.

A war between Atlantis and Wakanda sounds like it could be entertaining as hell. In this book it'll probably be equivalent to watching two dudes play Battleship.

Fear Itself: The Deep (2011) #2

This spin-off mini-series brought together yet another version of the Defenders in its first issue, reviewed here.

After New Atlantis was taken over by several of Namor's enemies, led by Attuma, Namor asked for help from Dr. Strange who, in turn, sent out additional calls for assistance. As a result, Loa from the X-Men, Lyra as a Hulk replacement and the Silver Surfer also provided an assist as the seaside meeting point for Namor and Strange was attacked by a number of aquatic creatures.

Issue 2 opens with the gathering of villains watching the battle from afar.

Namor is gripped with fear and therefore largely useless. Dr. Strange eventually casts a spell to be rid of the sea beasts.

The team regroups to exchange notes. The Surfer tells us what he knows...

Strange then explains that these hammers are creating panic across the globe. The emotions are so strong that they've weakened the veil between dimensions (Yeah, that makes sense...).

From all that, he assumes that Atlantis' attackers and the Undying Ones have formed an alliance.

I don't know. There seems to be a lot of guesswork here. But before we can take too long to ponder it all, they are attacked again.

They defeat those creatures as well with Namor again contributing...nothing. It's not so much that he's paralyzed with fear because he does fly around and gets people out of harm's way and such but he is not involved in the fighting.

Then as they discuss taking the battle straight to New Atlantis' invaders, Lyra gets yanked underwater by yet another sea creature. To be continued!

The previous issue, when the basic premise was set and the team was gathered, was a fun read. This one felt like filler which is pretty bad for 4-issue series. And this deal about emotions breaking down the veil between dimensions? What the hell is that?

Namor was useless and hopefully redeems himself in the back half of the series.

Namor The First Mutant (2010) #3: "Royal Blood: Part Three"

Halloween's a comin' so I'm going to catch up on a couple of books with more of a horror feel, starting with the 3rd issue of Namor The First Mutant.

Issue 1 was read here and #2 was read here.

Atlantis is in mid-rebuild (again) and her forces are depleted so this is a terrible time for underwater vampires (Aqueos) to attack, but sure enough they have.

Namor and the rather fine Abira are chatting with an ancient wizard known only as the Logomancer about how to destroy these creatures. The Logomancer recommends a spell but as they start looking into its requirements a little deeper, Namor dismisses Abira as he would a child.

In order for it to work, the spell needs the blood of a king. ALL of the king's blood. Namor doesn't want Abira to know that he plans to sacrifice himself for his people.

The spell is incomplete. The Logomancer believes that its final part is hidden in a tomb in the Aqueos' hidden city.

So armed with some sort of Atlantean triple lightsaber, and given better directions as to how to find the city and the tomb within it, Namor and his few troops take the battle to the aqua-vampires.

Namor asks Abira along. When they reach the tomb and complete the preparations for the spell that will banish the Aqueos, he levels with her about her role in all this.

As they debate procedure, they are interrupted by the Aqueos leader.

Grandfather, eh? Always good to bump into family.

I haven't come across Thakorr much to this point, from memory, but it's rather clear he hasn't aged well. This story will conclude as of the next issue so I would expect a solid family scrap though it appears by looking at its credits ahead of time, Ariel Olivetti did not pencil and ink that one. Too bad, I've enjoyed his art a great deal.

The Defenders (2012) #1: "Breaker of Worlds Part 1: I Hate Myself And I Want To Die"

My last post involved the Invaders and Avengers so let's go to the third team for which Namor has been prominent member (and no, I don't count the X-Men, at least not yet).

Much of this book, as is often the case with teams coming together or reuniting, involves the recruiting process. Interestingly, Hulk is doing the recruiting. He first contacts Doctor Strange then directs his attention to "the water man".

Sadly, the slaughter is interrupted by Strange's summons. The non-team then seeks to collect the Silver Surfer as Hulk explains the situation to them a bit more....

...But when the Surfer asks when they leave to stop/smash/kill Nul, Hulk bails on them.

Sure, you messed up now everyone can bail your green ass out, but you feel really really bad about it.

Meh, I don't really like the Hulk as a team member anyway. At least he recommends another member, and this is how we end up with Red She-Hulk on the team.

Iron Fist is recruited last because he provides...access to a plane. Great. Well, it's cool to see him anyway and this team should have a fluid roster.

They track this Nul character to Wundagore Mountain but as they near their destination, their plane is shot down. Making things worse for Iron Fist is that he's shot through the chest upon reaching solid ground.

This book reminds me a little too much of the 2005 Defenders book that I loathe.

To illustrate, consider that the first few pages of the book told of odd, mysterious occurrences around the planet and later The Hulk revealed a threat that even *he* was afraid of. Yet when the team's plane gets shot down, Iron Fist expresses concern about its cost. When She-Hulk is asked to join the group, her first question is whether she can bring her "big ass sword".

They don't take the threat particularly seriously, so neither do I, but at least the final page (the two images above) reestablishes a sense of danger for the team. It has a better balance so while I probably won't be in any hurry to move further along in the series, I didn't detest it like the 2005 book.

X-Men Red (2018) #1, "The Hate Machine Part 1: Heal the World"

Marvel is celebrating the release of the Dark Phoenix film, though perhaps not its early results, and while Namor's history with Jean Grey may not be as noteworthy as the one he shares with some other members, he was a part of of her version of the X-Men just last year.

Once again, his appearance is brief, but at least makes sense. Jean has consulted with some of the most brilliant minds on earth and hatched out a plan to make the world a better place for mutants. Her first stop? Why, Atlantis, of course.

Maybe you'd get more if you were wearing pants when they arrived.

Atlantis seems like an odd choice until she elaborates a bit.

Jean arranges to speak before the U.N. (just like that) and states her case that mutants need to be recognized as a group even though they are not a nation as such (and attempts at having a nation specifically for mutants have just made them easier to target). This is where Jean's friends come in.

Once the meeting is at an end, the various members of the team are complimenting Jean on her progress when one of the ambassadors who questioned her drops by for a chat. It is quickly clear though that the ambassador is under some sort of mind-control and even more so when her head quite literally explodes.

Jean is suspected of having caused the ambassador's rather spectacularly gruesome death but Namor steps in to defend her from trigger-happy UN cops.

Nightcrawler whisks the team away to regroup, Namor included. The villain is revealed to be one Cassandra Nova, a name which...means nothing to me at all.

A decent enough premise though I'd be surprised if it hadn't been attempted before. I don't expect Namor's face time to increase much and while he had a good reason to be there initially, I wonder if he'll have a good reason to stay. We'll see how he's worked in.

Namor The First Mutant (2010) #2: "Royal Blood, Part Two"

Curse of The Mutants was not universe-wide, to the best of my knowledge, but it hit several X-Men books, ran for more than half a year, and spawned a number of tie-in mini-series.

It also launched another Namor series, the first issue of which was reviewed here on February 1st. We now move on to #2.

Following the events of the first issue, Atlantis now has a pronounced vampire problem. Namor is discussing manpower with one of his military men, Jian, who makes his first appearance in this book.

Jian announces that for a variety of reasons, including a lack of trust in Namor's leadership, he can only round up 36 warriors to battle the vampires. To his mind, that is enough to wipe out the vampire horde (Aqueos). I like the cut of his jib.

The two men receive a visit from other members of the X-(Wo)Men, being Emma Frost (the White Queen) and Loa whom we met in that Fear Itself: The Deep book I read earlier. Good to see her. She seems nice.

Me too. Well, I questioned it, anyway. I guess we're building up to something.

That conversation is interrupted as well, this time by Husam and Abira of a group called The Tridents. They tell Namor of a vampire attack on their own reef.

Writer Stuart Moore does a neat thing here. While the characters are chatting, the panel will occasionally switch to some Atlantean getting wiped out by one of the vampire creatures.

It creates a good effect of danger and trouble circling and tightening around the good guys and it offsets the tedium of watching a bunch of people just talking. Pay attention, Bendis.

See the old lady at bottom right, there? That's the Oudvrou and she is has some history with these underwater vampires. She is the third person to interrupt a conversation in this book.

When Namor asks her to share what she knows, she tells a seemingly pointless story in which Namor looked like fool as a youth. In effect, she humiliates him publicly.

While Namor deliberates her fate the power goes out. Upon investigating with his fellow Atlanteans, the danger that had been closing in earlier is now made clear.

Husam and Abira head off to turn the power back on while Namor and Jian have their backs. Namor is telling Jian that he is starting to connect the various clues around the Aqueos and their goals when Husam and Abira return to vanquish the vampire army with a powerful light.

Namor doesn't quite finish his thought. Instead he vows that four hours hence, they are becoming the hunters rather than the prey.

We're not particularly more knowledgeable about the Aqueos at this point then but they are further established as a legitimate threat. Onwards to #3.

Secret Empire: Brave New World (2017) #1: "Sanctuary"

While I have not read a Marvel book on a regular basis in several years, I still heard/read much of the criticism surrounding Secret Empire specifically and the various accusations of "character assassination" of stalwart characters like Iron Man, Cyclops, Mr. Fantastic and (in this case, Captain America) in recent years.

This book makes me think that Namor needs to be added to the list, especially since he appears to be a full-blown villain in current books. He has not been represented particularly well in recent years, it would seem and I believe now that it started here.

We begin with Namor fighting off fellow Atlanteans. The very first line of dialogue from him is "Do you KNOW who I am?". Remember that for a moment.

He makes short work of his aggressors.

Some military-looking types happen by and Namor turns the attackers over to those soldiers. Just prior to doing so, he appeared to be about to execute them. That was a bit of a red flag as to his state of mind.

It is pointed out to Namor by one of the soldiers that this is the second assassination attempt on him this month. So to answer Namor's question from earlier, yes, if they were assassins targeting you, they very much know who you are. What a peculiar question to ask.

Namor is in the process of instructing a soldier to enhance security when he is interrupted with news that he has guests. The soldier he had been talking to actually asks if the guests are assassins as well.

Yeah, dumbass, they're at the front door asking for permission to enter to murder Namor. JFC.

These two are at the gates.

That's the Human Torch (Tom Hammond, SHIELD agent) and Toro from the Invaders. They seek sanctuary.

The former is an android. He explains that Hydra's brainwashing techniques on SHIELD agents during their takeover didn't quite work for him.

Toro, meanwhile, is an Inhuman (he is?) and therefore an automatic enemy of Hydra. News to me.

Namor states his position to his former colleagues.

Upon learning that Namor has an alliance of sorts with Hydra, the Torch and Toro come to realize that they made a mistake in going to Atlantis to hide out. They attempt to leave but are prevented by the Atlanteans, including Namor.

The two former Invaders are then jailed with the other "dissidents".

So Namor who, when faced with the Nazi threat in the 40s, joined these two and others to battle that threat now decides he needs to imprison them out of fear of Hydra finding out that they're sleeping in his basement? Bitch, please...

Had he explained that Atlantis has been devastated far too many times to risk even the slightest damage, I might have bought it. Instead, this feels like Namor taking a knee in front of Hydra and there's little in the character's history that would suggest he'd ever do such a thing. Quite the opposite.

This is one story out of three in this anthology book and thankfully Namor is not included in the other two because they are complete time-wasters. They add nothing to this story or to, I suspect, Secret Empire as a whole.

Unfortunately, the Invaders story (if you could even call it that, since it really only features two member against one) continues in the remaining four issues of Brave New World so evidently I'll have to stomach those at some point. It won't be any time soon.

The following image is a variant cover to this book by Chris Samnee.