Fantastic Four (1961) #412: "Settling The Score With The Sub-Mariner!"

The last issue I read featured a scrap between Namor and the Thing and the Human Torch from the Fantastic Four. Not to leave anyone out, today we're going to check out a throw down between Namor and the other male member of the Four, Reed Richards, Mr. Fantastic.

There was a period of time after Atlantis Rising in which Namor stuck around the Fantastic Four. Reed Richards wasn't around so maybe Namor was biding his time for Susan Richards' affections. We'll find that out later when we read earlier issues from this series.

In any event, as we join this story, Reed has recently returned to the team, all bearded up. We are told that the FF were in a scrap involving Black Bolt of the Inhumans during which Susan stretched her powers to their limits, causing her to collapse from exhaustion.

She needs her rest, but Namor sees an opening...

The rest of that sentence is rather unkind. Reed overhears it, as well as Namor's suggestion to Sue that she kick Reed's stuff to the curb. Oh dear.

Naturally, that goes with Reed over like a fart in an elevator.

And so they fight it out once more. Neither man gets too nasty a shot in though. Namor tosses a car, Reed lets it bounce off his malleable form back towards Namor, Namor dodges it, etc. If anything, Namor does more damage verbally than physically.

The prince ain't wrong, y'all.

Richards directs the battle towards a construction site. He's needed back at the Baxter Building though. This Skrull chick named Lyja who's been shacking up with the FF of late helps Susan hop into one of the team's little hover crafts, or whatever the hell they are, to find him. And they do.

Namor will have none of it! If he must, he'll take Susan by force!

Well...He'd take her AWAY by force. There are limits to his impulsiveness. He's not Ben Roethlisberger.

Time for Reed to be the big hero.

Awww...I haven't followed this team regularly but I could swear I've read a number of variations of that speech over the years.

As the Richards leave, Lyja asks Namor if he's through playing possum. That's right, the avenging son was faking his defeat!

You're no Jennister Aniston yourself, Skrully.

Namor leaves it up for interpretation as to whether he took a dive to bring the Richards couple closer together or whether the purpose of his subterfuge was to impress Susan with the purity of his love. Wow. His words, not mine.

With that, he leaves, "destined to return when the Fantastic Four least expect it".

So some eye-rolling dialogue and the story (by Tom DeFalco) was basically high school drama but the Richards/Namor dynamic rarely fails to entertain. The art was by Paul Ryan, John Lowe, Bob Wiacek and john Kalisz.

Fantastic Four (1961) #402, "By Our Friends, Besieged"

We're going to look at Namor's participation in various Marvel events over the next few posts and to launch that, we'll move ahead a bit more in the Atlantis Rising story.

When we last saw Namor, he had been fighting a mind-controlled Thor above the ocean over newly-risen Atlantis. A group of Inhumans in a space craft blasted him out of the sky on their way through. Namor was found by some of his people and taken to safety.

He next appears in Fantastic Four 402.

Namor finally wakes up, is greeted by an old friend, and brought up to date.

Oof! That's rough.

Meanwhile, the Fantastic Four head to London England to participate in a NATO meeting about Atlantis'...Rising. The Inhumans crash the party and basically tell everyone to mind their own.

Namor was asked by Vashti earlier if he would seek vengeance or be a healer for his people. It is at this point that he makes his plan quite clear.

Heal on your own, people, I have to put boots to asses! The earlier scene with Vashti seemed to hint that Namor would become a more balanced, subdued leader but nope! To be fair, he is not in charge of Atlantis right at that point so they're not officially "his people".

Namor feels that the the Inhumans conspired with Morgan Le Fey to raise Atlantis and he wants to slap a few of them around for it. Black Bolt steps up and with that, the gloves are dropped.

Susan Storm separates the two monarchs with a force field. The Inhumans then get a holographic message of some sort from a dude name Arcadius (no clue) telling them to return to Atlantis ASAP so they gather together and teleport out.

They are replaced by Thor, who has come to his sense at this point. So the Fantastic Four, the avenging son and the Norse God of thunder prepare to take the battle to Atlantis directly in the next installment.

Parts of this epic have been hard to follow but when you remove the clutter and follow just the one character around, it's much clearer, even if my knowledge of the Inhumans is limited.

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. ;-)

Fantastic Four: Atlantis Rising #1

Many, if not all, of Marvel's 1995 annuals were tied into the Atlantis Rising story. I own a few and I would really like to get into them soon so I'm going to have a look at the true starting point of Atlantis rising then "fast forward" through a couple of the issues in which Namor is barely, or not at all, involved.

Namor the Sub-Mariner issues 60-62 was all set up to the Fantastic Four Atlantis Rising one-shot. Those were reviewed earlier. You can check that out by clicking the link under the "Story Arcs" heading at right.

The cover above is the one displayed on Comixology these days. I have seen reference to a wraparound cover but I'm not certain if it was a variant, a gimmick, a future edition or what.

I'm also not too interested in finding out, frankly. My guess and vague recollection is that it was an acetate cover. Whatever the deal, here is a look at it in all its 90s garishness.

Back cover treatment only for our guy. That's actually appropriate because he has relatively little involvement in this book. His role begins with taking the Inhuman Triton to the hospital due to a nasty wound suffered at the end of Namor the Sub-Mariner #62. Sean Dolan, carrier of the Ebony Blade (tm) comes along for the ride.

As they deliver Triton, United Nations police attempt to apprehend Namor but the avenging son will have none of that.

He takes Dolan's Ebony Blade in order to prevent the young man from unleashing its curse again and takes off with it.

As Namor returns to the newly-risen Atlantis, he is knocked out of the sky (causing him to drop the sword in the ocean) by...Mjolnir. Morgan Le Fey, responsible for Rising Atlantis in the first place, has taken control of Thor as well and he is now protecting her new 'hood for her. But Namor is done dicking around.

Thor gets his licks in but then makes the mistake that just about everyone seems to make; he takes the battle underwater. Why, why, why?!!

Naturally, Namor takes advantage.

Thor gets his head out of his ass and takes the battle back to the sky. As the two continue their scrap, a ship of Inhumans flies by. They have left their residence on the moon to investigate Atlantis as they feel they can lay claim to its "ownership" as well. Unsure as to Namor's motivations now that the prince has seen his city brought to the surface, they shoot him out of the sky.

That's the last we see of Namor in this issue. Being that he fights the Norse God of Thunder, it may appear that he has a large role but that is not the case. Out of 44 pages or so, Namor only appears in about a quarter of the book.

The story continues in Fantastic Force #8. Thankfully, Namor does not appear in it at all. It is followed by Fantastic Four #401 and it is in this book that we find out what happened to him after his plunge.

He is found by a handful of Atlantean soldiers looking for survivors. They consider killing him since this is one of those many times when he's been exiled from Atlantis but they consider this behaviour to be dishonorable (go figure) and instead hatch a different as-yet-unstated plan.

Once again the story shift to the Fantastic Force book but Namor is nowhere to be found. He will be a larger part of Fantastic Four #402 and we'll check that one out at some point down the road.

Fantastic Four (1961) #4

I am becoming more and more convinced that Marvel is basing its Comixology discounts on my reading habits. After enabling me to load up on some Invaders, Defenders and original Sub-Mariner series issues on the cheap, they now have a Fantastic Four sale for no reason I can determine.

Whatever, I shall not squander the opportunity. I grabbed a few early issues including Namor's first appearance in that book way back in issue #4. I was aware of that story as a kid but not really buying into what a big deal it was supposed to be. Human Torch had found this guy, gave him a shave and it turned out to be the Sub-Mariner. Okay, great.

Having rapid access to information these days makes the "big deal" a bit more clear. Namor's adventures had been published regularly from 1939 to about 1955. This book, cover dated May 1962, was his fist appearance in seven years.

He may not be one of Marvel key characters but considering that he has not gone a whole year since without showing up somewhere (team book, guest-appearance, whatever), that was quite the dry spell for him and therefore a significant comeback.

How does it all happen? With the usual strangeness and leaps of logic of the time, of course, as only Stan Lee and Jack Kirby could provide them.

Johnny Storm has had an argument with The Thing and blown off the Fantastic Four. Wanting to keep a low profile, he decides to spend the night in a homeless shelter, because who hasn't done that? Like most homeless shelters, this one is well-stocked with classic comic books.

That creepy bum at the bottom right sees what Johnny is reading and points out that one of his fellow vagrants is as strong as that Sub-Mariner fella. When the residents try to goad this strong homeless man into displaying feats of strength, he beats the hell out of all of them. So, I suppose he granted them their wish in a roundabout way. Good man.

As they gang up for another round, Johnny recognizes that this mysterious stranger seems to be suffering from memory loss (a common affliction for this character) and tries to be the voice of reason. All right, boys, first things first: Let's give him a shave.

What are the odds???!

Well the only logical thing to do now is to dump him in the ocean.

Sounds good, but...Atlantis is devastated, apparently by atomic testing. That doesn't go over well and so Namor...Are you ready for this?...Swears to take revenge against the human race! Maybe you should have left well enough alone, Johnny!

Namor wakes a giant walking whale creature named Giganto and commands it to attack New York.

The Thing detonates a nuke inside Giganto to kill it (no, really). When Namor promises to unleash all sorts of other sea beasts on New York with his magic trumpet-horn (lol...), Invisible Girl Sue Richards swipes it from him.

Way to go, Namor, you old smoothie. Nowadays that's sexual misconduct though.

He makes Sue a pretty sweet deal: Marry me and I won't destroy mankind. While she's weighing the pluses and minuses of that arrangement, The Human Torch creates some sort of tornado vortex in which he captures Namor and his horn and tosses them both out to sea. Without the ability to call upon giant sea bastards, Namor decides to chill for a bit, but with a promise...

We haven't heard the last of that guy! For a while, he was basically a series regular, appearing every two to four issues, then again in a couple of early issues of The Avengers, completing the comeback.

Fantastic Four (1961) #102: "The Strength Of The Sub-Mariner"

What better way to start my little project than with a Fantastic Four book written by legend Stan Lee and drawn by other legend Jack Kirby?  It's even called "Strength Of The Sub-Mariner". Can't go wrong here. The cover date on this thing is September 1970. Joe Sinnott also gets credit as an "embellisher".

After a comedy bit based around The Thing having a cold (I lol'ed), Namor first shows up at the bottom of page three. He and a few of his men are investigating a "mysterious shockwave" detected by Atlantis. The trail leads to a "primitive isle" crawling with "ancient reptiles".

I'm no Marvel Comics expert but I can only imagine that's the Savage Land, even if its name is not used. Namor sees a lone survivor and tells the pterodactyls and what-not to piss-off in his usual charming way.

Damn right, Imperius Rex!

The lone survivor was actually Magneto (!!), stranded there after a defeat at the hands of the X-men in issue #63 of that book. This is back in the day when Marvel actually made an effort to respect its own continuity, apparently.

Magneto is an asshole so he begins to plot to trigger war between Atlantis and the surface world. Each side is made to think that it being attacked by the other.

Namor, being on the hotheaded side, falls for it hook, line and sinker, as the expression goes. To be fair, Ben Grimm does launch a "warning shot" of sorts in the form of a concussive missile aimed at Atlantis on behalf of the Fantastic Four. Way to go, jackass.

What's a highly protective, and evidently quite confident, prince supposed to think?

And so Namor readies to...crush the entire human race. Harsh but fair.

It's on! Atlantis would invade the surface world, not for the first time, and certainly not for the last.

I have to admit...This was a blast. Whenever I considered collecting this character's adventures, I would look over some of the available print material, particularly the more recent stuff, and put it off because frankly it looked lousy. I'm sure I'm going to stumble into some duds along, but overall I think I'm going to enjoy collecting this way; picking at bit and pieces and different eras.

The only thing I found myself missing with this story were notable citizens of Atlantis. There are some soldiers and such but no one that appears to matter. That's a minor criticism, being that this is a Fantastic Four book, not a Sub-Mariner book. But I do look forward to finding out more about Marvel's Atlantis specifically.