Namor The Sub-Mariner (1990) #4, "Black Water"

A recent post about an Alpha Flight issue put me in the mood for more John Byrne material so today we move ahead a bit in the 1990s series to issue #4.

The book opens with a pair in a submarine attaching a "surprise package" to a much larger underwater vessel. File that away for now.

We move from that to a discussion between Namorita and that Carrie chick that Namor's been flirting with. Carrie has decided that since Namor's romantic history is rather...frightening...she doesn't want to be a part of it. Frankly, it's hard to argue with her reasoning. Nita flies off to tell her cousin, who seems like he couldn't care any less.

He is too preoccupied with attending certain festivities, as are the creepy-ass Marss twins, who happen to discuss the subject because they are still spying on Namor with drones.

Namor doesn't seem like the type to host too many parties but on his way to it with Namorita as his +1, he explains his reasoning.

...He doesn't want to blow it on account of being anti-social and secretive. All right, fair enough.

Namorita finds the party dull as hell until the Marss twins show up. She goes to chat up Desmond. Meanwhile, a disguised Namor also has eyes a guest.

Tony "Iron Man" Stark is in the audience as well, which makes sense as a business big shot. Nice touch. Byrne has always been good at those fun cameos.

But as the "guest of honour" submarine super tanker arrives (that is what Sue Richards is reacting to above), so does the "surprise package" that was attached to it during the book's first couple of pages. And so...

Namor sheds his disguise to investigate the explosion before the submarine releases oil into the water. Things look okay at first, but...

And we end with Namor getting bogged down in the oil, unable to swim or breathe.

Kind of a fun issue. Byrne managed to keep the story moving forward and keep your interest even if it was light on suspense and action until the very end. The lack of a super-villain made for a nice break and the prospect of Namor teaming with several old friends (who have also at times been foes) makes one look forward to the story's continuation.

Namor The Sub-Mariner (1990) #3, "Meeting Of The Board"

Today, we're going to move forward in Namor's 1990s series begun by John Byrne. The first two issues were reviewed earlier, just seek the label at right under title's name to check out those entries, if you're so inclined.

Issue #2 ended on a pretty sharp cliffhanger as Namor fought the Griffin in the waters outside the statue of liberty. Its final panel was of the Griffin emerging from the water, prepared to maul Namor's current budding love interest, Carrie...something.

Issue gives us resolution.

Boo! Hiss! Bullshit!

The Griffin was unconscious and thrown out of the water so he was never a threat to Carrie Whatever. What a friggin' letdown.

Namor then flies this Carrie to visit her dad in the hospital since pops had a heart attack in the previous issue. Little does he know he is being watched.

Nobody dies forever. This "Headhunter" has been reading comics for a while then!

Namor uses his access to the Avengers files to track the Griffin back to Roxxon oil. He believes that his foray into the business world has drawn the wrong kind of attention so he's off to make a point.

He starts by taking the Griffin, whom he'd caged nearby, and uses the beast as a sort of wilder Pegasus.

Worthy steed indeed! I would have kept that going for a while!

He crashes into a Roxxon board meeting and questions one of the fat cats there but gets no answers. He shrugs off the failure to gather information but leaves them to deal with Griffin as a "reward". We also find out that the creepy Marss twins are still keeping tabs on him.

Aside from the dud resolution to issue two's cliffhanger, this moved moved things along nicely and began to build interest in another character in this Headhunter chick. Not a bad read on a Sunday afternoon.

Namor, The Sub-Mariner (1990) #62, "Beware The Tides of March"

Today, I'm feeling like getting a little further ahead in the Atlantis Rising story. Maybe it was the recent exposure to the Black Knight in an Avengers book who triggered that mood as he was involved in the chapter prior to this one. Whatever the cause, let's move on a bit.

The delightful lady above, wearing a quaint belt made of skulls, is Morgan Le Fey. She has just revealed her plan to take back what belongs to her and that, in her opinion, is the city of Atlantis or as she calls it, Avalon.

Le Fey has taken control of the Inhuman known as Triton and sicced him on Namor. The wounded Avenging Son retreats, however, taking Andromeda with him to find a place to recover their respective strength.

They head to Atlantis. Namor is exiled at this point but the guards take them, on the sly, to Namor's old friend and adviser Vashti.

While in recovery, Namor has a vision of a previous ruler of Atlantis.

Kamuu details how Avalon's demise, which Le Fey survived, led to Atlantis' birth. She wants her home back and for the magic required to cast the spell that will enable her to do that, she needs to sacrifice the noble soul of one whose "magnetic vitality is equal parts earth and moon".

That would be Triton who, along with the other Inhumans, resides in the city of Attilan on the moon. Namor won't let that happen so he storms off to help another old pal.

See that dude on the left there? That's 90s poster boy Blood Wraith. He's given Namor that gaping wound that others have referred to.

But our prince has done his research. He knows that the blade BW wields must drink blood before being sheathed again. So Namor defeats his opponent by sheathing the blade against Wraith's will and breaking the curse.

That leaves Namor and Triton to have it out. As Namor tries to break Morgan's hold on Triton, this Dolan guy takes matters (and Namor's sword) in his own hands. He whips the sword at Morgan Le Fey in attempt to kill the witch but Triton steps in front of the throw.

Way to go, jackass. Now you've completed the ritual sacrifice and sure enough...

This would conclude Namor's 1990 series but the Atlantis Rising story would be told through a couple of specials, the Fantastic Four books of the time (the main title, FF Unlimited and Fantastic Force) and affect the annuals for most (all?) Marvel books that year. If you're going to go out, do it with a huge bang, I guess.

Namor, The Sub-Mariner (1990) #61

All right, the other day we looked at the second issue of Namor's 1990s series. Today we'll look at the second-to-last issue which is also the second part of the Atlantis Rising event.  The first part was reviewed here.

There is an awful lot going on in this book, and quite a few players involved.

When we last saw our hero, he had been impaled on a sword wielded by the villainous Blood Wraith (ah, the 90s...). His soul was sucked into the blade. He tries to fight this but the evil souls also contained therein swarm him. As he begins to become overwhelmed by them, he is saved by...

Together they, at least briefly, dispatch the various other ghosts and what-not.

Meanwhile, the lady oceanographer is planting explosives on the ocean floor, unbeknownst to her male partner. When she gets back on the boat, she gives him some attitude and shoves his ass overboard.

Sap.

That blast is felt all the way down to the Building of Knowledge in Atlantis.

Prince Llyron?? Who the hell is this guy? Some friggin' poser? I'm going to have to fill the gap between issues two and 60 faster than I thought.

But what of Namor's soul? Namor and Black Knight join a lady named Victoria Bentley and some sickly dude named Sean Dolan. They explain to Namor that, long story short, every time Dolan draws this sword, he becomes Blood Wraith (lol...) and a battle is waged in the sword's blade between the forces of good and evil for Dolan's soul. That must suck.

They're a small team, but they reveal that they occasionally have help from one of Namor's ex-wives who was killed with that very same sword.

Drive just one sword through her skull and she won't ever let you forget it.

Meanwhile, on the beach, Blood Wraith (lol...) is giving Andromeda all kinds of trouble.

That clearly-possessed Vivian lady who blew up her lab partner earlier interrupts the battle, allowing Blood Wraith (snicker!) to deliver a killing blow in the battle. Andromeda, then, finds herself drawn into the sword as well.

What? So it's not really her? Aw, drag.

The next part is rather nonsensical. Namor follows the band of light that brought Andromeda down back to the real world. He brings Marrina back with him and releases her soul.

So it WAS her? Whatever, she's gone now.

Then Andromeda returns to life as well, for no reason that is explained in this issue, although she refers to herself as Genevieve Cross. I don't know what that's about yet.

And finally, Vivian's possession is complete as the villainess behind all this...villainy...reveals herself.

Oh, that's Triton from The Inhumans back there. He didn't really do anything.

Whew! Exhausting issue!

There's no question that the story advanced plenty though. The merging of Avalon and Atlantis is an interesting idea and Morgan Le Fey as an antagonist is a nice change from brutes like Tiger Shark and Attuma.

The next issue of Namor's book would be the last one and then Atlantis Rising would really take off, involving several books for a couple of months, annuals, and so on. We'll get back to it before too long.

Namor The Sub-Mariner (1990) #2, "Eagle's Wing And Lion's Claw"

After reviewing an issue of Tales To Astonish from the mid-60s, I figured I would continue to look at material in which Namor was the main man instead of a guest-star or a team member. I also want to move forward with some of the storylines begun earlier. In that light, the next two blog posts will feature issues from The Avenging Son's 1990s series.

Issue #1 was reviewed here.

The father/daughter combo that Namor met in the first issue are having a chat about the daughter's possible romantic connection to Namor when the Griffin crashes through the windows and abducts her, wounding Pops in the process.

So Mr. Alexander seeks help elsewhere in the building and finds it in the form of...Namorita!

Always good to see the little cousin.

Namorita goes straight to Namor with the old man's story. Namor happens to be watching a news story about a woman's shoe crashing through a cab window and dicking up downtown traffic.

Namor figures that was probably his new girlfriend's shoe that nearly killed a cabbie. He follows a straight line from the building in which she was abducted to where the shoe incident took place, continues to follow that line and ends up at the statue of liberty where, sure enough...

Nice detective work, your highness. You're a hothead but not a meathead!

And sweet research work, Mr. John Byrne. Unless, it's completely coincidental, since Neptune wielding a trident is common knowledge, Namor's outburst above probably makes reference to the very quest from Tales To Astonish that I wrote about in the previous post. It makes complete sense for Namor to use that expression. Nice attention to detail from the writer/artist here.

As this is going on, a drone of sorts captures the fight for the two creepy siblings with the Lannister vibe from the first issue.

Namor was believed to be dead at this point in comics lore so his presence would be doubly interesting for that reason, no doubt.

Now the Griffin may not be A-list but he's rather powerful nonetheless so rather than fight him on land, Namor takes the battle underwater.

But when his young (they always are with Byrne) lady friend manages to escape from being trapped by Griffin in the statue of liberty and sees signs of underwater turmoil, she prays that Namor is victorious. That doesn't work out so well.

This was a very fun read. Byrne did a good job of building from his first issue. The Griffin was made into a credible threat and seeds were sewn for the challenges that would emerge as Namor's plan began to unfold. It is easy to see with this particular issue why this book got good word of mouth at the time it was released.

Namor The Sub-Mariner (1990) #1

John Byrne is one of those creators for whom I need to separate the person from the art. There are many aspects of his personality that I dislike and that make me want to avoid supporting him but I can't deny that his work was often outstanding.

There is also little question that he enjoyed and appreciated this character a great deal. Carving out Byrne's contribution to the Sub-Mariner legend undeniably diminishes it greatly.

I reviewed one issue from this series already (#60, if my memory is sound) but at that point Byrne was long gone. Let's go all the way back to the beginning and see how Byrne launched it in the first place.

Byrne chooses to tell this story in prologues and epilogues which is a little strange at first because you wonder if you haven't missed something.. This would have made a great zero issue but I'm not sure those were a thing in 1990.

We begin six months earlier as a father/daughter team of marine biologist or researchers or something named Alexander are...researching...when suddenly...

Apparently at this point in his history, Namor is believed by the rest of the world to be dead, making this sudden appearance all the more surprising for the Alexanders.

The Prince Of The Blood lands on an island in the Pacific. For a moment, it appears that he may have lost his memory yet again, but he shakes it off. He comes upon some primitive tribe. When said tribe treats Namor as an intruder and attacks, he kicks their primitive asses.

Ah, he's in one of his "cursed to be alone" phases!

The Alexanders track him down and convince to come back to their boat.

Once on the boat, the gentleman pointlessly tells Namor's origin story. As if Namor needs to be told that he's half-human and half-Atlantean (and therefore technically the first mutant, see). But I suppose we have to think of new readers.

On the flip side, I don't believe that Namor's mother has been seen very often and in this book, she looks great (the 40s version was hideous).

The old man does introduce Namor to a theory to the effect that an oxygen imbalance causes the Prince's rage. Too little oxygen when Namor's underwater, too much when he's on land. What's a brother to do? But evidently anticipating that one day he might meet Namor, the geezer has built a machine which regulates the oxygen balance. So...good for that.

The encounter causes Namor to run off to think. He comes back some time later with a treasure chest and a plan.

Oh look, an old dude putting the moves on a significantly younger lady. This must be a John Byrne book. It's not out of character for Namor to play the smoothie on occasion though. At least there's that.

The book concludes with a wealthy brother/sister combo talking business just after the lady stopped her brother from shooting himself in the head out of boredom.

Can you guess?

Namor's plan is basically to save the planet (read: the environment) through the business world by flexing the vast amount of wealth to which he has access.

That is certainly a new spin on a character that to this point was usually more interested in doing away with the surface world altogether. So while portions of the book felt like filler, its premise is (was) certainly intriguing enough to continue reading.

Namor, The Sub-Mariner (1990) #60

I just added a label category called "Story Arcs" in the event that someone might be interested in tracking down Namor's appearances in major events throughout the Marvel Universe.

The inspiration for this was the Atlantis Rising multi-title crossover.  I bought the compilation on the cheap on Comixology some time ago. It includes issues of Namor's own series of the time, Fantastic Four, Fantastic Force (*shudder*) and as the cover below will give away, also features The Inhumans.

Marvel showed a little consideration here in that the books provides a few relevant pages from issue #58 and #59 of the Namor series to make things clear as we leap into issue #60 as the first official chapter of Atlantis Rising.

We open with a history lesson as Namor lifts the sword of Kamuu, said to be "The symbol of Atlantis' majesty before the fabled continent sank beneath the waves". It feels a little sudden and random but sure, whatever.

That's Andromeda back there. I'm not very familiar with her but she seems relatively cool.

Triton of the Inhumans is found by this oceanographer lady and some dude and brought back to their crib. Meanwhile, Namor's sword, for some reason, draws him (and Andromeda) to Triton as well.

But it's not the only sword to do that! This guy has the same issue!

Blood Wraith so terribly sounds like a 90s name, doesn't it?

Everyone seeking Triton shows up at the same time which, naturally, means a scrap.

Good reference to Krang there. Even though he ended up being a treasonous bastard, his skill must be acknowledged. Well done.

The battle is fairly even until BW pulls this dirty trick.

Right. See, back in the day, Namor had to kill his second wife, Marrina from Alpha Flight, when she became the creature known as Leviathan and he used the Ebony blade (the one wielded by Wraith here) to do so.

The whole thing is a giant distraction for our favourite prince and he loses his focus, leading to this:

Slutch!

I think at this point it was understood that Namor's series was coming to an end so perhaps this made for a good cliffhanger at the time? Obviously he survived this and we'll find out how when we get around to issue #61 some day.

Pretty cool book though. The series may have been nearing its end but it doesn't feel like anyone mailed it in. Quite the contrary, they were going for "epic" with this one!