The Avengers (1963) #266: "...And The War's Desolation"

We move forward in Namor's first stint as an Avenger today, finally reaching the conclusion of the pointless interruption that was Secret Wars II.

Namor's presence is minimal in this book. The Beyonder's demise in the Secret Wars II mini series caused damage to the earth's crust and the planet is in danger of falling apart as a result. This is not the type of situation to which the Avenging Son is best suited.

There is one moment of heroism though. During the earthquake, the Black Knight, tool that he is, sent plunging towards lava. Namor with the quick, selfless rescue!

But...This book had a tendency to want to bring a little humility to our favourite undersea monarch so while Namor makes the save, he needs one, too. 

That's right, the Fantastic Four have just shown up.

That's about it for the prince. As the cover suggests, the Molecule Man is talked into saving the planet but Namor's involvement from here is reduced to the occasional comment or thought bubble during a larger conversation. The end.

But it is a welcomed end and sneaking a peek ahead, it appears that Namor will be much more involved before long.

The Avengers (1963) #265: "Eve of Destruction"

We've had a look at the Invaders, Fantastic Four and quite a bit of Defenders of late so let's look in some more on some of Namor's early days with the Avengers.

The Secret Wars II crossover event in the 80s sucked huge quantities of ass so I was reluctant to even get this books, but ever the completist...

The Beyonder is one of those annoying characters that could reshape reality with a blink yet never chooses to. All he does is threaten to do it, repeatedly.

The action gets underway immediately as the Avengers are caught in a sudden twister. We are told that The Beyonder trapped the team in it in Secret Wars II #8 to keep them occupied as he abducted Captain America. He could have teleported them to the other side of the globe but he chose strong winds instead.

Each member takes his or her turn to attempt to break the tornado's hold.

Ultimately, Hercules stops it by...Clapping his hands together. Apparently the concussive force does the trick. Sure, okay. #ComicBookScience

When thoughts turn to rescuing Captain America, and Namor instinctively takes charge, he and Hercules have words again, as they have since Namor has joined the team.

That's the Monica Rambeau Captain Marvel there, the only one we ever needed. She takes control of the situation and orders Namor to recover the crashed Avengers aircraft from a nearby pond. The Black Knight, who never seems capable of minding his own business, suggests that Hercules should lend a hand.

Ha ha ha ha! What a strange insult...

Naturally, the team manages to track down where the Beyonder is holding Captain America captive. He could have taken him to Jupiter but instead he shelters in a cave near Denver.

As the two are chatting, Namor shows up.

Ah, but the Beyonder isn't as stupid as the complete misuse of his powers would lead you to believe! He knows Namor is faking all this and when he catches the other Avengers attempting to free Cap, he loses his mind! And even though he could obliterate them with a thought, or fire them into space, he...throws rocks at them.

Well, that's dumb, but at least it brings up this tender moment.

The Beyonder does defeat them in short order though and the story continues in Secret Wars II #9, which I'm not getting any time soon.

Writer Roger Stern did the best that could be done with the situation he was handled. A lot of this issue felt like filler to get us through SWII so that we could get back to our regularly-scheduled programming. The interaction between characters made the book enjoyable enough though.

Avengers (1963-1996) #263: "What Lurks Below?"

A glance at the labels to the right side of the page made me notice that very few of the books I've read were from the 80s so...Here's one that is! January 1986, to be precise.

One of the few 80s books reviewed to this point was Avengers #262 in which Namor became a team member officially for the first time. In this book, we see how he fits in and how his presence affects the team's image.

The issue's opening pages are dedicated to a plane that crashes into Jamaica Bay. When we first see the team, Namor is the topic of discussion.

Cap and Wasp reassure their liason and in doing so, we find out that Whitman (the Black Knight) might be starting to crush on the Wasp a bit. Whatever.

When Namor finally does appear, Hercules and Captain Marvel (the Monica Rambeau edition) are showing him around the Avengers mansion. Namor comes across a bedroom that he favours but it happens to belong to the Olympian demi-God in attendance.

After bailing, a blast of light emerging from Jamaica Bay draws Rambeau to the location of the downed plane where she is brought up to speed on the day's events.

As the dude in the hard hat finishes his sentence, the divers are thrown out of the water. One of them explains that he heard a voice under water then was tossed away. Rambeau tries to investigate in her light form and she does find a cocoon near the crash site, but she is similarly ejected from the water, so she calls in her buds.

I like that. The reaction makes sense in light of how often the sub-mariner has attacked the surface world.

The team plans some strategy to approach the cocoon but the prince of the blood has no time for that jibber-jabber. He makes his own attempt at investigating, but it doesn't go so well...

...and the team is not shy about pointing it out to him.

Piss off, Whitman. Friggin' D-list loser....

Sadly, it is not the end of Namor's journey through humiliation because when they reach the cocoon and attempt to resist its repelling effect, Hercules is better able to withstand it and actually makes progress whereas Namor...

That's rough.

Anyway, of course they manage to recover the cocoon and take it back to the mansion. It will eventually lead to the first of what feels like dozens of resurrections of Jean Grey of the original X-Men and to the creation of the X-Factor team but this is the extent of the Avengers' involvement in their own book.

While I find Namor's "humbling" an interesting approach, I'm not sure about how much sense it makes. He had been on teams before this one (Invaders and Defenders) so it doesn't seem like fitting in should be such a difficult task but it creates an interesting dynamic early on. I don't recall what ultimately leads to his departure from this version of the team but now I'm curious as to whether his personality was a significant factor. I guess I'll find out down the road.

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.