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. 

The Invaders (1975) #4

This is the last of our "part two" themed posts. Invaders #3 was reviewed here and now we look at Namor's impact on issue #4.

It takes him a while to show up. At the conclusion of #3, Namor (with as assist from Captain America sidekick Bucky) punked out his Invaders teammates and took off to do battle against U-Man. U-Man is a fellow Atlantean and therefore Namor considers him to be his responsibility. The first few pages of this issue, then, are dedicated to Namor's Invaders teammates commandeering a plane to chase him.

U-Man's target is Winston Churchill and a reporter (referred to as an "ace war correspondent") named Betty Dean has the scoop about Churchill's arrival at a battleship which will take the British Prime Minister home. Evidently she has a past relationship with Namor though I admit that I only know her vaguely.

Oh, she's quick this one. Not only does she identify the murder attempt, she is able to piece together that the blue-skinned amphibian is from...Atlantis! Small wonder Namor digs her.

She escapes their villainous clutches and is able to warn the plane carrying Churchill of the danger that threatens the PM. U-Man is nothing if not determined though so he hops onto the departing aircraft right around the time that Namor shows up.

Namor yanks U-Man off the plane and they scrap for a while...

...but then something weird happens and it isn't explained particularly well. This weird vortex starts sucking all the nearby planes and ships towards it. Namor has to prevent Churchill's plane from being drawn into it and U-Man takes the opportunity to escape.

Namor has quite a few back-breaking poses in this issue...

So what caused this vortex? No idea. We are told that we would know if we'd read the Skull The Slayer series of the time. If you're one of the 20 people who read that book in the mid-70s and know what that was all about, by all means write to me to share. If it's any help, here's a look at the cover of the issue that came out in the same month (January 1976).

The Invaders (1975) #3

While my original intent was to read and review Sub-Mariner appearances one random issue at a time, a recent sale made the book below impossible to pass up.

Collects Giant-Size Invaders #1; Invaders (1975) #1-22, Annual #1; Marvel Premiere (1972) #29-30; Avengers (1963) #71.

All the books above for $11, if I recall correctly. It would have been foolish to pass that up in order to follow a self-appointed process.

The first part of this compilation (Giant-Sized Invaders #1 and the first two issues of the Invaders regular series) is not particularly good and while Namor has his moments to shine, he seems completely out of character. It isn't until issue three or so that we start to see his impetuousness start to shine and it is for that reason that this is the first issue from the volume to be featured here.

In those early issues, Namor is quick to throw out silly nicknames (particularly for his on-again-off-again rival, The Human Torch), bad puns and cheesy tough guy talk. Captain America is the leader and therefore understandably the more stoic, serious member of the team but such behaviour from Namor still reads awkwardly.

Because it isn't a party until the savage avenging son arrives!

To be fair, Captain America comments on Namor's odd speech patterns and Namor points to his dual human/Atlantean ancestry as a cause. I'm not sure that makes a lot of sense but at least it's acknowledged.

Anyway, the real conflict begins when a German sub is captured. Namor wants to beat some information out of one of their prisoners but Cap-Am explains that that's not the way they do things. So we have a slight disagreement in methodology, a nice change from every character "sounding" the same to this point.

But the big blow up takes place when The Invaders are given their next mission, which is to clear a path for Winston Churchill to sail from Bermuda to England. They are shown a video of a big bastard who is expected to cause trouble.

Being racist assholes, everyone assumes that because he has blue skin, he MUST be from Atlantis (okay, maybe it's not so bad in this case). If that's the case, Namor wants to handle this on his own.

None of his colleagues want him to go alone but instead of just following him and jumping in if he ends up needing help, they fight him instead.

Namor fights them off and, with Bucky's help, flies off in his Atleantean ship to do battle with U-Man. But that titanic battle takes place in issue #4!

After a bumpy start, this feels like the first time that Namor has appeared in this book and I was looking forward to reading the next issue. More on that later!