Fear Itself: The Deep (2011) #1:

We're carrying on with our look at Namor appearances in various Marvel events and this time, it's a fairly recent one. The Deep was a four-issue spin-off to the Fear Itself mini-series in 2011. 

Marvel provides a handy recap in the inside of the front cover.

Ah.

That's kind of a lot to take in. No time to mess around though because after a page of being shown various examples of devastation of marine life around the planet, we're tossed into battle.

Turns out he will. Namor is overcome by fear. Attuma (going by the brutal name Nerkkod, evidently as a result of the hammer's influence) defeats him and lays some devastating blows against New Atlantis.

Namor, thankfully, is rescued by a young lady named Loa. This is my first exposure to her. Apparently she was (is?) an X-Man. She seems okay.

Two days, later, Doctor Strange responds to being summoned to a pub called Oliveri's. He and the avenging son meet again.

Telling someone he's your final option is not the most tactful way to ask for a favour but it gets the job done. Strange casts a summoning spell of his own in an attempt to gather the Defenders. Nice!

While the spell does its job, we check in on the villains, in the form of Attuma's generals.

Hey, Tiger Shark! Always good to see him up to no good!

The blue dude is Tyrak (tie rack?) and the goth chick is named Aradnea. I was not familiar with her either and in looking her up, found out that this was her first appearance.

She is aware that Namor yet lives and sends aquatic goons to put an end to that. Why she waited two days I have no idea.

Aradnea's creatures attack the pub but as they arrive, Team Namor gets some extra help as a result of Strange's summoning spell from earlier.

Another new face for me. She says she's the Hulk's daughter, "sort of". Okay then.

The battle is on and this version of the Defenders get their licks in but when Namor takes a shot, his confidence crumbles again.

Lyra saves him but more sea creatures appear and things start to look bleak. Fortunately, our team gets a dramatic last-minute save.

That IS cool.

I was not expecting a Defenders reunion. It may have been part of the promotional material for all I know but you couldn't tell from the cover. Marvel may have missed a bit of an opportunity there but not knowing made for a pleasant surprise.

For that matter, again based on the cover, I wasn't even sure how much Namor we'd get. I gambled slightly on the "Deep" part of the title, assuming that it would involve Atlantis. I thought it might essentially be a Namor/Strange team-up so ending up with a team book was a good surprise.

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.

Captain Marvel (1968) #4, "The Alien and The Amphibian"

When the Black Panther movie out came out last year, I reviewed a few of the books in which Namor fought alongside (or against) that character.

I don't have the slightest interest in the Captain Marvel movie and Namor has shared very little page time with Carol Danvers. He has, however, guest-starred in an issue of the original Captain Marvel's book from 1968, and it is this one that we will check out today.

We join Mar-Vell is in his hotel room, agonizing over his mission. He is, it would seem, a Kree soldier tasked with spying on humanity but he has become somewhat attached to we earthlings and his conscience is getting the better of him. Well, that's nice.

His soul-searching is interrupted by a message to get his (or technically his alter-ego's, Walt Lawson, missile expert) ass to The Cape. And once there, he's brought up to date with the day's plans.

See the lady in the background? That's the current Captain Marvel, Carol Danvers in one of her first appearances. She knew from day one that there was something off about this Walt Lawson guy. 

The missile is launched as planned, but...it turns around sharply and crashes into the ocean (see where they're going with this?). How could that happen?? Well...

The rocket is still set to release its bacteria. This Yon-Rogg dude wants Mar-Vell to ensure that happens but Mar-Vell wants no part of it.

And of course, as the navy arrives and everyone converges on this rocket, Namor happens to swim through on his way to visiting the Fantastic Four. He is spotted by the navy.

And so they fight!

Quite a few punches are thrown but Captain Marvel orchestrates things so that in striking Namor, the sub-mariner falls backwards and trips a self-destruct mechanism in the rocket. The rocket explodes and apparently that resolves the bacteria issue.

So Captain Marvel looks like the hero to the general public for preventing the bacterial spread yet avoids being perceived as a traitor by his superior, Yon-Rogg.

Namor looks like a would-be mass murderer, but that was already kind-of-sort-of out there after declaring war on the surface world and all that.

As an added bonus, the following issue's splash page features a replay of the scrap. So while Namor does not guest-star as such, he helps launch the story.

Avengers / Invaders (2008) #1, "Old Soldiers, New Wars"

In the two previous posts, we've seen meetings of Marvel super-teams. In one, Namor was a member of the X-Men and in the other, the Avengers.

Today we'll see him either team-up with, or battle (that part is to be determined at this point), the Avengers as a member of the Invaders.

The story begins in 1943 during one of the Invaders' many battles with German soldiers. Pages from Bucky's war journal provide the narration as Bucky introduces us to his teammates. He doesn't say much about Namor specifically, just that if he (Bucky) had powers, he'd want to have the avenging son's strength, flight, etc. Okay.

During the battle, they are surrounded by some sort of green mist. Remember that, it's important later.

We cut to present-day New York, where Spider-Man is battling the Thunderbolts. The 'bolts are there to apprehend the web-slinger as part of the government's crack down on superheroes at the time. So we actually get three teams in this book! Neat!

And in the midst of this battle, the Invaders suddenly emerge.

Still in "battle mode", and in light of Bucky detecting a German accent on Citizen V, the Thunberbolt leader, the Invaders simply...jump right into the fight!

Namor does some pretty solid damage here. With an assist from Bucky, he floors the Radioactive Man...

Then shortly thereafter devastates Penance.

Oh, you really don't want to know...

The Invaders defeat the 'bolts, then Captain America decides that he and his team should go into hiding until they figure out what's going on.

None of this, of course ,escapes the attention of SHIELD and, by association, Tony "Iron Man" Stark. How will he react? We'll need to find out in issue #2.

Good set up even if, in reality, we only got one member of the Avengers in on the action in Spider-Man.

It is also a bit of a drag that the Avengers roster at the time was not exactly a classic one. I doubt if you asked folks to identify the core Avengers team, they would include Wolverine, Luke Cage and Spider-Woman. But whatever. I still look forward to seeing where this goes.

Alpha Flight (1983) #39, "The Invasion of Atlantis"

Continuing a theme of team-ups involving the multiple teams Namor has been on over the decades, I must admit that this one was not part of the original plan.

I'd originally planned to read/review Avengers #118 which, as you can see at right, co-starred a Defenders team which included the Avenging Son.

After taking it in, however, I realized there is no point. Namor shows up in crowd shots and that is about the extent of his contribution to the story. I don't believe he has even one line of dialogue.

As a result we find ourselves cheating a little bit with Alpha Flight #39 instead. Namor has never been a member of Alpha Flight but he participated in a few of their adventures during the John Byrne years and developed a relationship with one of their members, Marrina. He's not a member, but he's certainly an ally, so close enough.

Off we go then!

Alpha Flight is returning from an exhausting mission to find a guest at their mansion, none other than the Atlantean Byrrah, Namor's cousin. Byrrah explains that he has been sent by Namor to seek help.

Byrrah has an unusual method of asking for help. It's difficult to believe that he was Namor's best option.

Alpha Flight is told that Attuma has taken over Atlantis and is holding Namor's beloved hostage. That, of course, is Marrina, so Alpha Flight is compelled to step up regardless of the possibility of starting yet another war with Atlantis.

As they near Atlantis, their aircraft is shot down and they begin a long underwater battle against the armies of Atlantis. They are barely hanging in until the reinforcements arrive.

As the two teams plan their approach, Namor announces the he no longer seeks the throne of Atlantis. Rather...

Bah, that's weak...

So in order to rescue Marrina, they become the attackers and take the battle to Atlantis.

Well at least here Namor shows he still has hair on his balls after that sad speech earlier.

The fight is rather brief, however, as the two teams (Marrina included) are surrounded by Atlantis soldiers and the book ends on that note. The story is to be concluded in Avengers #272, which we'll get to another day.

This was a fairly simple story and it was entertaining enough if you could overlook the frequent hand-wringing internal dialogue of the various members of Alpha Flight, courtesy of Bill Mantlo. Its art is by Dave Ross.

Something else to note; his name is spelled Byrrah in this book but in the Sub-Mariner's first series  it was spelled Byyrah. Either mantlo got it wrong or someone else did in the past and the new spelling stuck. Whatever the cause, this is why the character appears under two tags in the "Atlanteans" category at right.

Avengers vs. X-Men #8, "Round 8"

When it comes to Namor's appearances in team books, whether as a guest-star or as an actual member of said team, I sometimes struggle to choose where to direct my attention between the Avengers, Defenders, X-Men, Invaders and Fantastic Four. As a result, the next three posts (perhaps more) will be about times that those teams have met either as allies or foes.

We begin with Avengers vs. X-Men #8. From what I can gather, Namor appears in the earlier issues of the mini series but being that he gets cover treatment here, we're going to start at the end. It seems that he does not appear in issues 9 through 12.

Marvel's attempts at bringing us up to date sometimes only add to the confusion but they do a nice job here.

So Stark messed everything up again. Got it.

I'd heard that there were some...uhm...strained feeling about Namor/Atlantis and Wakanda so I'm actually eager to read this now even though nearly everything of Marvel I've read that was published in this century has been complete ass. So let's go!

Sure enough, Namor and his "fish army" (Iron Man's words) are devastating Wakanda. The Avengers retaliate, getting their shots in on Namor one by one.

But once a Phoenix-powered Namor decides to stop dicking around, he quickly regains the upper hand.

There isn't much more to it than that. Namor wrecks stuff, takes some ineffective hits and delivers some blows. Much of this book is a giant fight, as one should expect.

How does he ultimately get taken down? Well...We're not really told but the Scarlet Witch is the one who pulls it off.

That seems plausible enough. Her ability to, in effect, cause unlikely events to take place could cause the Phoenix Force (or whatever the hell it is called) to exit Namor's body as it did as a result of the confrontation above. Fair enough.

A couple of things are unclear but perhaps that is simply from lack of having read the earlier issues.

For one, I believe it is known that the Phoenix corrupts its host. So why is everyone so eager to shit on Namor over this attack? Captain America (granted, an arrogant asshole, IMO) mutters "Damn you, Namor" at some point and later tells him he should be ashamed of himself.

Perhaps the Phoenix force is like having too much booze? It "releases" you to do things you normally wouldn't?

And nice behaviour by The Thing over on the right. Granted the two of them have a history and Namor essentially devastated a city (perhaps a country) but again, he was not of sound mind at the time. As Captain America and Spider-Man look on, who are the heroes in this story again?

And what IS Namor's motivation here, exactly? He tells the Black Panther at some point "You must know I would not stand for this". For...what? He also says that they (The Avengers) have brought this on themselves. It certainly sounds like Namor's actions were an act of retaliation.

Following its exit from Namor's body, The Phoenix Force was spread (presumably equally) among the remaining four people who shared it with him.

The Avengers, realizing that it took all of them to beat just 20% of the force, decide to bail to K'un-Lun (home of Iron Fist) rather than to attempt to battle all of them.

I would argue that it technically only took one of them, the Scarlet Witch, but that would diminish the gruesome, massive compound fracture that Red Hulk suffered and that was completely ignored throughout the rest of the book. He's just standing there in a group shot at the end like having an arm nearly severed was just another day at the office.

Acknowledging that I'm jumping in well into the story so that a lack of clarity might be caused by that alone, this was a pretty entertaining book. I've read enough Marvel books published in the 2000s that are little more than characters having extended meaningful glances (can you even call that reading?) that the large scale action of this one was a refreshing surprise.

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.

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. ;-)