Namor the Sub-Mariner
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Namor the Sub-Mariner is a fictional character featured in the Marvel Comics Universe, and one of the oldest superhero characters. He was created by cartoonist Bill Everett in 1939.
Namor is an undersea hero originating from the mythical kingdom of Atlantis. Namor is the son of a human sea captain and a princess of Atlantis (although the Underwater kingdom was left unnamed until the 1960s). Possessing the super-strength and aquatic abilities of the "Homo mermanus" race, Namor was alternatively portrayed as a good-natured but short-fused superhero, and a hostile invader seeking vengeance for perceived wrongs that misguided surface-dwellers committed against his undersea kingdom. The first known comic book anti-hero, the Sub-Mariner has remained a historically important and relatively popular Marvel character.
History
Golden Age
Namor the Sub-Mariner first appeared in 1939 in the prototype for a planned giveaway comic titled Motion Picture Funnies Weekly, produced by the comic book packager Funnies, Inc. The only eight known samples among those created to send to theater owners were discovered in the estate of the deceased publisher in 1974. When the giveaway idea fell through, creator Everett used the character for Marvel Comics #1, the first comic book by Funnies, Inc. client Timely Comics, predecessor of Marvel. The final panel of the earlier, unpublished eight-page Sub-Mariner story had included a "Continued Next Week" box that reappeared, sans lettering, in an expanded 12-page story.
Namor had been born of the pairing of the Atlantean Emperor Thakorr's daughter, Fen, and an American sea captain, Leonard McKenzie, of the icebreaker Oracle. When Fen did not return from investigating the ship's presence in their Antarctic waters, Thakorr sent soldiers to attack the Oracle, thinking her captured. In truth, McKenzie had taken her as his bride. In the ensuing attack, McKenzie was believed killed, and Fen returned to her kingdom. Nine months later, a pink-skinned child was born among the blue-skinned Atlanteans.
Everett's unique, early anti-hero would, in time, go up against Carl Burgos' android superhero, the Human Torch, yet eventually, as the US entered the Second World War, ally himself with the Torch and the human race against Adolf Hitler and the Axis Powers. Other friends included Betty Dean, a New York policewoman who was a steady companion, and his cousin Namora.
Namor starred in the Golden Age comic book Sub-Mariner Comics, published first quarterly, then thrice-yearly and finally bimonthly, from issue #1-32 ((Fall 1941 - June 1949). The detective-superhero the Angel was a backup feature in each issue. Along with many other Timely characters, Namor disappeared not long after the end of WWII and the decline in popularity of superhero comics. Namor experienced a brief revival in the mid-1950s, starting with Young Men #24 (which also briefly revived Captain America and the original Human Torch) and then in Sub-Mariner Comics #33-42 (April 1954 - Oct. 1955). During this time, Namora had her own spin-off series.
Silver Age
Namor returned in Fantastic Four #4 (May 1962), where the new Human Torch discovered him living as an amnesiac homeless man in the Bowery section of Manhattan. Johnny shaved the "bum" with his flames and saw Namor's true features, and dumped Namor into the river in the hopes of restoring his memory, which it did. Unfortunately, Namor tried to return to Atlantis, but he found an outpost that had been destroyed by nuclear testing during the years he was an amnesiac and assumed that all his people were scattered where he would never find them. He immediately vowed vengeance on the surface world and attacked it. The Fantastic Four were able to stop Namor, and he became enamored of Sue Storm, a crush that he would carry with him for years. Namor also joined The Hulk in an attack on the Avengers, but was repulsed when the tempermental Hulk left the fight.The Namor of the 1960s and later tended to be more pompous and solemn than the impetuous youthful character of the 1940s and 1950s, and to talk in neo-Shakespearian dialogue rather than the more colloquial speech of his youth.
In The Avengers #4 (March 1964), Namor discovered an Arctic tribe worshipping a frozen figure preserved in a block of ice since 1945. Enraged, he threw the block back into the ocean, and it subsequently melted revealing Captain America's body. The Avengers later found him in the North Atlantic and revived him.
Again an anti-hero during this period, primarily allying himself with Doctor Doom against the Fantastic Four - despite feeling a very strong attraction to the Invisible Woman/Susan Storm, so strong in fact that he fought to win her heart from her lover Reed Richards/Mr. Fantastic - and with the Hulk against the Avengers. Namor also joined with the X-Men villain Magneto, but abandoned this alliance quickly. Namor soon grew more noble than antagonistic when appearing in his own series, first in the split-title comic Tales to Astonish (beginning issue #70, Aug 1965) and later in his own title, the 1968-72 series, The Sub-Mariner. Some of the later issues of the series were notable for having been written and drawn by the Sub-Mariner's creator, Bill Everett, shortly before his death, re-introducing a now older Betty Dean and introducing Namora's daughter, Namorita.
Since, Namor has remained a constant for Marvel Comics. Never really a hero or villain, he has protected his kingdom and sought vengeance on the surface world only when he feels his realm is threatened. Although he has served alongside, or even as a member of, several superhero teams — most notably The Defenders and The Avengers — he remains an outsider.
Namor returned to Atlantis and was supposed to marry his cousin Dorma, with whom he had fallen in love. However, Llyra, an evil princess of Lemuria, another submarine culture, kidnapped and replaced Dorma at the wedding hoping to usurp Namor's kingdom in that way. Legally, though, Dorma was the one Namor had married, but he still had to find his wife. Unfortunately, Llyra had taken Dorma to the surface world in a tank as bait, and when Namor arrived, she smashed the tank to distract him. Namor was unable to save Dorma, and nearly went insane from grief.
Modern Age
Unfortunately, trouble brewed often for the Avenging Son of Atlantis, and has lost his kingdom a number of times. He also married the Alpha Flighter named Marrina, another sea-dweller, but lost her when she turned evil and was killed. During some of his exiles from Atlantis, he joined super-teams like the Avengers and the Defenders. He also was a member of the short-lived undersea team of Deep Six. It was during his tenure with the Avengers that Namor helped recover the cocoon in which the Phoenix Force had placed Jean Grey years earlier. He also fought against Magneto when Magnus tried to rescue his students from the White Queen, and recovered his lost giant horn, which was found by the X-Terminators. Not long afterward, rogue elements of Atlantean society declared war on the surface, and Namor was presumed killed in the battle, though the Atlantean barbarians were defeated.
However, Namor had actually survived, and surfaced months later in the South Pacific. Nearly mad from his ordeal, he was found by Caleb and Carrie Alexander, a father-daughter team who quickly nursed Namor back to health. It was Caleb who revealed to Namor the truth about his blood chemistry and his "rages," and who equipped him with a monitor that warned him when he had to seek air or water. This allowed Namor to control his metabolism for the first time in his life. Determined to continue to preserve the oceans and his people, but without revealing himself, Namor collected sunken treasures to finance his purchase of an international company he renamed Oracle, Inc., using the Alexanders as proxy buyers. Under the guise of an international businessman, he was able to support environmental causes. Shortly thereafter, however, Namor was forced to reveal his survival when a terrorist bomb detonated on an Oracle submarine super-tanker, threatening the lives of everyone in New York. Then, Namor lost his ankle wings when he unleashed a mutagenic scrambler inside the animated garbage dump called "Sluj" in order to stop the monster. He dealt with the world of high finance thereafter, though it brought him into conflict with the Super-Skrull, and then to the dimension of K'un L'un, where he found the hero Iron Fist, who had been presumed dead for many months.
Returning to Earth and investigating the apparent invasion of Earth by the K'un L'un sentient plant race called the H'lythri, Namor was forced to fight Wolverine, who had been captured by the H'lythri and their associate Plant Man days before. The battle was fierce, but it was interrupted by the sorcerer Master Khan, who destroyed the plant people and returned Wolverine to his place. Khan then wiped Namor's memory and dumped him in the American Mid-West, as punishment for interfering in his plans for Iron Fist. Namor was "missing" for almost a year, and was known as "Rex," until his cousin Namorita was able to track him down using a psychic link to him that she had recently discovered. However, Namor didn't recognize her and rejected her. He didn't regain his memory until a while afterwards, when he and the apparently-resurrected Princess Fen (his mother, who had saved him when he was thrown into the ocean by an explosion) were captured by Dr. Doom's new sonic ram fishing vessel. The boat itself was then magically imprisoned in a bottle by Master Khan, and Khan assumed Namor's form and sold off much of Oracle's holdings. Namor soon broke the bottle and the spell, and then ripped Khan's head off.
Immediately thereafter, Namor was called to Atlantis to deal with attacks by the ancient "Faceless Ones" on Atlantis's borders. Fen attempted to usurp the throne, and it was soon revealed that she was really the witch-queen Artys Gran, who had stolen Fen's body in order to release her husband Suma-Ket, a pagan sorcerer-king who had been banished by Namor's ancestor thousands of years earlier. Namor soon confronted Ket and was killed, impaled on Ket's spear. Fortunately, Father Neptune, the deity worshipped by Atlantis, appeared to resurrect Namor to fight Suma-Ket, whose religion threatened Neptune's existence. In the process, Namor's wings were restored and he was given the sacred golden armor of his ancestor in which to fight. With the help of his people and comrades, Namor defeated Suma-Ket and his forces, though the real Fen, trapped in Artys Gran's body, died defending her son from a final attack from Socus, the villains' servant. Namor eventually returned to both ruling Atlantis and running Oracle, but has remained generally out of the surface world in recent days. Oracle, Inc. was also funding the charitable super-group Heroes for Hire, and the team used an Oracle facility as its headquarters.
Afterwards, Namor was involved in an international dispute with Wakanda and its King T'Challa (the Black Panther), and had to deal with Attuma's uprisings again. He was also brought back to the Defenders team, this time by a curse that forces the team members to be teleported to the site of tragedy and evil.
In 2000s comics, a mystical curse from the sorcerer Yandroth bound Namor and the three other senior members of the old superhero team the Defenders — Doctor Strange, the Hulk and the Silver Surfer — to be transported to scenes of danger and trouble around the world. Namor and the others eventually freed themselves from this curse, but not before attempting to take over the world as "The Order" on the grounds that they could prevent crises. Namor later allied himself with the modern-day Invaders team.
A mid-2000s miniseries explored Namor's youth, charting his teenage romance with a young American girl in the 1920s.
House of M
- Main article: House of M
Civil War
- Main article: Marvel Civil War
\"The First Mutant\"
Namor has been repeatedly identified as Marvel's first mutant. However, his status as the first mutant is subject to some question. He was the first mutant to be introduced in Marvel Comics (in 1939) and has been described in-comic as the first official mutant, but there are actually a number of mutants that predate him in the Marvel timeline, including Apocalypse (born in the 30th Century BC), Wolverine (late 19th Century CE), Mystique and Destiny (dates of birth unknown, but known to have been active at the "Dawn of the 20th Century"), and a group of mutants known as the Externals.
Furthermore, Namor is not actually a human, but rather a human-merman hybrid.
Powers
Because of his unusual genetic heritage, Namor is unique among both ordinary humans and Atlanteans; he is sometimes referred to as "Marvel's first mutant," because, while the majority of his observed superhuman powers come from the fact that he's a hybrid of Human and Atlantean DNA, his ability to fly can't be explained by either side. (Atlanteans are an off-shoot of "baseline" humanity.) Namor has superhuman strength and is the strongest Atlantean ever known. The Official Marvel Handbook, Avengers 2004 lists his strength level as 100 tons, though Namor has lifted more than this (The Feat List of the Sub-Mariner). Namor's strength requires frequent submersion in water, though an extended period on land does not result in death, as it would for a typical Atlantean.Unlike other Atlanteans, who have gills, Namor breathes with his lungs, which contain special alveoli that extract oxygen from water, allowing him to breathe underwater. His body requires regular carefully timed oxygen treatments in either air or water, or his blood and brain chemistry will undergo a shift causing violent rage and destructive behavior.
Namor also possesses vestigial wings on his ankles. Since the wings by themselves could not carry an object of his size, some speculate[[Citing sources citation needed]] that he uses the wings for steering and flies in some other manner, perhaps by telekinesis.
He has exhibited the ability to generate a massive electric charge, much like an electric eel. This seldom-used power, which appears to require a long recharge time between uses, has sometimes been portrayed as an ability to absorb and redirect electricity, rather than actually generating a charge himself. The Sub-Mariner has also shown the ability to utilize a form of sonar that enables him to recognize invisible beings (e.g., the Super-Skrull or the Invisible Woman).
Personality
Namor's appearances prior to his first appearance in the Silver Age of comic books, in Fantastic Four #4, are depicted in Marvel-universe continuity as having occurred during Namor's youth. In 1940s and 1950s comics, Namor's speech, like many superheroes of the time, was laced with hip slang and topical idioms, which have since been explained as an unfamiliarity with the English language. He also cracked jokes and exhibited a more carefree personality prior to his Silver Age reintroduction, after which he was depicted as a refined and dignified royal noble, albeit a short-tempered one.Enemies
Namor the Sub-Mariner had fought numerous aquatic enemies outside of the surface dwellers who pollute the ocean. Among the featured are:
- Attuma
- Byrrah
- Captain Barracuda
- Dr. Dorcas
- Llyra
- Master Man
- Naga
- Nagala
- Orka
- Pirahna
- Sea Urchin
- Tiger Shark
- Warlord Krang
- Warrior Woman
Ultimate Namor
In Ultimate Fantastic Four #24, The Four were surveying the ruins of Atlantis where they found a tomb (estimated to be about 9,000 years old) containing the hibernating Namor. Ultimate Namor has been revealed to be an imprisoned Atlantean criminal who was considered the worst villain of his time. His attempt to pass himself off as a king was revealed to be a lie simultaneously with Reed Richard's translation of the Atlantean language.
He has demonstrated the ability to withstand full strength flares from Johnny Storm, go toe to toe with Ben Grimm, smash through Sue Storms forcefields, and has attempted to stretch Reed Richards past the point of breaking, as well as mental control over water, creating/summoning a gigantic tidal wave in the shape of an angry Poseidon, and threatening to use it to destroy Manhattan rather than lose to the Ultimate Fantastic Four. He is also shown to be extremely intelligent, as he was able to become fluent in English in a matter of minutes merely by listening to the FF and S.H.I.E.L.D agents talking. He was "defeated" only by being appeased with a kiss from Sue Storm while an infuriated Reed Richards looked on, held back by the Thing. He then retreated back to the sea and has not been seen since in the Ultimate universe.
In other media
- In the Spider-Man video-game for the PlayStation and Nintendo 64, Namor has a notable cameo in the game's "What If?" mode during the underwater Carnage battle. Spider-Man humorously comments on Namor's simply standing there and not helping him.
- He had a cameo role in the Captain America and the Avengers arcade game.
- He has also appeared in an episode of , voiced by Raoul Trujillo.
- He was a playable character for the first time in 1991 Sega Spider-Man arcade game.
- In the science fiction novel Tuf Voyaging by George R.R. Martin, a pelagic planet (waterworld) afflicted by sea monsters is called Namor.
- In 2006, Universal Studios announced a Sub-Mariner film is in development. David Self has wrote a screenplay draft.
Bibliography
Solo series and features
- Motion Picture Funnies Weekly unreleased promotional comic (1939)
- Marvel Comics (Marvel Mystery Comics #2 onward) #1-91 (October, 1939 – April, 1949)
- Sub-Mariner Comics #1-42 (Spring, 1941 – October, 1955)
- Tales to Astonish (1959 series) #70-101 (August, 1965 – March, 1968)
- Iron Man and the Sub-Mariner oneshot (April, 1968)
- Sub-Mariner #1-72 (May, 1968 – September, 1974)
- Sub-Mariner Annual #1-2 (1971 – 1972)
- Tales to Astonish #1-14 (December, 1979 – January, 1981; reprints Sub-Mariner #1-14)
- Prince Namor, the Sub-Mariner #1-4 (September, 1984 – December, 1984)
- The Saga of the Sub-Mariner #1-12 (November, 1988 – October, 1989)
- Namor the Sub-Mariner #1-65 (April, 1990 – May, 1995)
- Namor the Sub-Mariner Annual #1-4 (1991 – 1994)
- Tales of the Marvels: Inner Demons oneshot (1996)
- Incredible Hulk/Sub-Mariner Annual (1998)
- Namor #1-12 (June, 2003 – May, 2004)
- Marvel Masterworks: The Sub-Mariner (2004; reprints Marvel Comics (1939 series) #1, Daredevil (1964 series) #7, Tales to Astonish (1959 series) #70-87
Featured as team member
- Marvel Feature #1-3 (December, 1971 – June, 1972; as part of the Defenders)
- The Defenders #1-16 (August, 1972 – October, 1974)
- Invaders #1-41 (August, 1975 – September, 1979)
- Invaders Annual #1 (1977)
- Avengers (1964 series) #262-293 (December, 1985 – July, 1988)
- Invaders #1-4 (May, 1993 – August, 1993)
- Invaders (New Invaders #2 onward) #0-9 (August, 2004 – June, 2005)
Quotes
Ed Jaster, Director of Acquisitions, Heritage Galleries & Auctioneers, RE: Motion Picture Funnies Weekly #1 [link]: "This comic, originally intended to be given away at movie theaters in 1939 as a promotional vehicle but probably not actually distributed outside of a few advance copies, is an exceptionally significant book for several reasons. To begin with, it contains the first printed, although unreleased, appearance of Bill Everett's Sub-Mariner, predating that character's true introduction later the same year in the pages of Marvel Comics #1."References
- [Official Marvel Directory: Namor]
- [Don Markstein's Toonpedia: The Sub-Mariner]
- [JC's Comic Collection Page: The Sub-Mariner]
- [Comics 2 Film: Namor (Sub-Mariner)]
- [Villains of Marvel Comics: The Grey Zone: Namor]- character profile
- [Namor's profile at Marvel.com]
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