The Curse of Skeleton Munroe

Category: Sub-Mariner

  • ALIENS AND SO FORTH ROUND-UP 056

    ALIENS AND SO FORTH ROUND-UP 056

    Aliens are just like us if you think about it, man.

    Atlanteans:

    First things first: these are not actually Atlanteans, at least not yet. As far as I can tell, the word “Atlantis” is not employed in any Namor appearance from 1939-1941, and his people are collectively referred to as “Sub-Mariners” just like their prince. We are left with one of our signature Vexing Conundrums: just when do the Sub-Mariners become Atlanteans? Will we find out before we learn the location of Camp Lehigh or before someone says “Keystone City” in print? Only time will tell. 

    Given that they are only later assigned the status of being descended from the humans of old Atlantis (and then unassigned from it if I understand correctly – my interest in Namor has never been great enough that I internalized a lot of his lore), it makes sense that they are much less humanoid than a lot of their peers. They range from being full-on fish-men like Emperor Thakorr to being essentially human-looking but for their huge eyes. And not just human looking, as Namor’s own parentage attests: they can also successfully interbreed with humanity! And it’s a close enough hybridization that he’s not completely infertile, though the fact that he has only one conventionally-conceived child is a bit telling.

    One of the hallmarks of Marvel’s Atlanteans going forward is of course the fact that they all have blue or green skin, which is fun because it appears to have originally been a stylistic choice on the part of Bill Everett to indicate that they were underwater. Frankly I think that it was a good development: I have no desire to see Emperor Thakoor rendered in shades of pale pink. (Marvel Comics 001 1939)

    Balticans:

    Represented here by the villainous Rathia, the Balticans are an Atlantean subgroup that live in the Baltic Sea (natch). They might be a different colour than regular Atlanteans, but given the quality of the available scan and the unreliable nature of modern recolouring it is very hard to say for sure. (Human Torch v1 005b, 1941)

    Cygnusians:

    The Cygnusians and their enemies the Draconians are initially set up to star in a little allegorical story about institutionalized racism and the arbitrary nature of warfare, but things get derailed pretty quickly due to the fact that both Queen Luxor of Cygnus and Queen Feros of Draco are women and cheap misogyny laffs are easy. Rock Braddon of the Space Legion ends the war by arranging a queen-on-queen catfight. (Crack Comics 011, 1941) 

    Martians:

    After dealing with all the crazy bullshit that lurks beneath the Earth’s surface in 50032 CE and doing a bit of civilization-rebuilding, Blaze Barton and his romantic/ adventure partner Teddy set out to establish relations with the people of Mars. As they arrive they (and possibly also the Martians) learn that there is a second, bearded population of Martians who live in vast caverns under the planet’s surface and eschew modern technology other than rocket planes and planet-wide smoke screens. These Dark Martians capture Blaze and Teddy in order to hold them for a ransom of lamp oil from an Earth that is probably not equipped to deliver it, given the recent global disasters it has suffered, not to mention the 47 thousand-odd years since the collapse of the whaling industry.

    The main problem with being a low-tech antagonist in a science fiction world is that you are only effective as long as you can keep your opponent off-balance, as the Lord of Martianland learns when he gives Blaze a moment to breathe and finds his men completely outclassed by Blaze’s ray gun and working knowledge of electricity. The king himself is finished off with a low-tech right hook, and his people opt to learn about new and exciting sources of light. (Hit Comics 005, 1940)

  • ALIENS AND SO FORTH ROUND-UP 056

    Aliens are just like us if you think about it, man.

    Atlanteans:

    First things first: these are not actually Atlanteans, at least not yet. As far as I can tell, the word “Atlantis” is not employed in any Namor appearance from 1939-1941, and his people are collectively referred to as “Sub-Mariners” just like their prince. We are left with one of our signature Vexing Conundrums: just when do the Sub-Mariners become Atlanteans? Will we find out before we learn the location of Camp Lehigh or before someone says “Keystone City” in print? Only time will tell. 

    Given that they are only later assigned the status of being descended from the humans of old Atlantis (and then unassigned from it if I understand correctly – my interest in Namor has never been great enough that I internalized a lot of his lore), it makes sense that they are much less humanoid than a lot of their peers. They range from being full-on fish-men like Emperor Thakorr to being essentially human-looking but for their huge eyes. And not just human looking, as Namor’s own parentage attests: they can also successfully interbreed with humanity! And it’s a close enough hybridization that he’s not completely infertile, though the fact that he has only one conventionally-conceived child is a bit telling.

    One of the hallmarks of Marvel’s Atlanteans going forward is of course the fact that they all have blue or green skin, which is fun because it appears to have originally been a stylistic choice on the part of Bill Everett to indicate that they were underwater. Frankly I think that it was a good development: I have no desire to see Emperor Thakoor rendered in shades of pale pink. (Marvel Comics 001 1939)

    Balticans:

    Represented here by the villainous Rathia, the Balticans are an Atlantean subgroup that live in the Baltic Sea (natch). They might be a different colour than regular Atlanteans, but given the quality of the available scan and the unreliable nature of modern recolouring it is very hard to say for sure. (Human Torch v1 005b, 1941)

    Cygnusians:

    The Cygnusians and their enemies the Draconians are initially set up to star in a little allegorical story about institutionalized racism and the arbitrary nature of warfare, but things get derailed pretty quickly due to the fact that both Queen Luxor of Cygnus and Queen Feros of Draco are women and cheap misogyny laffs are easy. Rock Braddon of the Space Legion ends the war by arranging a queen-on-queen catfight. (Crack Comics 011, 1941) 

    Martians:

    After dealing with all the crazy bullshit that lurks beneath the Earth’s surface in 50032 CE and doing a bit of civilization-rebuilding, Blaze Barton and his romantic/ adventure partner Teddy set out to establish relations with the people of Mars. As they arrive they (and possibly also the Martians) learn that there is a second, bearded population of Martians who live in vast caverns under the planet’s surface and eschew modern technology other than rocket planes and planet-wide smoke screens. These Dark Martians capture Blaze and Teddy in order to hold them for a ransom of lamp oil from an Earth that is probably not equipped to deliver it, given the recent global disasters it has suffered, not to mention the 47 thousand-odd years since the collapse of the whaling industry.

    The main problem with being a low-tech antagonist in a science fiction world is that you are only effective as long as you can keep your opponent off-balance, as the Lord of Martianland learns when he gives Blaze a moment to breathe and finds his men completely outclassed by Blaze’s ray gun and working knowledge of electricity. The king himself is finished off with a low-tech right hook, and his people opt to learn about new and exciting sources of light. (Hit Comics 005, 1940)

  • SUPER-HERO 007 UPDATE: NAMOR THE SUB-MARINER 1940

    He’s back and newly benevolent after a five-minute speech from Betty Dean, so what does he do now?

    Marvel Mystery Comics v1 005 sees Namor beg off of his eternal war on the surface (and the attitude that Emperor Thakorr gives off really implies that this was less of an Atlantean thing than a side project or Namor and his mother’s). He then heads off the New York City to offer his services to humanit, and is immediately swarmed and taken into custody by some remarkably well-coordinated first responders.

    Despite this harsh welcome, Namor keeps his cool remarkably well considering his prior track record. He cools his heels in jail for a few days and then gets special permission to go on a field trip to help out at a subway disaster, AND then goes on to capture the bank robbers who were responsible for the problem in the first place. I honestly wouldn’t have minded if this tactical jail-based era had continued for a while.

    Sadly, it was not to be, as in Marvel Mystery Comics v1 006 we learn that the State of New York has not forgotten about all of those very recent and public murders that Namor committed, and that he is going on trial. Despite Betty Dean’s assurances that he will be exonerated – despite, again, the fact that he murdered several police officers in front of other police officers – he is in fact found guilty and scheduled for execution.

    Now, far be it from me to suggest that the powerful should not be held to account for their crimes just as much as, if not more than, the weak, but from a purely practical standpoint this is a very bad decision on the part of New York. We’ll cover the particulars in the next Namor as Villain update, but simply put they vastly overestimate their ability to actually kill the guy and so open themselves up to a lot more death and property damage. It’s yet another reason to opposed the death penalty I suppose: that it might just make them mad.

    Namor cools off and decides that Nazis are ultimately more worth fighting than the City of New York by Marvel Mystery Comics v1 013. He and Dorma set out to do so while clad in these stylish new battle uniforms which are armoured (questionably useful considering Namor’s demonstrable toughness) and incorporate gas masks (extremely useful given how vulnerable the Sub-Mariner has proven to be to gas attacks).

    Finally, Dorma casually drops the fact that she, like Namor, is now fully amphibious thanks to a surgical treatment that it’s kind of weird that more Atlanteans don’t get

  • SUPER-HERO 007 UPDATE: NAMOR THE SUB-MARINER 1940

    He’s back and newly benevolent after a five-minute speech from Betty Dean, so what does he do now?

    Marvel Mystery Comics v1 005 sees Namor beg off of his eternal war on the surface (and the attitude that Emperor Thakorr gives off really implies that this was less of an Atlantean thing than a side project or Namor and his mother’s). He then heads off the New York City to offer his services to humanit, and is immediately swarmed and taken into custody by some remarkably well-coordinated first responders.

    Despite this harsh welcome, Namor keeps his cool remarkably well considering his prior track record. He cools his heels in jail for a few days and then gets special permission to go on a field trip to help out at a subway disaster, AND then goes on to capture the bank robbers who were responsible for the problem in the first place. I honestly wouldn’t have minded if this tactical jail-based era had continued for a while.

    Sadly, it was not to be, as in Marvel Mystery Comics v1 006 we learn that the State of New York has not forgotten about all of those very recent and public murders that Namor committed, and that he is going on trial. Despite Betty Dean’s assurances that he will be exonerated – despite, again, the fact that he murdered several police officers in front of other police officers – he is in fact found guilty and scheduled for execution.

    Now, far be it from me to suggest that the powerful should not be held to account for their crimes just as much as, if not more than, the weak, but from a purely practical standpoint this is a very bad decision on the part of New York. We’ll cover the particulars in the next Namor as Villain update, but simply put they vastly overestimate their ability to actually kill the guy and so open themselves up to a lot more death and property damage. It’s yet another reason to opposed the death penalty I suppose: that it might just make them mad.

    Namor cools off and decides that Nazis are ultimately more worth fighting than the City of New York by Marvel Mystery Comics v1 013. He and Dorma set out to do so while clad in these stylish new battle uniforms which are armoured (questionably useful considering Namor’s demonstrable toughness) and incorporate gas masks (extremely useful given how vulnerable the Sub-Mariner has proven to be to gas attacks).

    Finally, Dorma casually drops the fact that she, like Namor, is now fully amphibious thanks to a surgical treatment that it’s kind of weird that more Atlanteans don’t get

  • SUPER-HERO FILE 007: NAMOR THE SUB-MARINER

    (Marvel Mystery Comics 003, 1940)

    Though Namor started his comics journey as an outright villain, by his third appearance, the world was ready to see a softer side of him. This journey to redemption begins when the police notice just how horny he was in his last outing and assign NYPD officer Betty Dean to capture him. On her own with no backup, of course.

    Despite the fact that her boss is seemingly trying to commit murder by super-villain on her, Betty is very good at her job and puts a plan into place that theoretically has the Sub-Mariner at her mercy: she lurks around the waterfront with a swimsuit under her clothes until someone spots Namor in the vicinity and then pretends to be drowning. Once he has answered the siren call of an attractive woman in trouble, Betty employs Sherlock Holmes’ favourite means of capturing someone: get close to them and then put a gun to their head.

    Alas for Betty, while this plan would have worked if Namor had been an ordinary swimming murderer, he is in fact a bulletproof fish man and she ends up stranded on a buoy far out at sea. It is at this point, however that Namor performs his very first super-heroic act: when confronted with a sea battle between a British convoy and some German sea raiders, he instinctively comes to the aid of the underdog and sinks the Nazis.

    Betty takes this as an opportunity to explain that Americans are, like, totally peaceful and would never blow up Atlantis on purpose, and actually manages to sway his opinion! No more will he war on the USA, unless another attractive woman takes the time to point out that maybe they would have if they thought it was a good idea or profitable enough or might have inconvenienced the English/French/Spanish depending on historical era.

    Namor returns to Atlantis’ cool-ass iceberg palace in Marvel Mystery Comics v1 004 and convinces the Emperor and never-before-seen Council of Three to change their minds about the US in about five minutes, then sets out with a fleet of Atlantis’ finest steam-powered (I’m sorry: artificial steam-powered) aerial submarines to wage war on the Axis. I’m not going to cover a lot of it because it’s pretty repetitive, but a large part of Namor’s Golden Age super-heroic career consists of sallying forth with the Atlantean Aerial Navy and blowing up huge chunks of the German and Japanese Navies. Like he possibly blows up more ships than the Axis actually possessed.

    Don’t think that we have seen the last of the villainous Namor, by the way, because that guy is always lurking in the (small, ankle-mounted) wings.

    Update 1940 

  • SUPER-HERO FILE 007: NAMOR THE SUB-MARINER

    (Marvel Mystery Comics 003, 1940)

    Though Namor started his comics journey as an outright villain, by his third appearance, the world was ready to see a softer side of him. This journey to redemption begins when the police notice just how horny he was in his last outing and assign NYPD officer Betty Dean to capture him. On her own with no backup, of course.

    Despite the fact that her boss is seemingly trying to commit murder by super-villain on her, Betty is very good at her job and puts a plan into place that theoretically has the Sub-Mariner at her mercy: she lurks around the waterfront with a swimsuit under her clothes until someone spots Namor in the vicinity and then pretends to be drowning. Once he has answered the siren call of an attractive woman in trouble, Betty employs Sherlock Holmes’ favourite means of capturing someone: get close to them and then put a gun to their head.

    Alas for Betty, while this plan would have worked if Namor had been an ordinary swimming murderer, he is in fact a bulletproof fish man and she ends up stranded on a buoy far out at sea. It is at this point, however that Namor performs his very first super-heroic act: when confronted with a sea battle between a British convoy and some German sea raiders, he instinctively comes to the aid of the underdog and sinks the Nazis.

    Betty takes this as an opportunity to explain that Americans are, like, totally peaceful and would never blow up Atlantis on purpose, and actually manages to sway his opinion! No more will he war on the USA, unless another attractive woman takes the time to point out that maybe they would have if they thought it was a good idea or profitable enough or might have inconvenienced the English/French/Spanish depending on historical era.

    Namor returns to Atlantis’ cool-ass iceberg palace in Marvel Mystery Comics v1 004 and convinces the Emperor and never-before-seen Council of Three to change their minds about the US in about five minutes, then sets out with a fleet of Atlantis’ finest steam-powered (I’m sorry: artificial steam-powered) aerial submarines to wage war on the Axis. I’m not going to cover a lot of it because it’s pretty repetitive, but a large part of Namor’s Golden Age super-heroic career consists of sallying forth with the Atlantean Aerial Navy and blowing up huge chunks of the German and Japanese Navies. Like he possibly blows up more ships than the Axis actually possessed.

    Don’t think that we have seen the last of the villainous Namor, by the way, because that guy is always lurking in the (small, ankle-mounted) wings.

    Update 1940 

  • SUPER-VILLAIN FILE 003: NAMOR THE SUB-MARINER

    (Marvel Comics 001, 1939*)

    No character in comics history swings more wildly and frequently between super-villain and super-hero than Namor the Sub-Mariner, Prince of Atlantis, and since as established in the case of Spy Smasher and Smasher Spy we treat the villainous and heroic actions of the same individual as different subjects we must start with Namor the villain (Namor the hero here).

    Namor’s origin is a relatively simple one, and to my knowledge one that has remained fairly unchanged to this day: in 1920 a scientific expedition to the Antarctic inadvertently blows up large portions of the sunken city of Atlantis while doing some sort of hydrological survey. The Atlanteans send their most human-looking citizen (and please note the all the weird racial stuff here, just like the recent Molemen entry. Why do these sea-swelling blue people care about how white the surface peoples’ skin is? Because they aren’t really being written as underwater near-humans but as any non-white group would be), who just so happens to be the Princess Fen, Beautiful Goddess of Seals.

    While posing as a mysterious amnesiac to pass on information about the humans to her people, Fen also falls in love with, marries and conceives a child with the expedition’s Commander Leonard McKenzie This extreme communion between disparate groups does not sway her from her purpose, however, and the only reason the human expedition survives is that they accidentally finish blowing up Atlantis before the counterattack can commence.

    Cut to the present day (1939) and dutiful son Namor (with his occasional sidekick and eventual unrequited love interest Dorma in tow) sets out to enact vengeance on humanity white people for their crimes against Atlantis. Namor’s first outing is an absolute bloodbath that sees him wiping out an entire small Naval outpost.

    The continuation of this story in Marvel Mystery Comics v1 002 sees the Sub-Mariner make his way to NYC, where he starts to show his more mellow side. Sure he spends much of his time in the city murdering police officers, but he also meets a very flammable woman and saves her life with the seldom-seen ability to barf water out of his pores.

    It’s safe to say that Namor the Sub-Mariner is defined by a few different drives and that those drives are the reason for his frequent shifts in alignment on the super-hero/super-villain spectrum. The first of these is his dedication to duty – the campaign against the surface world is much more his mother’s idea than it is Namor’s, but as a dutiful boy he obeys her wishes. The second of these drives is stubbornness – once Namor sets his mind to something he pursues it for longer and with more effort than one might expect, even if it is a bad idea. Next is his temper, which flares up hot and pairs disastrously with his stubbornness to inspire long hot grudges.

    The final important drive that Namor is ruled by can be seen above and it is his horniness. Every so often he becomes taken with a woman and it causes him to act like a complete maniac, as here when he attempts to kidnap the severely injured and very much air-breathing Miss Drayson and drag her into the ocean depths.

    That’s pretty much it for Namor’s first foray into villainy: for a variety of reasons he barges into the US and then smashes people and things for a while. Tune in later this week to see him try out benevolence for a while. 

    *yes, okay, Motion Picture Funnies 001 is his real first appearance, but it’s the same story in an unpublished comic that had it been published wouldn’t have been by Marvel/Timely, so I would consider that more of a trivia fact than a fact fact.

  • REAL PERSON ROUND-UP 029

    Time for a heaping dose of real folk from Golden Age Marvel comics.

    Adolf Hitler:

    Kalph Belgri, dictator of Torpis, takes his own life when his invasion of neighbouring Molivia is thwarted by Electro. (Marvel Mystery Comics v1 005, 1940)

    The Human Torch encounters Adolphe Hiccup, dictator of Slaveland, while foiling a plot to fool his sidekick Toro into aiding their war effort. He is seen colluding with his ally Benny Musclein, who is such a clear Mussolini stand-in that I feel a bit foolish even mentioning it.

    Hiccup’s aide Herr Medals, on the other hand, is quite vexing to me, as despite his physical appearance and love of regalia being clearly based on Hermann Goering, his name makes me think of Goebbels, which caused me to poison my search history a little more by looking up the Nazi high command yet again to make sure I had the right guy. (Human Torch v1 003, 1940)

    Al Capone:

    Mob boss Vince Garrone is the latest in a long line of crooks with Capone-like names. (Marvel Mystery Comics v1 017, 1941)

    Fiorello La Guardia:

    Marvel Comics was a very NYC-heavy operation even back when it was Timely Comics, and as a consequence of that we get far more Mayoral Action from them than other publishers. Here we see Mayor La Guardia showing a lot of moxie while dealing with a hostile Sub-Mariner, for example. (Marvel Mystery Comics v1 007, 1940)

    Not even a year later, here’s the Human Torch helping out a mysterious and unnamed non-La Guardia Mayor of NYC. Just who the heck is this guy? (Marvel Mystery Comics v1 016, 1941)

    La Guardia is back by Marvel Mystery Comics v1 020, just in time to deal with an epidemic of arson and extortion aimed at the city.

    Finally, a chunky little La Guardia thanks the Patriot for fending off the attempted takeover of the city by the fascist Yellowshirts. (Human Torch v1 004, 1941)

    Orson Welles:

    The Human Torch must deal with a Martian invasion, and that means referencing Orson Welles’ War of the Worlds broadcast, here attributed to a “Lawson Bell.” (Marvel Mystery Comics v1 003, 1940)

  • HONOURS – SUB-MARINER

    (Human Torch v1 006, 1941) 

    Just one issue after attempting to conquer the world (and sinking a US fleet in the process), Namor is commissioned as an honorary admiral in the US Navy (for saving a different US fleet from sinking).

  • MINOR SUPER-HERO 330: RATHIA

    (Human Torch v1 005b, 1941)

    Bit of an unfair one here: Rathia is a princess of a Baltic kingdom of Atlanteans who persuades the Sub-Mariner to attempt world conquest. She is unquestionably a bad egg but by far the worst crimes of the issue are perpetuated by Namor himself and include: imprisoning and nearly killing Toro, mind controlling the Human Torch, flooding Africa and NYC, sinking the Italian Navy, nearly destroying Moscow and various war crimes. Crucially, Rathia does not exert any influence other than puffing up Namor’s ego – no mind control, nothing. Maybe a roll in the hay. Despite this, she is the one who stands trial as “World Enemy No. 2 – second only to Hitler!” while Namor just has to look contrite.

    In conclusion, this should probably be part of a Yearbook post about Namor but I am aggressively disinterested in him so Rathia takes the hit once again.  

    Seriously, look at this guy. Contemptible.