It was a long time before I considered Namor to be a hero. As a kid, whenever I saw him, he was at odds with the good guys. He always seemed to be waging war on the surface world, trying to make moves on Sue Storm, joining forces with Doctor Doom and so on. Even when he assisted the heroes, it seemed very reluctant with him complaining all the time. Eventually, through other appearances over the years, I began to see him as more of an anti-hero - but I think he's still a jerk! That's not a completely bad thing though, it makes him fun to read about.
18 comments:
Roy Thomas' The Invaders made me like Namor.
All these years later and I still can't figure out how the guy could have possibly ended up with tiny feathered wings on his ankles.
to James above, he is part dinosaur...
and Ross, is Lady Liberty from an early Jack Kirby issue of Kamandi???
Good eye, Jeckel!
Great cover. Love the almost identical poses.
Thanks, Emsley - I saw the Deadman image and thought, I know I've seen that angle somewhere before!"
You've got him pegged right, Ross. When not defending Atlantis from the likes of Attuma, Krang, and Cousin Byrrah, Namor could come off as a bigger egotist than Magneto and Dr. Doom, put together! That is; till Dr. Strange formed the Defenders.
The world's first and greatest non-team.
I loved those early 1970's confrontations! Xemnu the Titan; the Undying Ones; Yandroth and his sentient computer Omegatron. Even--my personal favorite (discourtesy of Loki and the Dread Dormammu)--the Mighty Avengers! Then, Marvel had to go and ruin everything...
...by raising the price of their comics to 30 cents each.
Next up, Galactus asks the Statue of Liberty out on a date :P
I echo Emsley's thought above. In fact, it was the first thing that struck me about this cover. Also, the Liberty background and Deadman's thought balloon made me think of the tsunami that befell New York in Marvel's Ultimate universe -- and that suggests that the story in this issue would be a real corker. Very well done!
@MS: I bet she just gives him stone-cold silence. ;-)
I first encountered Nam,or in Fantastic Four Annual #1, and like you, Ross, I thought he was a villain... and a jerk. I can still remember when the Sub-Mariner series replaced Giant Man in Tales to Astonish. I remember thinking "Since when is he a hero?!?"
@The Silver Fox: not since World War II, in the eyes of the American judicial system.
@Carycomic: But, that's only the judicial system of Earth-616 in the MCU.
@Carycomic ... just think how I felt when I could get 5 comics for a dollar and then in May 1974 I could only get 4 comics ! I wasn't very happy with Marvel for months , but I still bought their comics though !
@chris ellio: Me, too. In fact, I didn't stop buying Marvel on a regular basis until the ill-advised "Dr. Doom-as-God" story arc!
I just had a thought, inspired by the respective names, though once I thought it through it might make for a gripping scenario:
Deadman meets the Living Tribunal.
I second BG's motion. :-)
I look at this and I look at this, and all I can come up with is Komandi The Last Boy. It's that statue it dominates the picture for me. By the by I did not even know much about Komandi until the the 90's or later.
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