When I decided that the Doom retrospective would go through the 90s, I knew I was going to find some gems… and I did: despite the reputation, the 90s were not ALL bad for Marvel comics.
There was, however, one storyline I dreaded covering. Not because it’s poorly written, but because I find its artwork… not exactly bad, just incomprehensible for the most part.
For this time only I’m going to break the usual format: instead of going through the entire issue, I’m going to give a brief summary and THEN show the images relevant to Doom.
Because while Jae Lee isn’t a bad artist and I’ve enjoyed some of his work, when it comes to these particular issues I have not idea what I’m looking at 90% of the time.
Namor the Sub-Mariner #30 (1992)
by John Byrne & Jae Lee
That’s a cool pose for Doom, but I have to wonder what happened to his cape.
Doom only shows up at the end of the story. All you need to know is that Namor has lost his memory and that he’s hanging around with a woman with blue skin. At this time he thinks it’s his dead mother, but it’ll be revealed it’s a clone.
And he’s been captured by a ship that belongs to Doom.
Namor the Sub-Mariner #31 (1992)
by John Byrne & Jae Lee
Judging by the first images you might be thinking “Come on, you’re exaggerating about the artwork, it’s not THAT bad”. The second cover should be enough of an answer.
Doom is fine for the most part, especially in the gorgeous splash page (though the eyes immediately make me think Doombot).
It’s Namor and his mother who get the worst treatment!
Doom keeps Namor prisoner and sends lots of goons to fight him. Then Doom explains his plan to Namor’s mother: he’s going to take control of the world’s shipping, by equipping his ships with a sonic weapon. He has ONE ship, since Latveria is landlocked, but it’s going to be enough to take control of the the seven seas!!!
Only Doom would take THIS as a solution. Since his country is landlocked and other nations make him pay for access to the sea, Doctor Doom is going to TAKE CONTROL OF ALL THE SEAS.
Namor and his mother don’t approve, but… he’s Doctor Doom.
Namor the Sub-Mariner #32 (1992)
by John Byrne & Jae Lee
Doctor Doom was really on a roll last issue, but if we go by the cover that’s going to change now.
Doom is actually kind of sad of having killed Namor. Interestingly, he looks at the Silver Age as his glory days and he’s quite nostalgic about it.
Like I said, the artwork on Doom himself is quite good (mostly because he’s nearly always in the shadows). When the attention shifts to anyone else, though…
Namor drags the entire ship underwater with his bare hands (!!!), and that’s when we get a big fight with Doom. It goes well for Doom, until Namor recovers his memory once he sees his mother is in danger.
But the story ends with the ship being captured by evil sorcerer Master Khan and trapped in a bottle. I skipped a lot of subplots, but this comes out of nowhere!!!
Khan trapping his enemies into a ship-in-a-bottle doesn’t come out of nowhere, however: it’s a surprisingly deep cut. Khan was created in a Lee&Ditko pre-Fantastic Four story in Strange Tales, where the final twist was that he trapped someone inside a ship-in-a-bottle.
Namor the Sub-Mariner #33 (1992)
by John Byrne & Jae Lee
Doctor Doom is NOT going to be happy about being replaced as the main villain of the story.
You have to appreciate Doom pushing Namor into a team-up despite the fact that he tried to kill him like five minutes ago. If that doesn’t represent the relationship between those two, I don’t know what does!
As you might have guessed from the speed of my review, this thing is VERY decompressed. There are a few subplots, sure, but it takes Namor until page 12 to try to escape the bottle… which he does by smashing the glass with no problem.
PAGE 12, people!
Maybe it’s because Khan is quite a boring villain. He doesn’t even have all that much to do: his nemesis is Iron Fist, who also shows up here for some reason.
Seriously, Khan is SO boring that this comic constantly misspells his name. Even Doom doesn’t bother with the right one!
Doom schools Khan on how to be a proper evil sorcerer, and then Namor kills him by ripping his head off!!!.
And, uhm… and that’s how the story ends?
Doom significance: 0/10
It’s a nearly incomprehensible story where he tries to control the world by controlling fishing, what do you think?
Silver Age-ness: 2/10
“If I control all the fishing I control the world” is a bit Silver Age, though there’s also mention of controlling international shipping which WOULD be a big deal.
90-ness: EXTREME!!!/10
Boy does the artwork SCREAM 90s in every direction!!!
Does it stand the test of time? 3/10
Give this one to a different artist so that at least we can tell WTF is going on, and you have a good plot… for a 12 page story. Ballooning that to a 4 page story, AND adding Khan, AND diluting the story with a lot of subplots that don’t seem to go anywhere, however, REALLY bring down the score.
There is SOME good stuff here… Doom gets some great dialogue, and when the artwork keeps him in the shadows it’s amazing. But the rest is just atrocious! What made this review particularly hard is the storytelling: this is very hard to follow.
Also Namor is BARELY in this! I mean he gets nearly half of an issue beating up some goons, but the series seem to be interested in talking about anyone else rather than the supposed series protagonist.
It was a Doombot all along
Considering there’s maybe one panel where Doom’s eyes aren’t shiny lights, it’s probably a Doombot.
Take over the world : 23
It’s been a while since Doom tried, isn’t it?
Number of superheroes who have fought Dr. Doom: 80
Iron Fist shows up in this, but he doesn’t fight Doom so he’s not on the list yet. Heck, he doesn’t get to do anything, really, and Khan was HIS villain!
Crazy tech
That is probably one of the craziest boats I’ve seen in a comic book.
Marvel Comics sucked so bad in the 1990’s, I just took the entire decade off from reading them! These various issues of ‘Namor the Sub-Mariner’ are the most prime examples. And the hell of it is, at the dawn of the decade, John Byrne was really doing something with this series! So naturally, it couldn’t last!