Sub-Mariner #50 (1972)
by Bill Everett
cover by Gil Kane
I first read this issue among the comic books I owned before becoming a regular Marvel reader, or even before I learned to read. So this is part of the anniversary retrospective, but since it features the first appearance of a hero I suppose it warrants its own review.
We begin with Namor suffering amnesia, following the previous storyline, which we’ve already seen since it featured Doctor Doom.
But he quickly recovers once he jumps into the waters of New Orleans.
What he initially considered a corpse belongs to a girl in a bikini.
Notice the addition to detail: as Namor carries her back to the surface, there’s something wrapped around her ankles. I never noticed this before, but it’s a neat way to hide a detail that would’ve spoiled a revelation that’s around the corner.
Uhm, Namor, that’s not exactly how mouth-to-mouth breathing works.
Can’t imagine why she’s NOT grateful for the save.
And then Namor swims to the Antarctic. FROM NEW ORLEANS.
I’m not saying Namor can’t swim that distance, mind you. But it’s kind of hilarious that does this entire trip basically on a whim AND that he STILL meets the girl soon enough!!!
Plus you know me: I can’t resisting needlessly over-analyzing a map.
I’m going to assume Namor took this route to get to the Ross Sea, which is a 18670 km (11601 miles) trip. Admittedly he COULD have gone through the Panama Canal, but somehow I don’t see Namor doing it.
He’s here thanks to some vague memories of an underwater kingdom (NOT Atlantis), which are confirmed when he finds the ruins of a city…
…and giant mutant crabs.
That’s kind of racist, Namor.
The lord of the crab-men would be named Salamar The Sustainer if he had a name, but he doesn’t one despite literally saying his name.
Wait, what?
The crabs also hold the corpse of Namora, who at this point had only shown up in a cameo in Namor’s memories in 1971 but hadn’t been seen since 1955.
Her casket is made of ice here, but in future stories it will be made of glass. Then again, it’s possible Namor later put her in a more dignified resting place.
Also, notice she has blue skin here, while Namora was pink-skinned like him (and will be shown as such in the next issue’s flashback).
That’s not a problem of the modern digital version, it was like this in the original.
This is where the Nameless Crab Who Has A Name (seriously, what’s up with that?) informs us that while Namora might be dead, she has a daughter… and he expects Namor to procreate with her.
Uh. I guess he’s counting on Atlantis having different customs from Krypton.
(I restrained myself from using that image in the Namora review, but you can’t expect me NOT to do this when marrying a cousin is mentioned)
The crabs then bring up one of Namor’s most recurrent problems since the 50s: Byrrah, who hasn’t been seen in a couple of years.
The extent of Namor’s memory problems is a bit confusing, since he remembers both Namora and Byrrah. He shows a remarkable level of compassion for being Namor, though.
Namor tries to fight, but the crab king has impressive electric powers.
Try not to think too hard on how this is supposed to work UNDERWATER.
I just said not to think about it, Namor!
The crab then falls for the most laughable trick ever.
In the fight, Namor discovers that the crab king is actually just a puppet.
That’s because the REAL villain has been Byrrah all along.
Bizarrely, Byrrah is STILL drawn like the Golden Age Atlanteans. When I first read this issue I didn’t even realize he WAS Atlantean, since he looks very different from anyone else!
And he has Namorita hostage.
Now you see why I had to bring up the map? The two cousins met in New Orleans BY SHEER COINCIDENCE, then Namor swims to the other side of the planet and finds her AGAIN.
But good job on the artwork for keeping it a secret that the girl has ankle wings and pointy ears until now.
Is he speaking in general, or does “nita” means “child” in Atlantean? For reasons we’ll see later, he didn’t know Namora had a daughter until now.
Byrrah is not alone in this: Llyra (misspelled here) is the true mastermind.
She’s the one who killed Dorma, helped kill Namor’s father AND she also killed Namora… I’ve always considered her to be Namor’s nemesis.
Yeah Namor has quite a few reasons for being angry this time.
So he spluunks her into an undersea oil spring.
And that’s how the story ends.
That’s the end of the story, but for completion: in the following issue, Byrrah is saved by aliens… who were ALSO part of the scheme for reasons.
More importantly, it’s where we learn more about Namorita. She was born after Namor disappeared after the Golden Age, with her father being a fully Atlantean man.
But she ended up in the underwater kingdom of Lemuria (not the Deviant one, the one where Llyra is from) where she was eventually murdered.
She was also sent by Llyra and Byrrah to find Namor… which actually makes the first story even more ridiculous.
There are SO many things wrong with this…
1) they sent her to find Namor without even telling her what he looks like
2) she just happened to run into him BY ACCIDENT
3) Namor just happened to swim to Byrrah’s base, which I must stress once more is ON THE OTHER SIDE OF THE PLANET FROM WHERE NAMORITA FOUND HIM
Namorita having the hots for her cousin will soon be dropped, and thanks Poseidon for that!
Historical significance: 8/10
Namorita is quite important for Namor’s history, and later for the Marvel Universe at large.
Silver Age-ness: 7/10
On the Marvel scale, that is one nonsensical plan.
Does it stand the test of time? 8/10
Assuming you don’t think too hard about the plan or Namor’s amnesia, it’s not bad at all. The artwork in particular is still a joy to behold.
How close is this to the modern character? 6/10
Namorita stuck around Namor for a lot 70s stories, where he was very much a father figure.
We saw her in that role when she even got to fight Doctor Doom.
But she was also used to introduce modern topics to a series that was mostly fantasy.
She was basically a footnote until 1990, when there was a need for a new team of young heroes.
And Namorita was more than ready to get the spotlight.
Namorita was a founding member of the New Warriors, where she received much attention.
She was basically the powerhouse of the team and she was finally free from Namor’s shadow.
New Warriors is a criminally underrated series, and Namorita was great in it!
Her first showcase issue was #14, one of the first ones I ever read.
It’s a rough time for Namorita: not only she gets a savage beating from a supervillain, not only she has a falling out with Namor…
…but more tragically, she has to wear this atrocity.
It’s interesting to see her getting more and more violent and disillusioned with the surface world as the series progresses. She basically has Namor’s journey in reverse.
Be warned that the artwork seriously degrades over time… we go from Mark Bagley to this infamous atrocity.
Also in the early 90s, she was an important part in the Namor series written and penciled by John Byrne.
But it’s also the series that started screwing her up, because we learned the she wasn’t Namora’s daughter: she was he clone.
All part of a convoluted plot that exists only because Byrne hyper-fixated on the idea that all human-Atlantean hybrids MUST be sterile.
And then the New Warriors series had to double down on bad decisions, having her undergo a serious mutation…
…that makes her look more Atlantean.
She takes the awful codename Kymaera ands this hilariously bad look… I just can’t get over the one-boob shell.
Thankfully she then returned to her classic look. She got to date the Human Torch for a while, but that never went anywhere.
And then Namorita was screwed over one more time in 2006: after returning to another awful blue-skinned look, she died in a stupid way at the beginning of Civil War.
2006 was also the same year her mother was resurrected on “Agents of Atlas”.
Considering the high profile of Civil War, AND how relatively popular Namora turned out to be, she managed to stay dead for good.
Well, on a technicality!
As of 2024, the original Namorita is still dead… but already in 2009 a version from an alternate timeline showed up on the pages of Nova (who had a fling with her during the New Warriors era).
And in 2010, that alternate version moved to the main timeline.
That was at the end of a Nova series. She was still with him during the Thanos Imperative miniseries in 2010.
Nova got himself killed in that series, but he’s since returned.
After that she basically disappeared. Her last appearance to date is a cameo with the New Warriors in 2022 on “Fantastic Four: Reckoning War Alpha” so at least she’s not COMPLETELY forgotten.
