Random Happenstance

Although I'm not a big fan, I would absolutely buy this Sub-Mariner's comics.

Namor isn't a character that I traditionally follow, at least not since the first dozen issues or so of John Byrne's version. Partially it's because I first saw him as a Fantastic Four villain, and to me he's always going to be that rich prettyboy trying to steal Sue Richards. It's also because Namor's undersea kingdom of Atlantis is just as boring and not thought out as Aquaman's, except for a marginally better rogues' gallery. (Tiger Shark and Attuma beat out Black Manta and Ocean Master, but I can't think of a C-list bad guy for Namor equivalent to the Fisherman...)

That said, I do enjoy his guest spots and appearances, since the Sub-Mariner's usually a jerk, and it's entertaining to see him interact/fight with other characters. Then I re-read this story, and it was a Sub-Mariner that probably would have sold better than Marvel's Tsunami try: "The Shark People" From Young Men #25, reprinted in Giant-sized Defenders #2: with Subby's creator Bill Everett on story and art. This is both from and set in the fifties, which means I'm not really sure if or how this would fit into Marvel continuity: it would be after he fought in WWII with the Invaders, but before he lost his memory and ended up on skid row. But Namor looks older in a lot of his Invaders-era appearances, although that might just be his triangular-shaped head, so we'll let that go.

The story opens with a young woman cutting in line for the Staten Island ferry, cutting all the way to the front and jumping in. A cop dives after her, but all he finds is her clothes. Later the harbor is dragged, but no body is recovered, nor is any clue found on the clothes. Namor and his 'friend' Betty Dean read the story in the papers.


Fun fact: Namor's always liked the blondes. "The notorious Sub-Mariner" here seems like a rich foreign prince who's lived abroad for so long that he's at home now. Namor and Betty's relationship is kind of open to interpretation, though: she was a policewoman who stood up to him and tried to bring him in; and he respected her courage. Yes, lots of guys will hang out for years, scrap invasion plans, and join the Allied powers because they respect a woman's courage...it seems more like Namor was smitten, and pursued her; but without getting creepy like (I've heard) the Ultimate version.

Namor decides to investigate the disappearance, and finds a body after searching for one panel: a bum, chewed up like a shark had attacked, but on the dock, dry as a bone. Next is possibly the weirdest thing to see: Namor calls and works with the cops. I think under the Comics Code back then heroes had to co-operate with 'the authorities,' but today Namor would strike out on his own, find the body, end up under suspicion of murder, and have to fight the cops for at least an issue and a half. Namor checks the water, but as he expects, finds nothing: the water's too cold for sharks.

Further south, however, the water is warm enough, and a small boat is capsized with no survivors. The shark attack isn't graphic, but the screams are chilling. (Of course, they're chilling to someone who grew up hundreds of miles from the ocean yet was still afraid of sharks after Jaws came out. I was six! And sharks are scary!) Namor meets with a friend in the Coast Guard, investigating the remains on the beach, with a ton of onlookers and gawkers. You might think they would want to study mangled corpses in, I dunno, a morgue or something; rather than have them laid out like chum at the fish market, but what do I know. Namor doesn't know why the boat would overturn, although I'm not sure why someone who swims underwater all the time would necessarily know what is and isn't seaworthy.


In answer to Namor's boating question, a smirking, weird-necked onlooker explains, ala the MST3K version of Attack of the Giant Leeches, that maybe the sharks were so hungry they swamped the boat themselves, to get at the yummy "rich, human flesh!" within. Namor calls B.S. and "you talk like a lunatic--who are you, anyway?" but he's already disappeared.

Apparently so perplexed by the whole affair that he's still in the same spot eight hours later, Namor figures "This whole deal is screwy! There's something unnatural about these shark attacks!" Well, duh. Luckily, he sees the weird guy from earlier, stripping down and going into the ocean. Namor thinks he must be looking for something in the surf, and goes in after to help; a surprising attitude from one of Marvel's foremost jerkwads. Once in, he finds no sign of the man, but is attacked by a shark, which Namor kills by ripping it's jaws back.


The next morning, the body of the strange man is found washed ashore, "His face is split open--his jaws ripped apart completely! What caused it!" Gee officer, maybe the guy standing next to you, that can breathe underwater and has super-strength, could be a suspect? Namor is starting to piece things together, but wisely doesn't mention killing a shark in such a manner the night before. "Right now this case before you looks like homicide---someone killed that man---but before I'm through---well---go ahead and report it as suspected murder!" That too doesn't sound like anything you would want to tell a cop, but the officer at the scene seems completely befuddled, Barney Fife of the beach. Get all those sightseers in close for a look, too!

Later that evening, Namor may or may not have left the beach in three days, which is just like a kegger I remember. Well, by 'remember' I mean, 'was told about when I regained consciousness,' or possibly 'pieced together from the police reports.' Anyway, Namor is plotting a trap when he sees a girl wading out of the surf, where there were no swimmers before. Surprised, the girl asks Namor what he wants; and Namor says he's got a theory about the sharks and how to exterminate them; which should be easy because Greenpeace was years away and doesn't give a whale's ass for non-cute, meat-eating creatures. The girl is horrified, but Namor presses on: the sharks are monsters, may be part human, and the girl may be one of them. Caught, she attacks, but is quickly subdued. Namor threatens to keep her on shore "till you shrivel up like a dried herring!" and the girl spills.


Mental projection, shark-to-man transformation, aliens consuming human flesh: all pretty hot stuff considering the Comic Code was probably brand new and in full effect here. I also like Namor's blase "Do you shark-people hope to conquer the earth, like everyone else from outer space seems to?"

With the sharkmen's meeting location, Namor organizes fishing boats to net up the whole lot of them. The screaming sharkmen are given the choice: "Either project your mentalities back to the planet you came from, or be hauled up on dry land to die under the hot sun!!!" Namor doesn't play.

The "space-sharks" protest they can't go back, so later that evening we find "a mile-long beach covered with the corpses of thousands and thousands of great white sharks--all very, very dead!!!" Namor explains that even normal sharks are cowards, and in a letter to Betty Dean, isn't sure if they projected their minds back into space, or died; but doesn't much care either. In the same fashion that the X-Files would beat to death years later, there is no proof one way or the other that the sharkmen were aliens, but the killings stop and the case is otherwise closed.

For me, this is about the perfect Namor story: he's confident without being a tool, there's a weird undersea menace that isn't him, there's a surprising amount of violence. The violence is mostly off-panel or not shown, but that just makes your imagination take the ball and run with it. Maybe I'm reading too much into it, but Namor's interactions with Betty Dean also add a lot of character that's previously been missing. The only thing missing from this story was Namor's little ankle wings, but this story still beats the "Imperious Rex!" out of his Tsunami series.