Monday, April 09, 2018

You'd assume the two undersea guys would at least be acquainted, but nope!


For some reason--I'm guessing the Paul Jenkins/Jae Lee Marvel Knights Inhumans--I thought Triton had known Namor since he was a baby. Maybe not, since we're looking at their first meeting today! From 1968, Sub-Mariner #2, "Cry...Triton!" Written by Roy Thomas, pencils by John Buscema, inks by Frank Giacoia. (Reprinted in 1980's Tales to Astonish #2, albeit minus several pages!)

Defeated by the man named Destiny (not to be confused with the woman named Destiny, from the Brotherhood of Evil Mutants) a furious Namor is now wrecking up Destiny's equipment so hard he nearly kills himself in the ensuing explosion. Now Namor finds himself at a loss: how to find Destiny, on the surface world? Where would he even start looking?

Not being any moron, Namor opts to go to the Fantastic Four, since they're always ever so glad to see him...Meanwhile, far away yet conveniently in Namor's path to New York, on a tiny island, the Inhumans investigate a mysterious sub. Or rather, they have Triton do it. He's a good guy, even willing to give the sub the benefit of the doubt: maybe it's a friend. Nope! It's Plantman. Is that the standard, no space, no hyphen? Well, we're going with that. And I'm sure later writers tried to upsell him, maybe give him powers or motivation or something, but here he's very much a nut in a costume. Still, he's savvy enough to realize, when Namor approaches from the other direction, maybe those two didn't know they were on the same side: Plantman makes a radio call...that both Triton and Namor can hear, somehow...telling Namor to attack Triton. Figuring Namor to be a bad guy, Triton attacks, and five pages of fighting fill up like magic!

Eventually, Triton and Namor are caught in a plant trap, then magnetized to a pole; and the guys start to realize what's going on maybe. (Triton mentions hearing about Plantman from the Human Torch. Um, okay. Weird conversation to have.) The other Inhumans come to help Triton, but are too late, as Plantman launches his rocket-sub towards his target: London!

I like how Gorgon appears to be pretending to think in that panel there. Pulverizer panel from What The--?! #1, "Accounts Overdrawn--Checks Returned for Lack of Funds" Written and plotted by Peter B. Gillis, pencils and plots by Hilary Barta, inks by John Severin; and it was sheer happenstance that panel had Namor in it, I was thinking of the "any moron" line!

1 comment:

Mr. Morbid's House Of Fun said...

That What The? Punisher bit's funny. Namor getting drunk by pouring booze on himself. Nice. Thought that was Aquaman's deal.