I remembered the cover, anyway.

It's a great cover! Easily my favorite part of this one. From 2016, Spider-Woman #8, written by Dennis Hopeless, pencils by Javier Rodriguez, inks by Alváro López.

The next three issues were Civil War II tie-ins, so this may have been intended as a last bit of fun before the grimdark crossover machine started up. Jessica throws down with the "kingpin of Staten Island," Tiger Shark--who doesn't get a single line of dialog all issue, which makes me wonder how effective a crime boss he was. Well, he's intimidating, anyway. After a fight in TS's swanky apartment smashes open his giant fishtank and releases a worryingly large squid, Jessica gets a couple lucky breaks: a texting ambulance driver hits Tiger Shark, knocking him into the sewers. She's not about to follow, but gets dragged down, and it looks pretty bad until the squid wrecks the Shark. Jessica still takes the win--and the credit.

Meanwhile, at home is pretty domestic-blissy for her, with her new son and new love interest-slash-manny, the Porcupine. I had to look up that he wasn't the original, since I know he died in an issue of Captain America, but...why would you take that identity? Even if it was just yours for the grabbing. Anyway, Jessica had a new costume and new motorcycle in this series as well, and I wonder if all of them haven't been rolled back for her newest series. It happens. Aside from the cover, I didn't love this one? Maybe because I feel like Namor, Tiger Shark should be pretty unbeatable if he manages to get the fight into his element. Maybe the previous issue established his grudge with the squid and I missed it...
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You could probably sell toys named "Grim Shark" or "Tiger Reaper" or any combo thereof, really.

My pile of unread stuff has somehow become tall enough to do some damage if it falls on me, so let's spend an afternoon with two new figures: from the Marvel Legends Ant-Man series, Tiger Shark and Grim Reaper!

For good measure, the Wife was playing with Tiger Shark and a banana eraser from a vending machine...that may not be as in scale as I would have hoped.

Neither may the most recent Sub-Mariner figure, either, although your mileage may vary: I like TS being bigger.

I didn't splurge on the whole batch this time, though; partially because they were out of Ant-Man; but I'm not positive I need Bulldozer or regular-sized Giant-Man: I've missed or skipped the rest of the Wrecking Crew to date, and classic comics Yellowjacket is my preferred Hank Pym look. Seriously, that's the costume to steal, people. But we'll see. I did splurge on something else, that'll be here later this week...



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Aquaman gets the Fisherman, Namor gets Tiger Shark. Seems fair.

While I'm not a huge fan of Aquaman or the Sub-Mariner, I usually enjoy their books when I get them. But I'd have to say, while neither has a deep Rogues' Gallery, they do have a couple good ones. Black Manta is probably Aquaman's best, and for Namor, I like Tiger Shark.

He's got a pretty good origin: former Olympic swimmer Todd Arliss was making plans to cash in on his victories, when he was injured while saving a drowning man. (Tellingly, Arliss was thinking of the headlines at the time.) In the Marvel tradition of Dr. Strange or Daredevil, normal doctors could do nothing for him, and with his swimming career seemingly over, Todd takes an alternative-medicine approach. He turns to Dr. Dorcas, who plans to use his 'Morphotron' and the Sub-Mariner to turn Todd into an amphibian. It fixes Todd's back, sure, but also gives him gills, and "the powers and limitations of a shark."

Todd didn't really want to be a villain or a shark-guy, but there he is. He doesn't want to be Dorcas' puppet, and ends up fighting Namor since he's pissed about being held captive. Weakened by the experiment and then distracted by the return of Lady Dorma, Namor gets beat down; and the newly-named Tiger Shark takes off with Dorma as his captive, possibly so he has someone to talk to for his new life under the sea...

Years later, in both the Fox Avengers cartoon and the Busiek/Bagley Thunderbolts, Todd would be shown to be mutated into a more shark-like form; not unlike every shark-guy in comics. I liked him better has a guy in a suit (although he could lose the fringe...) and seem to recall him handing Wolverine his ass during Acts of Vengeance.

Scans from Tales to Astonish #5 (reprinting Sub-Mariner #5) "Watch Out for...Tiger Shark!" Written by Roy Thomas, art by John Buscema, inks by Frank Giacoia.
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