The Story of the Sub-Mariner

     Perhaps you are a fan of the Timely/Atlas line of comics in which Namor's story begins during World War II in what is commonly known as The Golden Age of comics. In this case we first encounter Namor, who's name means "The Avenging Son" in the Atlantean tongue, is both feared and revered the by the surface dwellers. Namor's upbringing taught him to loathe humans, and everything about them seemed to prove his grandfather's teachings to be true. Namor's mother, on the other hand, seemed torn, for Namor himself is the product of both a human father and an Atlantean mother, resulting in his unique mutations, such as his ability to breathe on surface and in the sea. He has pink skin and curious winged appendages which somehow give him the power of flight. Namor is at home in water, on land or in the air. He is truly a Marvel. By the time WWII had erupted, Atlantis found itself the unknown and innocent victim of the warring factions.

     One day, young Prince Namor clashed with two deepsea divers when he thought them to be advanced scouts. Emperor Thakorr sent his grandson to the surface world to retaliate. Over the next few months tensions between Namor and the surface-dwellers began to esculate and they clashed often, especially with the android named the Human Torch (the original, not the young member of the Fantastic Four). The Torch sought to only stop Namor's havoc, but fearing the worst, Special Agent Betty Dean attempted to take Namor captive. She pretended to be a drowning victim, then, as Namor attempted rescue, she turned on him. He knocked her gun from her hand, so she then pleaded with him to stop his rampages. Impressed by her bravery, Namor and Betty soon became good friends, even lovers for some years. Meanwhile, Namor and the Torch had settled their own differences and with the help of Betty, Torch was able to convince Namor that his anger was best served vented against the Axis powers.

     Together with Captain America, Namor and the Human Torch, and the two sideskicks, Bucky and Toro, joined forces to battle Hitler and his armies calling themselves the Invaders! He often encountered other heroes of the Golden Age, such as the members of the Liberty Legion, and the later Invader recruits Spitfire, Union Jack, Miss America and the Whizzer, and the junior members in the Young Allies and Kid Commandos. Namor even found himself fighting his Atlantean companions from his youth who had been wooed by the Axis powers to fight Namor, such as Merrano who now called himself U-Man. Still later, Namor's cousin Aquaria, who was also a hybrid of Atlantean and human stock, joined his side to fight evil wherever they found it. Aquaria took Namor's own name in this effort, calling herself Namora ("avenging daughter"). Another young Atlantean who aided Namor was Subbie, but whether Namor ever knew this is unrevealed. Perhaps the most tragic event of WWII was when Namor discovered his own mother, Princess Fen, had conspired with the Nazis who only two years earlier had bombed Atlantis (Captain America, Sentinel of Liberty #2-4). This was to become Princess Fen's shame.

     The Allied war effort in both the Atlantic and Pacific naval theaters was instrumental in the defeat of the Axis powers. Saddly, the war took it's toll on the Allies too. Captain America was lost and presumed dead, and Bucky was killed in an explosion. Then, for a brief period of time after the war Namor fought crime on the surface world as a member of the All-Winners Squad which retained most of the Invaders' membership, and added some others, including a new Captain America, who died soon after, a second Bucky, and a third Captain America. Namora continued to fight by Namor's side, as well as her teaming up with other female heroes like Golden Girl (Captain America's sidekick) and Sun Girl (Human Torch's sidekick).

     Atlantis had escaped much of the damage that befell the surface world during the war. Evenso, after the war had ended, Atlantis' Antarctic capital city was besieged by violent earthquakes. Emperor Thakorr dispatched Namor to the surface world to investigate the source of the tremors. In a cavern on the Antarctic continent, Namor found Paul Destine, who now called himself Destiny. He had spent decades in suspended animation and was now testing the might of his own Helmet of Power by leveling much of Atlantis. Destiny succeeded in destroying the capital city of Atlantis, and killing a large portion of its population, including, it seemed, the Emperor. The survivors began a long period of nomadic wandering. As for Namor himself, Destiny used the helmet to force him to fly to New York City, and gave him near total amnesia. As a result Namor spent years as a derelict with no idea of his name or home until, by shere coincidence, the young Jonathan Storm found him in that bowery flophouse.

     During this time, Namora took it upon herself to seek out her cousin, determined he was not dead as was feared by most Atlanteans. After searching for sometime with no luck, she fell in love with an Atlantean from the province of Maritanis, named Talan. When Maritanis was destroyed Namora and Talan moved to the continent of Lemuria where she was found to be pregnant with a daughter whom she named Namorita. In time Talan died, and Namora began courting Prince Mero of Lemuria. Unfortunately for Namora, another young woman, one with the power to shapeshift, named Llyra, also had designs for Mero, and most importantly, for his throne. Bitter fights between Namora and Llyra ensued, until finally Namora was found dead, presumably poisoned by Llyra, as suspected by the young girl, Namorita. Llyra then married Prince Mero and became the Queen of Lemuria. Not satisfied with her status, she sought to expand her power. Mysteriously the Prince died, and then Llyra took control of Namora's orphaned child, Nita (Namorita's nickname). Llyra threatened to destroy the body of her mother if Nita did not do Llyra's bidding. She sent her to Atlantis to decieve the young Prince Namor.

To be continued... Silver Age Sub-Mariner

     Perhaps your idea of Namor's story begins with that fateful day when Princess Fen met the handsome American Captain Leonard McKenzie. This part of Namor's tale begins about twenty years before World War II when Captain McKenzie's ship, the Oracle, was on a salvage mission to Antartica. The Oracle had come in search of precious cargo and equipment from a previous expedition aboard The Endurance, an exploratory ship crushed by pack ice almost a dozen years before. One of the passengers, carnival mentalist Paul Destine, persuaded McKenzie to mount a search into the Antarctic interior where he believed there was a fantastic city belonging to a long-dead race called "The Ancients." Blasting through the ice floes, McKenzie wasn't the evil demon of fairytales Namor grew up hearing in Atlantis, depicting him as a white-skinned ogre astride a grey armored sea serpent. Rather he was just a man who believed in the safety of his men and the success of their mission. Had it meant destroying half of the continent of the Antarctic with TNT, he would have done so willingly. How could he have known that a century-old city lay unsuspecting beneath that mass of ice. Or that that series of explosions would cause a sub-sea avalanche which would crush innocents and babes to crimson pulp, all in the name of "Human Progress."

     The Atlantean Emperor Thakorr asked his adventurous daughter Fen to send a scouting party to the surface to investigate the cause of the damage. Seeing no need to send others, Fen went up alone, taking with her a potion enabling her to breathe air for up to five hours per dosage. She soon discovered the Oracle and went aboard, startling Captain McKenzie and his crew by her appearance. At this time there was no documented evidence among normal human beings of the existence of a water-breathing race of Homo mermanus, such as dwell in undersea Atlantis and Lemuria. Remaining aboard ship Fen quickly learned English and she and McKenzie soon fell in love with one another. Fen and McKenzie were married aboard the Oracle.

     A short time later, McKenzie finanlly followed through with his promises to Destine and took a small vessel further inland. They discovered the site of a city once built by water-breathing Lemurians and the so-called Helmet of Power, which was actually the disguised Serpent Crown, an object of tremendous mystical power. Mad with the desire for power Destine furiously sought to revive the ancient machines, but inadvertantly triggered an avalanche which buried the city, Destine and the Helmet. Quickly fleeing McKenzie and his small crew returned to the Oracle. McKenzie could think of only one thing, reuniting with his beloved Fen. They embraced. But their reunion was to be short-lived.

     When Fen had not returned to Atlantis for several weeks, Thakorr dispatched a war party to the surface, assuming she had been taken prisoner. In the resulting confrontation aboard the Oracle, Leonard McKenzie was apparently killed before her eyes while Fen was swiftly, and reluctanlty borne away by Atlantean warriors. Unbeknownst to Fen, McKenzie was wounded, but not dead. Mckenzie believed the blue-skinned warriors had taken Fen to her death by drowning and was determined to remain behind and somehow save her. The Oracle's crew ignored McKenzie's pleas, terrified the invaders would return, bent every effort to fleeing what they deamed a haunted sea. In their haste and fear, they blasted the ice-floes from their path with all the explosives that remain on board. The resulting concussions hurled Princess Fen and her liberators before them like flotsam, and wrought a new and even more terrible desolation upon the city below. Neither the crew of the Oracle, nor her Captain knew aught of this, as they left the Antarctic continent and her frigid seas far behind.

     Princess Fen would never forget the coming of the American Captain, and months later she would give birth to McKenzie's son. She named the first known hybrid offspring of Homo sapiens and Homo mermanus Namor, which in the Atlantean tongue means "Avenging Son." The spawn of two worlds, yet fated to belong fully to none. Namor's hybrid nature enables him to breathe both in air, as his father's race does, and underwater, as the Atlanteans can. He also has powers possessed neither by human beings nor by ordinary Atlanteans, and it is also speculated that these powers (and his winged feet) are the result of benevolent mutations, which are of unknown origin. Apparently, not long thereafter, a cousin of Namor's, and Atlantean male, met and married a human woman. Once more a hybrid offspring resulted in the birth of Aquaria Nautica Neptunia, who would one day be better known as Namora. Perhaps her one prominent difference, aside from gender, to Namor, was her lack of tiny winged appendages.

     Growing up in the rebuilt Atlantis, youthful Namor was not very popular. His pink skin marked him as an outcast and the seers believed him to be accursed. As heir to the throne, Namor even had enemies, most vocally his cousin Brynn who believed her own son, Byrrah, step-son of the Emperor, had more right to rule one day than the halfbreed ever would. Namor's playmates were few, and typically his own cousins: Byrrah and Namor's closest companions, the twins Seth and Dara. Perhaps his most devoted playmate, who would one day win his heart, was another, but more distant cousin, Dorma. These along with Byrrah's friend, Merrano, would play "Atlanteans and Surface-Dwellers," a game which taught him many of the myths his people believed about pink-skinned human devils, of which he was often compared. For a brief time in his youth, during an extended visit to Atlantis, he also became acquainted with the young tomboy Aquaria (nicknamed "Namora" by her own father). A cousin his mother felt was most important to him; for him to meet another like himself.

To be continued...Golden Age Sub-Mariner