Sparky's Long Box Reviews

Sunday, 31 March 2013

Namor The Submariner #13 Classic Cover

Thursday, 21 March 2013

Namor The Submariner (1990) 1-25 Lost Classic

Namor #4

This has got to be one of the great titles of the early 90's. To me it represents the last vestiges of the greatness of the 1980's before the Marvel Universe and its characters became a fictonal quagmire populated by cliche ridden tough guys, like Cable and Shatterstar, and Wolverine and the Punisher were pimped out to every low-selling Marvel Title to raise sales. Card embossed covers and cardboard cut-out characters were on the way in, characterization and intricate plots were on the way out. But that's a different post.
Namor as a character was never really an a-lister, I feel aquatic heroes don't do as well as others(see Aquaman). Maybe it was his haughty imperious (Rex!) character that people didn't relate to. He had no feet of clay, except for maybe his temper. Mere mortal readers couldn't relate to him as they would Thor, who occasionally found himself humbled, and a lot of his stories dealt with the dangers of pride and over inflated ego. He just was more inherently likable as a character.
I've always had a soft spot for Namor, and I can't properly explain why. I think it is because I enjoyed him so much in Roger Stern's Avengers, where he was constantly at loggerheads with Hercules, and Stern fleshed his character out a bit from where he was when Roy Thomas was writing him in the 60's.
John Byrne obviously liked the character and it shows. His Namor is still the same haughty, imperious , headstrong character but Byrne, and its a testament to his mastery of his craft, made him LIKABLE. Not only that but it was a beautiful looking comic inside and out.
Just like Byrne revitalised the Fantastic Four and Superman, he works the same magic here, refining elements of Namor's mythos. One of the most interesting aspects is taking Namor from a pair of Speedos into a business suit as Namor entered the corporate world at the helm of an environmental protection company called Oracle, (very early 90's). This provided many a subplot and the nefarious Marrs twins Desmond and Phoebe, introduced in Byrne's Iron Man, attempted a hostile takeover, which was so full of intrigue and wild twists and turns that I won't spoil it. (Get the back issues or buy the trades, the back issues are dirt cheap).
Namor had a sidekick his cousin Namorita who acted as a more whimsical counterpoint to the sometimes brooding and over-serious Namor. And Byrne draws a lovely Namorita, it has to be said. She even fashions a disguise for Namor in one of the early issues which is a typical Byrne motif; making the outlandish sound plausible. He did the same for Clark Kent in Man of Steel.

Just as some new comics just never seem to find their feet and end up in cancelation, Namor the Submariner had all major elements in place in the first three issues. A whole spectrum of Marvel characters show up, the FF, Cap, Iron Man, Ka-Zar, even the obligatory appearances of the Punisher and Wolverine, in an attempt to ground this title in the greater Marvel Universe. (Sadly other titles did not return the favour as mutants were the flavour of the day after Jim Lee's X-Men in 1991). If this title had appeared 7-8 years earlier it would have been an absolute smash and elevated Namor to a-list status, but Byrne was now superceded by McFarlane, Jim Lee and Rob Liefield while ironically, in my opinion was at the creative apex of his career.
Namor's manner in this series is more nuanced than it had been earlier, there are subtleties in facial expression that Byrne allows that let the reader see through Namor's armour of aloofness. He has heart and is shown as fallible and self critical, but not overly so. This is something other writers have never been able to achieve with the character.
His rages are explained by an imbalance of oxygen in his blood which drives him into temporary insanity, hence his wars on surface dwellers. A marine biologist he meets in #1 provides him with the cure. One of the greatest issues of any comic I've ever read was #13 'The trial of the Submariner' which is such a classic it deserves a post in itself. The book is also responsible for the reintroduction of Iron Fist into the Marvel Universe, in the climactic story arc, before Jae Lee takes over art duties. Luckily Namor has been released in two trade paperbacks collecting the whole run. Watch for 'em. I have only one complaint about this run on Namor, it was too short.

2 page splash ;-) from #1

Tuesday, 12 February 2013

X-Men Portfolio 1980. John Byrne,

Friday, 8 February 2013

Spider-man Vs. Superman!! Another great commission from John Byrne

From John Byrne's Facebook page. Simply amazing!!

https://www.facebook.com/pages/John-Byrne/47733924917

Saturday, 2 February 2013

Marvel UK 1985-86 (Part 1)

Back in 1985-86 Marvel fans in Britain and Ireland who didn't have regular access to the American editions, were catered for by two weekly reprint titles Spider-Man and Zoids, and Secret Wars (2). It is a fun nostalgic experience now years later looking back on these editions. Spider-Man had to share his 24 page mag with the Zoids, a little remembered toy line created by Tomy, that featured mechanical dinosaurs on the planet Zoidstar (the people behind Hasbro's Transformers could sleep easy.) It also featured artwork by the great Kev Hopgood & Ron Smith among others and claimed the distinction of publishing Grant Morrison's first professional work in comics.
As good as that strip was it was the Spider-man strip that I really waited to read every week. This was a great era for Spider-man, Tom Defalco was doing a bang up job writing the strip and the underated Ron Frenz was producing some amazing artwork.

Sineater! Notice how the credits are missing (bottom)

This was the era of the alien costume saga, the Hobgoblin and the Death of Jean DeWollf (Sineater) sagas. That might give some indication of why these mags are so memorable (a decade later Marvel UK had 100 page mammoth monthly comic out entitled 'The Exploits of Spider-Man' which chronicled the Ben Reilly saga and Spider-Man 2099 :-( ) . The Spider-man strip usually was issued in weekly installments of 6-13 pages, but it was a weekly so we, as readers, were drip-fed our dose of Spider-man.

Marvel UK celebrates Marvels 25th

Marvel UK version on right, original on left. Notice the difference in vibrancy.

The pages were larger than the American editions and glossy so the colours really shone and the bigger pages did the artwork more justice. To my 9-year-old mind they were simply amazing.
Looking back Marvel UK had an awful habit of cutting panels and pages from these mags. They were notorious for it. Case in point point the last page of the Sineater saga, the start of a budding bromance between Matt Murdock and Parker is cut by a blurb for the next issue...

I'll never forget the Death of Jean DeWolff story from the Spectacular Spider-man, it brought a level of grit and realism to Spider-man that was missing in his main US title 'Amazing'.
But that's a different post.
Spider-man and Zoids ran for one year only (51 issues) and its final Spider-man panel has got to be one of the most depressing ways to to finish up a strip I've ever witnessed. Of course these were the days before Parker married a super-model, released a best-selling coffee-table book and joined the Avengers, so art imitating life back then, Peter Parker had a whole host of worries, his ailing aunt, money, where the rent was going to come from etc. Here's that final panel in all it's 'slit-my-wrists now' glory.

Final panels from Spider-man (Spider-Man and Zoids)

Spider-man would return in late 1990 in the Complete Spider-Man a 100-page reprint title that kicked of with the Todd McFarlane story,Torment. Spidey, Marvel's flagship character and the rest of the superheroes did a vanishing act for nearly 4 years from Marvel UK's presses. Beat that Onslaught!!!! The editorial thinking being that the British public had minimal interest in superheroes. Action Force(G.I. Joe), The Real Ghostbusters,Transformers and the Thundercats were the order of the day. The Punisher got a weekly title in '89 that featured Frank Miller's Daredevil and Transformers had an Iron Man back up strip reprinted from Amazing Spider-Man annual 20. That was it. It was a sad time for many young fans...

Spidey returns!!!

For anyone out there that desires a more in depth look at these fondly remembered pieces of ephemera, look no further than

http://stevegoble.blogspot.co.uk/2010/01/spider-man-and-zoids.html

Steve Goble is a man who has done a painstaking job detailing these mags and the little idiosynchrocies of the Marvel UK bullpen in presenting these reprints. With no desire for reward or recognition he has painstakingly detailed almost every story in this series and cross referenced it with it's original US counterpart in terms of continuity. It is a wry and humorous look but historically rock-solid. A major Spider-fan, there is a wealth of great posts there. Stay tuned for part 2 as I take a look at Marvel UK's treatment of the Secret Wars.