Marvel’s seagoing Superman of the 1940s became a useful utility character early in the 1960s, serving as hero or villain as the occasion required — just as the Hulk did a little later on.
In his Silver Age resurrection (Fantastic Four 4, May 1962), the Sub-Mariner became the super-team enemy. Still, in his second appearance (Fantastic Four 6, Sept. 1962), he started as an opponent but turned into an ally to save the day.
Prince Namor was intriguingly unpredictable, even as he had been in the late 1930s (though, thanks to the Comics Code, he was no longer casually murdering police officers).
However, by the time a feature spot opened up for the character in Tales to Astonish 70, the very busy Stan Lee had settled into a sort of one-note characterization for the Sub-Mariner, a lofty arrogance. Compared to other Marvel superheroes, I found him a bit of a humorless “noble” bore.
“I was as thrilled as anybody when the Sub-Mariner was finally given his own series in Tales to Astonish,” recalled Roy Thomas. “‘Adam Austin’ drew an illustrative Namor which had little in common with the (Bill) Everett version, but I liked it. Later that year, when I went to work for Stan Lee, I learned that ‘Adam Austin’ was really one Gene Colan, hiding under a fake name because he also drew romance comics for DC and didn’t want them to know he was moonlighting.”
“It took me a while to like the Sub-Mariner series,” comics historian Paul Zuckerman admitted. “For one thing, the quest storyline never seemed to end. Until it suddenly did. But I found it tiresome at first. And it took me a while to appreciate Colan’s art, probably because of the inking. Not so when he started doing Iron Man a month or so later — I was sold on Colan from then on!”
“Sub-Mariner’s ‘Quest’ was a bore (and with bad inking) that seemed endless,” agreed comics historian Joseph Lenius. “And then, wouldn’t you know it, when (Jim) Aparo went over to DC and did Aquaman, they did the ‘quest’ to find the kidnapped Mera. Jeez.”
Perhaps coincidentally, when the Sub-Mariner replaced Giant-Man in the duplex title Tales to Astonish, the comic book acquired a theme: super-antiheroes.
Both Prince Namor and the Hulk, the star of the magazine’s other feature, were rough-hewn, sharp-edged heroes who often rescued humanity only reluctantly or inadvertently.
Meanwhile, Strange Tales, featuring Dr. Strange and Nick Fury, spotlighted niche characters more marginally connected to superheroes. And Tales of Suspense, featuring Iron Man and Captain America, was the duplex comic offering two out-and-out superheroes.
“Marvel had several characters whom I refer to as wild cards,” observed comics historian Vincent Mariani. “Namor and the Hulk were the earliest and wildest ones, and they were followed by Hawkeye, Black Widow, Quicksilver, Scarlet Witch, Wonder Man, and Hercules, who would wind up becoming the nucleus of the Avengers as each was ‘tamed’ or reformed, or shown to have innate heroic qualities. Some of the early edge that Marvel had introduced became watered down as these characters became overexposed or unambiguously portrayed as heroes.”
“It can’t be overemphasized how much Marvel tapped into the growing youth culture zeitgeist by publishing two prominent anti-heroes like Namor and the Hulk,” noted comics historian Mark Engblom. “It’s hard to think of two characters more suited for their times.”
“For all the credit Stan and company get for introducing morally ambiguous superheroes to comics, the return of Namor made it clear Marvel (in their original Timely Comics incarnation) had been exploring moral ambiguity from the very beginning,” Engblom said. “At first the sworn enemy of mankind, then one of its biggest defenders against the Axis, Namor was the original poster child for conflicting allegiances and mercurial temperament. It’s also somehow fitting that the return of the tempestuous Sub-Mariner was published the same month as Marvel’s newest ‘Is He Friend or Foe?’ ambiguity: THE HULK!”
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