REVIEW: SUBMARINER THE DEPTHS

BY AJ JAZZY D

     Namor, the Sub-Mariner, is an interesting character that dates to the origins of superheroes.  Something of a Science-Fantasy character, Namor, like Wonder Woman, is more magic than mutant.  In the 1940s, you find Namor (plus some now absent extra powers like electric eel blasts) tearing apart Hun ships and toting the same maverick ‘tude he has today. 

     In the 1990s, he was running around Manhattan in a suit and tie fighting the Griffin (apparently that was the best they could do) in his own ill-fated title.  But he was mostly still alien.  Namor is a king, a non-human, a hero and a villain from a lost world who is not, and will never be one of us.  This makes Namor a tad more complex than “avenging loved ones’ death by responsibly using great power.”  And we all know how well comic book writers do with “complex.”

     Enter Sub-Mariner: the Depths, the new limited series under the Marvel Knights mature-themed line.  So far, this is not blue chicks in cryo-tubes or Namor walking around America shouting about being royalty or, God help us, implicitly having a side thing with the Invisible Woman, Susan Richards.  No, reading through the first few pages it hits you:  “Hoary Host!  Somebody at Marvel has a library card!”

     Well, technically, since the copyrights have all run out, somebody at Marvel has googled Lovecraft.  H. P.  Lovecraft is not the “bee’s knees”, as the kids are oft to think, but he is interesting and his works have far, far reaching influences—the most recent example that pops to mind being the Hellboy movie.  But in some ways he was a one-trick pony.  His stories are sort of proto meta-fiction, always taking the form of testimonials.  No romance, no real “good guys,” no happy endings; stories populated with glimpses of ancient monsters and crumpled cities that are so “cyclopedian,” as Lovecraft would write, and alien that it breaks the minds of men.  Oh, and you never really see the big monster.

Ole' Namor- showing that attitude that make guys like Northstar go "Hey, that guy's a jerk!"

     As unlikely as it seems, part one of The Depths manages to be an interesting story that spins Namor into the role of a “thing that should not be,” and he never even really appears.  In the 1930s, a myth debunker pops in a sub on follow-up mission searching for evidence of Atlantis.  His crew warns him of Namor’s wrath to his somewhat cliché dismissals (the sailors even start in about a 1610 shipwreck though Namor’s origins seem to clearly be after the industrial revolution).  The superstitious crew goes all wobbly when the sub gets a good knocking (possibly from a volcanic vent).  In the periscope a human-like shadow moves across the ship’s bow—was it Namor or a big squid?  Oh, and get this: on the first mission, I kid you not, the crew went mad, the captain is lost and presumed dead, and his last transmission was “I see it..”

     Somebody read Lovecraft’s The Temple over there—now if they’d just read their own mythos—but, hey, they must have read it twice, because issue one was not bad.  The recasting of Namor as an unseen, dark god of the sea; thrashing ships onto rocks, killing all hands while “laughing like the wind,” is pretty well played.  No doubt, the series will stray from the Lovecraft formula because, frankly, what are the chances Namor’s going to remain off-panel for 4 more issues?  But if issue one can make 70 year old character seem creepy and mysterious, issue two’s teaser image of a demonic-looking Namor dragging the pseudo-protagonist down into blackness is worth rolling the dice on.