It's World War II and Namor declares offensive war on Japan, sometimes very offensive. He also finds time to work undercover at a lumber company and fighting underwater pirate Nazis because Golden Age. Meanwhile the Angel fights crime in a loud costume that doesn't enhance his abilities or hide his identity also because golden age.
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Transcript below:
GrahamPrince Namor or declares war on Japan. Find out all about it as we take a look at Marvel Masterworks: Golden Age Sub-Mariner, Vol. 1, straight ahead.
[Intro Music]
Announcer:Welcome to the Classy Comics podcast where we search for the best comics in the universe. From Boise Idaho, here is your host Adam Graham.
Graham:The Golden Age of Marvel Comics is not quite as celebrated as D.C. Comics Golden Age and there's some reason for that. D.C.'s greatest heroes Superman, Batman and Wonder Woman, all had their beginning during those years in the late 30s and early 40s and the Justice Society of America was a big crossover event featuring a lot of heroes who D.C. really, subsequently, kept as part of their ongoing narrative, either as being from an alternate universe and occasionally crossing over or being from the past and continuing in some way in the present day. In addition, D.C. also acquired the rights to such classic Golden Age characters as Captain Marvel and Plastic Man from their respective publishers. Marvel, on the other hand, had one major character who had their roots in the Golden Age, Captain America and their references back to the Golden Age are incredibly infrequent and usually, it's in somewhat obscure mini-series or one shots. Yet, Marvel's Golden Age had a lot going for it. There were multiple magazines that put out some great work many by solid artists who would play a big role in the Silver Age of comics particularly in Marvel's resurgence and they had their own big three of Captain America, The Human Torch and Sub-Mariner.
Today, our focus is on the Sub-Mariner, Prince Namor and volume 2 of his solo series. Sub-Mariner was first introduced in the pages of Marvel Mystery Comics, an anthology feature and in his first issue, he inadvertently killed two divers thinking if they were robots and learned of his origin, as the son of an Atlantean and of an American sea captain and his mother's desire that he make war on all surface men which I guess could kind of make the Sub-Mariner a bit of an antihero except his wars on surface man were very intermittent. Whether he was trying to help humanity out or trying to declare war on humanity, kind of varied from issue to issue and story to story. Yet, he's a likeable character because he's driven by a sense of honur and there's a decency about him, even if he's a little bit mixed-up from our perspective as to what the right thing to do is. Probably my favorite story in terms of what the Sub-Mariner is like is one story from Marvel Mystery comics where he decides he's going to invade and take over New York by himself and he sets about doing it. However, he stops the entire invasion when he sees that a nanny has run away and left a baby carriage unintended and he turns instead to rescue the baby. That's the Sub-Mariner pre-war for you.
In the first issue of his comic, in his own solo series, the Sub-Mariner and Atlantis as a whole, declares war on the Nazis when the Nazis tried to invade Atlantis and this book continues Namor’s story. I should mention that Marvel Masterworks have a very different approach to the Golden Age than D.C. does. D.C. reprints, as a general rule, bound collections featuring the most popular characters. Its Golden Age collections feature Batman, Superman and Wonder Woman. Even in anthology comics where other characters appear, they're not going to reprint all those other stories. The Marvel masterworks reprints,