Decades before the DC vs. Marvel crossover event, here's the very first team-up of Aquaman and the Sub-Mariner, from Not Brand Echh #3!
For those unaware, Not Brand Echh! was an ongoing series Marvel published from 1967-1969, skewering their own characters and plot contrivances, many times written and drawn by the same people who were doing the "straight" superhero titles. Sure, the humor was on the sillier side, but could you imagine DC doing something like this at the time?
The panel in question is from the story "The Honest-to-Irving, True-Blue, Top-Secret Original Origin of Captain America: by Roy Thomas and Tom Sutton. Here's the whole page for context, as if that matters:
This was caught and sent in by F.O.A.M.er Mac Schafer a while ago, and I'm only posting it now because today is the birthday of the legendary Marie Severin, who was often the mad genius behind a lot of Marvel's efforts to goof on itself, both in and out of Not Brand Echh! Thanks Mac and Happy Birthday Ms. Severin!
This wonderful bit of aquatic cosplay took place at Dragon*Con 2013, featuring cosplayer extraordinaire (and F.O.A.M. member) Rick Stafford and Joel (last name?) as the two monarchs of the sea. With Aquaman as hot as he is right now, isn't it time for a DC/Marvel crossover?!?
Comics Weekend"From The Void It Came!" by Steve Skeates, Dan Adkins, and Vince Colletta.
For those of you who read the post from earlier today and are here to read Part Two--yes, writer Steve Skeates cheekily decided to follow up his story "The Creature That Devoured Detroit!" from Aquaman #56...in the pages of the Sea King's Marvel Comics counterpart book, The Savage Sub-Mariner!
Of course, there was almost a four-year span between the the two books, making it relatively certain that no one at Marvel caught on. Back in those days, there was much less back-and-forth between the two companies, so continuing a story across two different titles like this would have been verboten. So Skeates had to be a little crafty--even so, we'll see how he pushed the envelope here:
Yep, those last two panels are virtually the exact same panels from the last page of Aquaman #56--that's even the Sea King right there, except his glove is blue, not green. Skeates sidesteps who the Neptune that guy is in the next panel, with a narrator that tells us "Who that man is...and why he wished to destroy the satellite...that need not concern us!"
With that bit of business out of the way, the story takes off on its own unique turn, with the alien glob that has attached itself to the satellite falling to Earth. It lands in the ocean, and starts to work on creating a body for itself, which takes over two years. Now ambulatory, it heads toward land.
Not too far away, two local lunkheads run afoul of the Sub-Mariner, who is watching the water, minding his own business. One of them, the lunkier of the two, decides to challenge Namor to a fight...if you call kicking a guy in the head a "challenge":
This of course enrages Namor, who grabs the guy and hurls him like a rag doll, not noticing the muck-encrusted creature that has shown itself. When the other surface dweller angrily tackles Namor in retaliation, he knocks them all back into the water. The creature then attacks Namor:
The creature uses its powers to stare into Namor's eyes, causing him to go blind! This doesn't stop the Sub-Mariner, who squeezes his foe so hard that it pops the thing's head off, and watches as it hurtles off into space:
Unfortunately, Namor is still rendered sightless, and he gets down on one knee, furious at himself that he rushed to fight the creature instead of trying to understand it. Thankfully, the creature shows mercy, and from thousands of miles away restores it's foe's sight.
Namor decides to head back to Atlantis, where a terrible vision awaits him:
...and with this classic, melodramatic ending, Sub-Mariner as a title ended. Yes, Steve Skeates wrote part one of this story in the final issue of Aquaman, only to do part two in the final issue of Sub-Mariner. What symmetry!
Of course, I can't possibly be objective when comparing these two issues, because I'm always going to pick Aquaman over Sub-Mariner. That said, I really do feel like these two issues reflect each other quite well; "The Creature That Devoured Detroit!" is a very DC-esque story, while "From The Void It Came", with its navel-gazing internal drama, is very Marvel. Its a testament to Skeates' skill as writer that he could write in two different "house styles", not to mention the fact that he was doing it within the same story! (The art, however...well, I think we all can agree who wins that little face-off between the two books)
But regarding the story as a whole: this DC/Marvel "crossover" is wonderfully goofy; having Aquaman unofficially appear in Sub-Mariner, only to tell the reader don't worry about it, let's just move on, is the equivalent of playing a trick on them--but the kind of trick you don't mind being played on you. Nowadays, that gloved character would be given half a book's worth of back story, because a lot modern comics' readers just wouldn't accept not knowing who it was.
Of course, it's a shame that Aquaman and Sub-Marine don't actually meet here; that would have been a bit much to pull off, even for someone as clever as Steve Skeates. For that, fans of the two companies' Sea Kings would have to wait over twenty years!
"A League of Their Own!" by Gerard Jones, Mark Waid, Howard Porter, and John Dell.
This book hits the ground running--er, flying--with the Justice League Avengers fighting a battle against their former teammates:
The "other side" is led by Aqua-Mariner, who is hesitant about being the cause of his friends to fight one another.
During the battle, Angel-Hawk is severely injured, and plunges into the water. He's rescued by Captain Marvel:
Aqua-Mariner and his friends depart, on their search for Atlantis. Using clues found via mystical totem called the Serpent Crown, they head deep into the ocean to where they think Atlantis is.
Unfortunately, the ship they're in starts to buckle from the deep ocean pressures, and Aqua-Mariner has to literally keep the roof from falling in, using his amazing strength.
But finally they reach Atlantis...empty, and silent as a tomb. Aqua-Mariner is aghast:
The attackers are Will Magnus and his army of Sentinels, and Aqua-Mariner and his friends find themselves in another fight. Magnus' beloved sentinel Jocasta is destroyed, and Marco Xavier shows himself to be who we would know as the Martian Manhunter.
Magnus, cradling Jocasta's severed head, departs, promising a rematch and "death for mutant-kind." Some of the team want to chase after him, but J'onn--the last survivor of the Skrull race--advises they stay behind to search for any Atlantean survivors.
Aqua-Mariner agrees, and his team of mutant friends prepare for their next mission:
Not to be continued!
Man, when it comes to comics, this whole Amalgam thing is about as "inside baseball" as it gets. I missed all of it at the time (the mid-90s were a low comic-buying-time for me, and by 1996 I was just sort of getting back into it in force), so I'm sure only reading this one book (out of the dozen or so they put out) doesn't help in understanding what's going on--but of course that's part of the point, since this book footnotes other comics that don't exist.
Combining Aquaman and Sub-Mariner is a natural of course, but there wasn't too far to go with him--Aquaman is routinely criticized as a jerk, and Subby is an even bigger jerk, not making for the most empathetic of heroes. But thanks to artists Porter and Dell, he sure looks good though!
(For further reading, check out this page which explains all the fake publishing history of Aqua-Mariner!)
This titanic team-up of comicdom's premiere Kings of the Seven Seas was the flip cover to Alter Ego #16, drawn by the equally impressive team of Ramona Fradon and Marie Severin!
While this cover is played for laughs, it makes me think how much I would have loved (heck, still would love) to see an actual Aquaman/Namor team-up one-shot or mini-series. In the 90s and early 2000s DC and Marvel were teaming up their characters left and right, but their respective champions of the seas never got their shot, other than their brief face-off in DC vs. Marvel.
I hope I have my nomenclature correct--I have never heard of "Mugen" before, so I don't know what it is, exactly. It was pointed out to me by our newest F.O.A.M. member, Curtis Smith, who sent me all kinds of obscure Aqua-related stuff in his bid for membership.
As I've said before, I'm not much of a gamer; but if a game existed where I could play Aquaman vs. Subby, I'd sign up for it without hesitation.
This little encounter between the two Kings of the Seven Seas is by F.O.A.M.er Aaron Bias, who generously sent it over to me.
As I told Aaron, I like its simple, static look and, except for one word, it kinda feels like those old PSAs that DC used to run in its comics in the 50s and 60s. I also like how Namor refers to himself in the third person--that seems very Namor.
This part of a huge line of Marvel character stickers that Topps produced in 1975. I remember having nearly the whole set; each Marvel hero and villain had some funny phrase, as well (DC never would've done that; they took themselves way more seriously than Marvel did).
Although, when you come to think about it, this phrase isn't funny at all. It's actually a completely reasonable statement; and something you easily could picture Namor saying.
This was caught and sent in by F.O.A.M.er Mac Schafer a while ago, and I'm only posting it now because today is the birthday of the legendary Marie Severin, who was often the mad genius behind a lot of Marvel's efforts to goof on itself, both in and out of Not Brand Echh! Thanks Mac and Happy Birthday Ms. Severin!
