STORY: "Sub-Mariner Joins the Evil Mutants" (22 pages)  Professor X and Magneto both try to recruit Namor the Sub-Mariner into their teams, thinking he might be a mutant.  After getting caught up in a fight between the two teams, Namor tells them both to get lost.

What you need to know:
Magneto demonstrates his powers of astral projection and ESP.  Seriously.  This one's been quietly ignored ever since.

Marvel Girl changes to the pointy mask, for one issue only.  It resurfaces later on in a different costume design.

Again, we're teased with the possibility of Quicksilver and the Scarlet Witch turning on Magneto.

Namor's not having a very good time.  At this point, he's living in his castle with a handful of followers, and spending most of his time sulking about being knocked back by the Invisible Girl.

The possibility is raised that Namor might be a mutant.  Marvel later seized on this during the nineties in order to proclaim him Marvel's first mutant, in the hopes that it might boost his sales.  (It didn't, really.)  Originally, Namor was simply meant to be a human/Atlantean half breed.  The justification for calling him a mutant is that he can fly, which can't be attributed to either side of his heritage.

A more innocent time:
It's "the cook's day off."  So Jean's doing all the cooking instead.

Magneto's island has a giant horseshoe magnet on it.

Comments:
You know how in some sixties Marvel books you get idea after idea?  Well, in early X-Men stories, you get the Brotherhood of Evil Mutants, time and again.  This time, the variation is that Namor the Sub-Mariner is a guest star, in a plot that hinges on the unlikely coincidence (even by Silver Age standards) of both teams spontaneously deciding to look for him at the same time.

It's not a particularly memorable issue.  Chic Stone's inks don't really flatter Kirby's pencils, either - the result is awfully polite.

FEATURE CHARACTERS
Professor X (last in Fantastic Four vol 1 #28; next in Amazing Spider-Man Annual #1, then in flashback in issue #308, then in Marvels #2, then in Excalibur: XX Crossing)
Marvel Girl I (last in Marvels #2; next in Amazing Spider-Man Annual #1, then in flashback in issue #308, then again in Marvels #2, then in flashback in Excalibur: XX Crossing)
Cyclops, Iceman, the Angel and the Beast (all last in Marvels #2; all next in Amazing Spider-Man Annual #1, then in Journey Into Mystery #109, then Cyclops again in Marvels #2, then all in flashback in Excalibur: XX Crossing)

GUEST STAR
The Sub-Mariner (between Fantastic Four vol 1 #27 and Strange Tales #125)

VILLAINS
The Brotherhood of Evil Mutants I: Magneto, Mastermind I, Quicksilver, the Scarlet Witch and the Toad (all next in flashback in Avengers vol 1 #401)

OTHER CHARACTERS
Various Atlanteans

back | next