Namor the Sub-Mariner is one of those characters who holds a prominent position in the Marvel Universe more because he's been around for years, than because he actually sells comics.  Still, every few years somebody has another go with him, and it's that time again.

This year, it's a six-issue miniseries by writers Matt Cherniss and Peter Johnson, with art by Phil Briones.  The book has an "Initiative" banner as well, but its claim is pretty tenuous; nothing in this story really turns on the outcome of Civil War.  Are they just putting the "Initiative" logo on everything that Iron Man appears in?  It's possible to overdo these things.

Mind you, it's not a bad first issue.  After a brief flash-forward teasing the destruction of Atlantis, we settle down into a sort of underwater espionage story.  A group of Atlanteans have carried out a terrorist attack on a small town in Kansas.  The Initiative isn't too pleased about this.  Namor has no idea who's behind it - but none of his aides seem particularly bothered one way or the other.  Clearly there's a conspiracy afoot.

As a story concept, this certainly seems like a good one.  It plays off the Atlanteans as a separatist state, it makes proper use of Namor's role as their leader, and it builds from the Atlantean subplot in Civil War: Front Line.  Namor is a tricky character to write, since he walks a thin line between being authoritative and just being obnoxious.  Cherniss and Johnson manage to pull it off.  Admittedly, it's quite talky, but overall I think the pacing works.

What nags at me, reading this, is the way Atlantis looks.  Phil Briones is a perfectly fine artist, and he's really just following in the tradition established by plenty of others before him.  Nonetheless, I'm never understood this tendency to depict Atlantis by drawing a sort of Roman-looking place, and occasionally adding some bubbles as a polite concession to the fact that we're supposed to be underwater.

Surely, if you're going to do a story about the Atlanteans, you want to play up how different they are from the people on the surface.  So at the very least, shouldn't they be swimming everywhere?  When you stop to think about it, it's just plain odd to see an underwater race walking along corridors.  Effectively this race can fly, so why doesn't their environment reflect that?  How come they've got functioning electronics down there?  And when somebody gets killed near the end of the issue, shouldn't the body float?

Yes, I realise you can throw some suspension of disbelief at this.  I've probably been ignoring this sort of thing for years.  (Actually, I went back and checked some of the Lee/Kirby stories, and Kirby drew everyone walking around too.)  But I'm not sure they really gain anything by doing it this way.  Atlantis would probably be a lot more interesting to look at if the concept of an underwater city was logically followed through.

That aside, though, it's a good first issue, and a potentially interesting story.

Rating: B

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