This throwback we go way back, back to 1939. The time when super heroes were just taking off with Superman heading the way, the hero of the skies but what about the sea? You might be thinking Aquaman but he didn’t show up on the scene until 1941.
We’re talking Namor the Sub-Mariner who made his first appearance in Motion Picture Funnies Weekly #1.
This was a weekly medium for publishers looking to get into comics medium and was not a publicly released edition. I believe I read that there were only 8 known created leftover in the estate of the owner of Funnies Inc.. So if you want the true first appearance of Namor, good luck!
Namor made his first public appearance in Marvel Comics #1 (which quickly got a new title Marvel Mystery Comics starting with issue #2) in October of 1939, resulting with him along with Captain America and the original Human Torch as the top 3 heroes leading into the Golden Age of comics for Timely Comics built around the time of WWII, which we all now and love as Marvel Comics (okay, maybe not all of you love Marvel).
Created by Bill Everett for Funnies Inc., coming up with the name by writing down noble sounding names and then writing them out backwards, Bill came up with the name Namor, which is Roman backwards.
Namor originally was considered a villain or anti-hero, attacking civilians for his own cause of protecting the sea.
Namor made his first Silver Age debut in Fantastic Four #4 and then went on to have his own series under the title Sub-Mariner
in 1968. You can still find issue #1 at a reasonable price as well.
With such a rich history within Marvel’s timeline, we could dive into much more but we’ll leave it brief.
Now that Disney owns Fox, maybe they can work out all the tangles to bring Namor to the MCU which could counter the success Aquaman brought for DC.
When I first started collecting it seemed Iron Man #1, Captain America #100, Hulk #102 and Sub Mariner #1 were the cheaper “common” keys that most shops would have two or three of each on the wall or in the bins. They weren’t even 20 years old at that point and fairly cheap too…Well, Iron Man #1 was a tad pricey for a young collector, but not awful. That time keeps on flying!
Yeah, I wish I could go back in time and tell younger self to save up a bit more to buy those old books that are worth way more nowadays. They weren’t a lot compared to what I made now but as a kid, they were still just out of reach for the weekly allowance I was getting..
I always thought Namor was one of the more underappreciated characters .. along with ::
Booster Gold
Blue Beetle
Elongated Man
Etrigan the Demon
Marshal Law
Fantomah .. (likely the first Female Superhero)
Kim and Kim
My friend and I were discussing Movie Theatre Weekly Funnies #1 earlier this week. Weird.
Marvel Comics #1, I believe, was a reprint of Movie Theatre Weekly Funnies #1.
Just the Sub-Mariner story to my knowledge. Marvel Comics #1 had others that were not in the Weekly Funnies that was more promotional book.
#awesomesauce. I belive the invaders #19 or #20 reprinted motion comic funnies #1.and I remember when captain America #100 was a $5-10 book love ya all.please check out and sub to my sound cloud blind adam out https://soundcloud.com/user-732754768/awesomesauce-radio-10-kevin-eastman-tells-all