The Coming of … Sub-Mariner!
I’m going to try my best to not snicker at the title of this issue. Last issue, Johnny Storm got all mad and left the group, so this issue starts with everyone fighting about his level of importance to the group. They finally decide that outside of smashing, tripping, and hugging, he’s really the only super power in the group, so they should find him. Sue turns invisible to search for him, because what’s the point in having a useless power, if you’re not going to use it for useless things. She goes into some place that looks like a soda fountain, because that’s what the Storm’s do when they’re having family problems. The worst part isn’t that she’s fucking around while trying to find her brother; it’s that she’s been invisible the whole time, so odds are pretty good she didn’t order that drink, and she’s just drinking someone else’s drink. Good way to get out of paying for it, I guess.
Mr. Fantastic decides he’d like to take a page out of Ben Grimm’s book and just absolutely wreak havoc on people’s lives. While hiding in the bushes like a fucking pervert, he spots some motorcyclists going by, and instead of hopping in his flying car and hovering next to them, he just picks a dude up right off of his moving bike. It’s clearly still moving when he picks him up, so it’s absolutely going to crash off-panel. Also, how fucking strong is Mr. Fantastic?! He picks the dude up one-handed while his arm is completely extended. I can barely pick up the bowl of macaroni at Thanksgiving that my family always leaves too fucking far away from me. They know how much I love macaroni! Just set it next me, for God’s sake.
We see Johnny at Swanson’s Garage, tuning up cars, I’m assuming so he can melt the shit out of them later. Some guys working there see on tv that the whole country’s looking for the Human Torch and reflect on how “he’s right here with us, working on our sports car engines!!” He’s using his finger flame to weld stuff then sets his whole body aflame and stands next to a tank of gas to show how he can control his fire and its heat. This could actually be possible, depending on how his power actually works, but if he fuels it via his own body (eg: his body emits a substance that can be set aflame), he could simply use his own sweat to dampen the intensity of both the flame’s brightness and its heat intensity. This would make sense as to why he’d have to “recharge.” But I digress… Ben has a hunch to where Johnny is, and instead of using the door like a normal person would, he punches a fucking hole in the wall of the building. Because he’s an asshole, and that’s just what he does. But that’s not even the worst part. He then bursts through the wall, sees Johnny, and throws a car through another wall. I expect the building will probably collapse from so much structural damage. Another entrepreneur ruined by the menacing Thing.
Ben’s about to beat Johnny to death, because he misses him so much, but he randomly turns back into a man again, so Johnny flies away. Ben celebrates being a human again, exuding sheer joy. Then he turns back into the Thing and drops to his knees and cries. It’s honestly pretty sad. Oh well. Johnny is then hanging out with some bums and starts reading about the Sub-Mariner. He remembers his sister, Sue, talking about him once, which seems like a throw-back to the previous Namor stories. He then sees a bum that kicks the living shit out of a group of guys who then decide they should try and attack him more. Bums aren’t very smart. Maybe they’re scientists. Johnny intercedes, stepping between them. The bum then sits there and lets Johnny shave his face with a fucking flaming hand. I don’t know about you, but I feel like most people wouldn’t sit still for that. Lo and behold, it’s the mother fucking Sub-Mariner. How fortuitous!
Then Reed is stretched from the ground to above the tallest of buildings to talk to a couple of guys in a helicopter. The tallest building in this panel is roughly 20 stories high (15 viewable and roughly 5 more based on the perspective of surrounding buildings). The average story is 14 feet high, making this building 252 feet high. But there’s also a penthouse, which is typically bigger, so we can probably round up to around 275 feet high. Using those figures, Reed is roughly 100 feet higher than that, meaning he can stretch at least 375 feet. I only bring this up, because I find it interesting, and it may be useful information in the future. He also spies on some people on the train. Creepy.
Sue inexplicably walks around some more while invisible. She is just absolutely worthless. Johnny then makes the brilliant decision to take Namor back to the water, which instantly rips off all his clothes like he’s Ben Grimm about to fight something. For some absolutely disgusting reason, he’s still wearing his Namor undies. The water instantly revives his memory, so he swims to where his kingdom used to be, which didn’t seem to be very far, and sees everything destroyed by man, specifically through atomic tests. He then realizes that his people must have gone elsewhere, and there’s virtually no way to find them. If only he had some really cool power, like being able to communicate with all sea creatures, because then his search would take like 2 days. Week tops. Anyway, he’s super pissed at humans now, which is pretty understandable. I’m human, and I’m right there with him. He comes back up and is like, “Johnny, you fucking moron. You just unleashed the kraken!” No… he doesn’t. But how cool would that be? But yeah, he wants to murder all humans.
Johnny pops his flare and the Somewhat Less Fantastic Three hop in their flying car and head that way. Johnny has to explain everything, because I didn’t just read it two pages ago. Namor swims to “the deadly Giganto,” which is a massive creature that has been sleeping underwater for like a long time or something. The only thing that can awaken the monster is a horn that was buried next to it centuries ago. It’s still there. After hundreds of years. Namor toots his own horn, and Giganto awakens. Namor gleefully proclaims, “I’ve awakened the monster! Now nothing can stop him!” Then the big ugly ass comes up out of the water. And the Army is already there. They’ve got full-on artillery already set up. That seems rather fortuitous. Unfortunately for the Army and all of the onlookers, the artillery does nothing. Reed shoots a smoke screen at it, then Johnny decides to fly at the sea creature, which promptly shoots him with water. Namor keeps blowing his horn, and the unstoppable creature continues its reign of terror, smashing through buildings. The Thing is obviously envious of all the destruction, so he tells Sue, “One side, woman!! I got me an idea!” I don’t know what that means, but it’s probably really sexist. Then again, maybe it’s just that she’s basically of zero value to the team. Unless someone needs to be tripped. Or there’s an unsupervised drink that really needs taken care of.
Ben comes up with maybe the best plan of this comic so far: he “races from one military depot to another” in order to strap a nuclear bomb to his back. He runs atop a building and jumps into the monster’s mouth where he finds another horrible monster in the creature’s stomach. He snacked on some horrible monsters before this excursion, I’m guessing. Guy’s been asleep for hundreds of years, after all. Thing unstraps the nuclear bomb and unleashes all of his pent-up fury onto this poor creature, probably just scared, because it was just fucking eaten not too long ago and then heads out of the unstoppable monster. He’s just in time for the explosion to go off, which stops the monster. Namor’s standing on a pile of rubble, talking some mad shit, about to blow his horn some more, but Invisible Girl comes in clutch and snatches it out of his hands! It’s a good thing he doesn’t have a super strong grip! Unfortunately, Namor’s pretty quick, so he tackles her so hard that her asshole bleeds, and she pees herself. Embarrassed, she turns back to visible where Namor quickly starts spitting some wicked game at her, calling her “the loveliest woman” he’s ever seen and then proposes to her like a creepy Tinder match that takes things too quickly.
Of course, her response is that of a level-headed super hero: “How can I make such a choice?” Well, it’s pretty simple. Just tell him, “No.” You just met the guy while he was mass murdering your city and destroying half of its buildings. He was also a bum like 5 minutes ago. Seems like a pretty easy choice to me. Namor, again like a scorned Tinder date, flips the fuck out at not getting an emphatic “Yes!” to his question and begins a long and unnecessary speech about all the different ways he plans to murder humanity. Like, his hatred of humans is HUGE. Sue, obviously dazzled by his somewhat effeminate beauty, pipes up with a feigned terror and says that she’ll be his bride to save the world. Sub-mariner takes her fake terror as an insult and just punches the shit out of the Fantastic Dudes. The Thing can obviously take a hit from a super strong dude. Mr. Fantastic is made of rubber, so he can handle a mighty punch, so long as the assailant’s hands aren’t made of bricks. But Johnny is just a normal teenage dude (that can set himself on fire), but he’s the least phased of the bunch. I’m starting to think Namor is really overselling his strength. Unless, maybe he didn’t hit Johnny with his hands…
Johnny, tired of Namor being so cocky, flies into the air and begins flying in circles very quickly, causing a “man-made tornado.” So he has that power now. It lifts Namor and the stopped unstoppable creature and takes them right back to the water. The creature horn is “lost in the depths of the murky sea… forever!!” We’ll see about that. Namor shakes his fist angrily, and we’re left with the floating heads of the Fantastic Four for some reason.
Lastly, I’ll leave you with Ben Grimm sinking further and further into depression:
