By Eric Drumm
When you're a king, it seems that nothing can touch you. You rule with enough discipline and don't tolerate any nonsense and no harm will come to you.
Namor, the king of Atlantis lives by this creed, but unfortunately for him death remains the one enemy he can never conquer.
In recent months, the nigh-fascist fishman lost his home, fought against his own lineage and told
S.H.I.E.L.D. to stuff it with disastrous results in the SUB-MARINER mini-series. His hatred for surface dwellers and his fierce protection of his people led him to tangle with everybody from
Iron Man to
Wolverine, but he has yet to confront one thing hanging over his head: the death of his cousin,
Namorita.
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MARVEL COMICS
PRESENTS #7
preview art by
Roy Allan
Martinez |
Namorita perished with the rest of her
New Warriors teammates and changed the Marvel Universe as we know it in the process in back in CIVIL WAR #1. In MARVEL COMICS PRESENTS #7, writer Amanda McMurray shows how the ultimate hothead deals with the inevitable.
"Between his role in CIVIL WAR and the WOLVERINE arc that spun out of that, to his recent limited series, to his appearance in THE ORDER, it's been a Namor renaissance lately," says MCP editor John Barber of Subby's recent resurgence. "He's such an interesting character, with so many facets to his personality, that it's great to be able to do a story like the one Amanda wrote, that explores his life after the death of his cousin, and his conflicted nature as both hero and villain; sea-dweller and someone affected by life on the land."
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MARVEL COMICS
PRESENTS #7
preview art by
Roy Allan
Martinez |
For McMurray, the chance to show yet another face of Marvel's oldest character proved a thrill, but also gave her the chance to twist the knife in him a little more.
"Well, I wanted to do Captain America, but somebody had to go and shoot him," the writer jokes. "Seriously, I was very excited. [Namor is] not the typical hero and I like that about him. I always wanted to see someone bring out the majestic and soulful side of him. I mean, he's the ruler of Atlantis. There's gotta be some mystique and heart buried under that notorious temper and I wanted to dig into his soul."
A name not very well known in comics, McMurray felt she had a story to tell by any means necessary. Former MCP editor Andy Schmidt learned the hard way that hell hath no fury like a woman's need to write comics.
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MARVEL COMICS
PRESENTS #7
preview art by
Roy Allan
Martinez |
"I sent strippers to his office with my script, mailed a copy to his wife and had her put it in his bathroom, and then wallpapered his bedroom ceiling with it," kids McMurray—we think. "Poor Andy wasn't getting rid of me so finally he read it out of sheer exhaustion."
Hidden heart aside, the Namor we know prefers to deal with things in a certain way: with his fists. When that rage dies down and reality sets in, Namor may find himself confused and woefully in pain, and the focus of McMurray's story explores that darkness.
"It's more about the raw pain of losing someone you love," explains the writer. "After the
Civil War's events, we saw 'pissed' but we never saw the breakdown when Namorita's death finally hit him. This whole story is about who Namor is when he's alone."
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MARVEL COMICS
PRESENTS #7
preview art by
Roy Allan
Martinez |
Namorita's senseless murder cannot be changed by arrogance, power or anger, points, McMurray plans to drive home, showing that the tears of a harsh man may be as salty as the waters he rules.
"We've seen fierce, we've seen the guy who'd do anything to save his kingdom...even at the expense of the surface world, but we haven't really seen inside of him," points out McMurray. "This was the perfect opportunity to explore that emotional depth and somehow also pay tribute to the emotions that all of the heroes that lost a loved one during the Civil War must have felt."
MARVEL COMICS PRESENTS #7, including a Namor spotlight by Amanda McMurray with art by Roy Allan Martinez, comes at you March 12, but you can read the first issue of Namor's most recent mini-series on Marvel Digital Comics Unlimited.
