Sub-Mariner: Revolution

Collects Sub-Mariner #1-6, written by Matt Cherniss and Peter Johnson and drawn by Phil Briones.

Ok, this book is slightly more contemporary than the other books I've been reviewing so far, but don't worry, I still have a bunch of old ones I want to go through before I forget about them. After that I expect to write reviews of newer books as they come out. But remember, one of the good things about trade paperbacks is that they never grow old. Except the ones from the 90s.

The reason I bought this book is not that I'm a huge Sub-Mariner fan. The reason is that when reading my way through Civil War, one of the few subplots that stuck in my memory was the one detailing the progressive deterioration of the relationship between humans (well, Americans...) and Atlanteans. I guess it starts in The Road to Civil War where Namor gets pissed at Tony Stark for sending Hulk out into space. The Sleeper Cell story included in Civil War: Front Line then depicts the emergence of Atlantean sleeper cells on American Ground and how this strains diplomatic relations between the US and Atlantis. Relations are further strained when an Atlantean diplomatic mission is assaulted on US ground. In Civil War: Wolverine, Wolverine is chasing Nitro, but ends up fighting a group of Atlanteans also chasing Nitro, because one of the casualties of the Stamford incident (caused by Nitro, remember?) was Namor's sorta-cousin (well, it's complicated and involves clones...) Namorita, and being the kinda guy he is, Namor wants revenge. That story ends up with Nitro being imprisoned in Atlantis, assumably while Namor attempts to come up with a punishment painful enough to satisfy himself. Eventually, in the Civil War main story line, Namor shows up at the end with his gang of merry Atlanteans to support the nay-sayers in the final battle. So this is a subplot that crawls it way through a number of books, and Sub-Mariner: Revolution can be thought of as the next step in this subplot.

The book starts off with a second Stamford incident, this time caused by a group of rogue Atlanteans. The American government, not knowing the group was rogue, naturally sees this as an attack on America and promptly sends off Tony Stark and a fleet of Shield submarines (of course they have that!) to deal with the fish-men. Namor, apparently not realizing that half the American army is tied up in Iraq and Afghanistan, wants to avoid any conflict, and therefore goes off in search of the rogue Atlanteans in order to convince the Americans that he really had nothing to do with the whole thing. Along the way it turns out that a plot to seize the thrown is really behind it all, and we even get a small armed rebellion near the end. The story ends in a rather surprising plot twist, one that I assume will have repercussions for some time to come.

I like the basic plot of this story, the whole sleeper cell plot, the America vs. Atlantis plot and so on, but there are some things regarding the execution of the story that I don't like. First, I don't think it was necessary to introduce a second Stamford in order to bring US-Atlantis tensions to a high. It's a little weird that the first incident has such a massive significance in the MU, whereas this one is only mentioned in this one story, and it also devalues the significance of the first incident. In order to give this story some of the feel of Civil War, Namor meets with several MU characters along the way, among them Wolverine and Professor X, Sue Richards and Venom. I think involving more characters to the story is a great idea, but they don't really add anything to the story and thus it seems like an only half-thought through idea at best. Especially the fight with Venom, which takes place on a grass field somewhere, seems particularly unnecessary. I think it was introduced just because the writers forgot to include a fight scene in the script for that issue.

One thing I do like about the story is the characterization of Namor himself. In this story the idea of Namor as monarch is taken to the extreme. On several occasions he justifies his actions by stating that Atlantis is not a democracy, and when he catches the rebels, one of whom turns out to be his son, he decides they should all be punished by having their right hand cut off, invoking associations of certain real-life nations with a less than overwhelming concern for human rights etc. The final plot twist, which is caused by Namor's strong wish to protect his nation, really questions the definition of what's wrong and what's right (again, a bit like Civil War) and it certainly will put Namor in an awkward position the next time he has to deal with his superhero friends in the future.

The art in this book leaves a little to be desired. It actually starts out pretty good, in some places reminding me of classic Barry Windsor-Smith and in other places late John Byrne from when he was still good. The characters are sometimes a little stiff and the fight scenes are rather boring. The art does not really convey the aura of Namor as a monarch, but this fault may also lie with the way the story is written.

All in all I enjoyed this book, although I think the execution, both story-wise and art-wise, leaves something to be desired. It doesn't feel like a book where everything just works together, and results in something more than the sum of its parts, which I think really should be the goal for any comic book. I do however, like the overall plot of the book, and the way it connects to events in Civil War and the consequences the story has for the MU as a whole. With a book that is so clearly a part of a bigger picture, I feel this can compensate for a lacking execution to some extent, and in this case it does. I also really enjoyed the way Namor is portrayed, I hope future writers will stick to this version of Namor, King of Atlantis, and I will give props for introducing plots of a heavy geopolitical nature, I don't recall that being done like this in the Mu before.

5/10