Review: New Avengers Vol: 3: Other Worlds and New Avengers Vol. 4: A Perfect World

I've been catching up with Jonathan Hickman's run on the Avengers books—Avengers, featuring the official line-up of Marvel's premier superhero team, and New Avengers, featuring The Illuminati—and I can't begin to tell you how much I've been enjoying the story, particularly this chunk of it, collected in these two collections (11 issues of New Avengers, from #13-#32).

In fact, that was me attempting to begin to tell you how much I've been enjoying it. See? I didn't do that very well at all.

When Brian Michael Bendis first came up with the idea for The Illuminati of the Marvel Universe, its make-up consisted of some of the most influential good guys in the fictional shared universe, all secretly teaming up behind-the-scenes in order to run the world without anyone outside of the group, including their respective teammates and those in their respective spheres of influence, finding out. Generally, they were engaged in pretty murky stuff, the blowback of which usually caused as many huge problems as the group solved, problems that would need a big event story/line-wide crossover to deal with: Shooting The Hulk into space lead to World War Hulk, for example, while destroying a Skrull ship full of Skrulls lead to Secret Invasion, and so on.

The current version of The Illuminati, which has been starring in this book, apparently named New Avengers because that is a more salable title than The Illuminati, consists of Mister Fantastic Reed Richards, Iron Man Tony Stark, Dr. Stephen Strange, Namor, The Black Panther, Black Bolt and Henry "The Beast" McCoy, who has taken his dead mentor Charles Xavier's chair on the team (and Beast is actually a better fit; he may be less of a cunning, scheming bastard than Xavier could be, but he's also another super-genius, able to finish sentences of guys like Richards and Stark).

The single conflict the team has been engaged in since its reformation in the Hickman-written title—aside from interpersonal conflicts, like Black Panther's vow to kill Namor and Namor's not really giving a fuck about The Black Panther, because he's Namor, The Sub-Mariner, "Imperius Rex!!!!"—has been the one of the "incursions."

If you haven't been reading—and you should start doing so immediately; this review will still be here when you're done—here's what that involves. "Everything dies," Reed Richards explains the problem at the beginning of the series (that's actually the title of the first volume, and a phrase one reads over and over and over again in Hickman's books), and everyone accepts that, but Richards refuses to accept the death of the world, the universe and/or the multiverse at an artificially accelerated rate, which seems to be exactly what is currently happening.

The deal is that alternate Earths regularly appear in the skies above other Earths; if the two Earths collide, then both they and their entire universes are destroyed. If one of the two Earths is destroyed, then both universes are spared, at the staggering cost of an entire world.

This puts The Illuminati in something of a spot, as they have to not only solve the problem behind the incursions, but repeatedly stop them from occurring to their own Earth, which, of course, means choosing to destroy a world (and the billions and billions of lives upon it), in order to save their own universe, as well as an alternate universe. And it's not a one-time problem; the incursions are chronic and will keep happening until our protagonists can figure out what exactly is wrong with the Multiverse that is leading to the incursions and then how to fix it.

Theoretically, the math is easy: Kill billions to save trillions and trillions and trillions of others. In practice, it's an awful lot harder than that. The team, made-up of some characters of already rather murky moral alignment (see Civil War, for example) has been dreading the moment when they actually have to choose to destroy a world in order to save two universes, but they have been preparing to do so, stockpiling world-destroying bombs and other weapons, interrogating extra-dimensional prisoner The Black Swan for more information and, thus far, having been lucky enough not to have to pull the trigger to actually end a world. The incursions they have so far faced were all able to be averted by one means or another (The first one, for example, they prevent by using The Inifinity Gauntlet, although that destroyed the Infinity gems in the process).

In the issues collected in these two volumes, their luck runs out, and they are all forced with the impossible choice they've been preparing to make.

While the series has been incredibly consistent, and consistent with Hickman's other, related series—Avengers and Infinity, basically–the art has been less so, for the simple fact that it's easier and less time-consuming to write a comic book script than it is to draw one. So these eleven issues feature the work of four different primary artists, all of whom are good, even great artists, but none of whose style quite blends with that of the others: Simone Bianchi, Rags Morales, Valerio Schiti and Kev Walker (I suppose it helps, however, that there's a lot of jumping around in the Multiverse so, for example, in Bianchi's issues, he draws multiple Illuminati teams on multiple Earths, each with slightly different make-ups).

Bianchi is the first at bat, drawing the first three of these 11 issues. These show the parallel events on different worlds, and how those groups of Illuminati stave off, or attempt to stave off their own incursions. They begin with Reed Richards delivering his "Everything dies" speech, but the groups are slightly different. One Illuminati has two Black Panthers (T'Challa and Shuri) on it, as well as Magneto, not-dead Professor X and not-dead-from-cancer Captain Mar-Vell, for example; another has Hank Pym, Dr. Doom, two Captains Britain and Emma Frost joining constant members like Reed and Stark.

During these Bianchi issues, the Swan instructs the super-geniuses in the group to try and build some sort of way to monitor the Multiverse, which they figure out how to do pretty quickly, and they thus are able to start viewing incursions occurring between other universes that do not involve their own, to see how the potentially infinite versions of themselves solver or, more typically, fail to solve the problem.

Dr. Strange, meanwhile, goes about trying to solve the problem in his own way: Selling his soul to a supernatural entity in exchange for power enough to stop the incursions. Bianchi was an excellent choice for these issues, as he draws pretty good goat-headed creatures and other scary shit.

It's through the monitoring device, however, that our heroes discover a world where they find The Justice League, who, being the Justice League, are, of course, able to avert these apocalyptic incursions, and to do so repeatedly (three times, in fact).

Morales

Morales draws the first batch of these issues, as is probably appropriate, given his history with the DC stable of characters. So Superman (solar-powered, spit-curled, caped strongman "Sun God"), Batman (powerless human being garbed as a dark knight, "The Rider"), The Flash (super-speedster dressed in red and yellow with a lightning bolt motif to her costume, "Boundless"), Martian Manhunter (green-skinned, shape-changing alien "The Jovian"), Green Lantern (flying, light and energy empowered Doctor Spectrum, the Green Lantern analogue from The Squadron Supreme, and the only pre-exising member of The Society) and Dr. Fate (caped and helmed magic-user, "The Norn") are a seemingly unbeatable team, refusing to back down from the impossible problem of the incursions, and triumphing repeatedly.

And then The Illumanti sees something they probably wish they hadn't. Their monitor allows them to see the recent past or future, and they glimpse themselves, in conflict with The Justice League.

Namor, Hulk and Strange? I prefer to think of this as New Defenders, rather than New Avengers.

That takes us into Vol. 4, A Perfect World, in which the events of Avengers Vol. 5: Adapt or Die (Bruce Banner being brought into The Illuminati) and Avengers Vol. 6: Infinite Avengers (Captain America and the rest of Stark's The Avengers finding out about The Illuminati and vowing to take them down) occurred. So the tension is amped up even further.

Not only are they now forced into the position they've been dreading—to destroy a world in order to save their own universe, as well as that world's surrounding universe—they also have to deal with The Justice League in order to do so, and Captain America and The Avengers are going to be coming for them pretty much any minute now.

After an issue spent preparing for the encounter with The Justice League, the new Illuminati meet them on their Earth, and try to figure out how the hell they're going to save both worlds and both universes in a very short period of time or, if that's impossible, which world they'll destroy and how to save the must people (Like, do they evacuate the Justice League's world and move as many inhabitants as possible to Earth-616, or vice versa, or...?).

Tensions are high, especially when the League figure out that The Illuminati happen to have a bomb ready to blow up their world, just in case, and Namor ultimately decides for everyone by hurling a trident at Batman The Rider.

Schiti

And then things get bananas, for four straight issue, each one getting crazier and crazier, ultimately unbelievably so (to the point where I suspect that Secret Wars may very well have a reset button of some sort attached, even if it involves a soft continuity reboot, as one of The Illuminati apparently goes about as far to the dark side as one can go; like, Hitler didn't kill as many people as he does bad).

So, spoilers. Obviously.

After Namor starts the fight, there's no longer any chance of the two teams working together, so they are forced to fight to the death—of one of their worlds, probably. Strange unleashes what he earned while trying to sell his soul, a big-ass Lovecraft-esque, black tendril monster able to push the worlds apart and decimate the Justice League—only Sun God survives it's touch, but he's in a bad way, and Doc Spectrum is off-planet by then—but it's just not enough.

So the time comes to push the button that destroys the other world, and the trigger mechanism is passed from character to character, none of whom can bring themselves to actually use the doomsday device they created. The inconceivably hard choice, even though it sounds easy on paper, or as a hypothetical, is just too much for any of them to actually go through with.

Except, of course, for Namor, who pushes the button as soon as he grabs the trigger mechanism.

The others go from shock to being pretty damned pissed off about it, and Panther seems angry enough to punch Namor...not too surprising, as Panther's ghost dads have been telling him to kill Namor for months now.

And, after a few rounds of fighting, Namor tells The Panther about what he did during Infinity: He told Thaos' forces that the Infinity Gems were hidden in Wakanda, thus bringing destruction to Wakanda (In retalliation for a Wakandian attack on Atlantis, which was in retalliation for Namor's attack during Avengers Vs. X-Men, etc).

Black Pantehr obviously loses his shit, and the two kings fight for reals until The Hulk and the others break them up.

I like this part:

Walker

Um, I don't know, 1939...? Did Reed not read the story where Namor basically beat just beat up New York City and then threw the Empire State Building at a lady holding a baby? (To be fair to Namor, here's his defense: "How dare any of you put yourself--your damned morals--above the lives of every living thing? Thre truth is, you people aren't worth that...and neither am I. Our lives are a pittance." I think that's a large part of what makes Hickman's storyline so compelling. All of the characters are all always right...and always wrong.)

So they've killed a group of all-around decent superheroes, destroyed an alternate world in order to save themselves and another universe and Namor told The Panther about how he kinda sorta sicced an evil alien's invading army on his people and how he can kill them whenever he wants and so they kick Namor out of the club and they realize that when it comes right down to it, none of them is actually strong or cold enough to do the very thing they've spent months preparing to do.

It can't get any worse, can it?

Of course! The last panel of that second-to-last issue shows Reed's incrusion alarm going off: In less than 8 hours, they have to face the exact same dillemma all over again!

In the final issue, thoroughly demoralized and finally realizing that despite the weapons they have to destroy worlds, they can't bring themselves to use them, the members go about preparing for the end of their lives and the end of the world in various, personal ways.

It's a rather elegant issue, which Kev Walker draws quite well, offering some downright poignant scenes, as well as some that are pretty alarming (Is Stark preparing to kill himself?).

But when the doomsday clock runs down, nothing happens. And when they try to figure out why not, Blackbolt asks an obvious question: "Where's Namor?"

Oh, you know, just starting his own Illuminati, one which makes his post-Secret Invasion villainous Illuminati look downright pedestrian:

Walker

Holy shit, Namor just destroyed a second world in an eight-hour period, and is apparently prepared to keep on ending worlds.

So, um, where do we go from here?

I honestly have no idea, which makes this Hickman's Avengers comics even more exciting. I kind of wish I had never even heard of Secret Wars, as it certainly seems to suggest a solution to the incursion problem, which otherwise I wouldn't have thought possible from what we've seen in the books so far, and the "heroes" of New Avengers just keep digging themselves deeper and deeper into holes.

Now, for example, they've got the unsolveable incursion issue to deal with, they also have The Avengers gunning for them (I guess? Or did Captain America's old man-ification give them a stay of fight execution?) and a Namor/Thanos team-up team to fight.

*********************

It's not all fighting, doom, dread and apocalypse in New Avengers, however. As I said, there are some pretty poignant scenes in here, and even a few funny ones. I particularly liked the emergence of sassy Namor during these issues.

Namor sasses Sun God, in a sequence drawn by Schiti

********************

New Avengers #17 was published in April of 2014, almost a year ago now, right? In January of this year, DC published Superman #38, which the publisher publicized as being the first occurrence of a brand-new power for Superman, "super flare." How does it work?

Well, essentially Superman releases all of the solar energy his cells have stored up at once, in the form of a gigantic explosion of energy with a devastating effect.

It also has the side-effect of completely draining Superman, and rendering him powerless while he recharges.

Morales

It's also basically what Sun God does in a scene in New Avengers #17, by Hickman and Morales. When fighting the Mapmakers—nigh invincible, super-adapting machine intelligences—during an incursion, Sun God takes them all out by flying above them and releasing a huge burst of solar energy that destroys everything around him, save his teammates huddled under a forcefield.

Now I'm not accusing Geoff Johns or anyone at DC of lifting the idea from this issue or anything. These sorts of overlaps occur pretty much constantly in DC and Marvel's respective, cross-pollinating superhero lines. And, it's well worth noting, Sun God and his whole team are not-even-veiled analogues to DC's Superman and The Justice League.

I'm just noting how odd it was to see Sun God apparently win the battle using Superman's brand-new power, is all.

***********************

And on that subject, check out the term The Black Priests use to refer to the apparent future smooshing together of various worlds from The Multiverse in New Avengers #13, drawn by Bianchi:

Bianchi

"Convergence," huh?

***********************

I was maybe halfway through Vol. 3 before I realized that one of the more unlikely characters I could imagine being involved in these sorts of cosmic matters and apocalyptic decision-making has been hanging around for some time now, and is thus at least tacitly complicit in everything The Illuminati does:

Bianchi

Like Blackbolt's brother Maximus The Mad, Lockjaw has been hanging out in The Illuminati's secret headquarters in Necropolis!

Forget what The Avengers, X-Men and Fantastic Four are going to think when they find out about all this, what are The Pet Avengers going to think?!

Insmurfious Rex...?

So what do you think the chances are that Submariner Smurf is exactly what I imagine when I see the name "Submariner Smurf"...?

As far as battle cries go...

...I think I like the sound of "Imperius Rex!" better.



(Panel from The Marvels Project by Steve Epting and Ed Brubaker)

I can't decide—

Is Namor's X-Men costume completely awesome, or is it actually just awesomely terrible?

I think he always looks good in black and/or blue, and the fish-scale looking material is nice, although I'm having some trouble with the fact that the pans make it look as if he's wearing leather chaps.

The crux of my inability to figure out if I actually love or hate the new costume are the little X-shapes at the ankles of his chaps—on the one hand, it seems like crass over-marketing, but on the other hand, it's totally sweet how the bottom of the X forms a little space from which his little ankle wings can protrude from.

Namor's adventures in clothing

Namor, The Sub-Mariner generally wears one of two outfits—a green, fish-scale Speedo or a black pantsuit with a short-sleeved, open-chested top and bat-wings.

Why is he always showing so much skin? Is he an exhibitionist? Is it really hot underwater? Is that the style in Atlantis? Or could it simply be that Namor has a really hard time finding clothes that fit him and complement his unusual body type?

See, as artist Carl Pfeufer demonstrated in "Terror of the Boiling Sea" from 1943's Marvel Mystery Comics #42, Namor has an incredibly broad back, and a tiny, thin little face, which swells into a gigantic, triangle shaped forehead. No wonder he just put on the first pair of swim trunks he could find and left it at that, rather than trying to find a sharp looking shirt that his deltoids didn't shred every time he tried throwing a Nazi, or wouldn't make his head look more wedge-like than it already did.

It's not like Namor spent the entirety of the Golden Age in a pair of swim trunks though. He'd occasionally wear clothes, for one reason or another, and he occasionally made them look good. For example, Namor in a sailor suit— Not bad, eh? That's from the same Pfeufer story the above panels are from, and it certainly seems to have a slimming effect on Namor's hot air balloon torso.

He wasn't too happy to get into those clothes, though.

You see, in "Terror of the Boiling Seas," Namor witnesses a few American naval ships being destroyed and their sailors badly scalded when the seas suddenly begin to boil. When he investigates, he finds submerged heating discs underwater, capable of generating enough heat to boil the seas. He follows the cords to an underwater Nazi base, and, in order to get close enough to the Head Nazi in Charge, he must don clothing: He might not like wearing a Nazi sailor's suit, but I think it's very becoming, and the hat hides his grotesque forehead. Disguised thusly, he's able to eavesdrop on the dastardly Nazis, and think sarcastic thoughts about them: Namor's not so hot at undercover work, of course, and when an officer asks him what he's doing, he can't help but respond defiantly, which results in the officer calling him "Swinehund! Backtaler!" and pistol-whipping, well, luger-whipping Namor off the dock and into the water with a splat.

Rather than resurfacing, Namor takes off all his clothes, rips open the door to the secret base, drags the heating discs inside, beats up everyone inside the base and then, when they next try to turn on the heating discs, they inadvertently turn their own undersea base into an exploding inferno.

A mystery unraveled, a Nazi plot foiled, hundreds of enemy soldiers killed, and Namor owed it all to clothes!

After the war, Namor continued to flirt with garment wearing, at least according to The Golden Age of Marvel Comics, which collected not only the above story, but also the simply titled story "The Sub-Mariner" from 1953's Young MEn Comics #24, by Namor's creator Bill Everett.

In this story, a half-dozen cargo ships have all sunk near a coral reef off the shore of a tiny island, for no discernible reason. Investigators find that the strips have had their cargo stolen and are all stripped bare.

Namor's old girlfriend Betty Dean reads about it in the newspaper to her roommate, who is engaged in doing her hair while wearing only a slip:
Both Betty and her roommate are attractive, by the way, as the narrator is sure to point out upon their introduction.

Betty decides to give Namor a call about these ship-sinkings, and she spends a few word-packed panels telling her roommate all about Namor and his origins.

Everett produces this panel, of a highly polished Namor, reflecting the bright Antarctic sun off his bare torso: Note the Avenging Suns new swimsuit, an intermediary suit between his Golden Age swim plain blue swim trunks, and the green fish-scale ones he'd wear when fighting the Fantastic Four.

When Namor arrives though, he's wearing an entirely different outfit. Behold—
Betty's roommate obviously approves, in the very next panel she shouts "Whatta hunk of man!" as Betty and Namor make plans to parachute onto the island to investigate the sinkings (Sadly, she gets airsick, and must be left behind).

On the island, Namor discovers that a small band of robots are responsible for the sinking and salvaging operation, and Namor asks Betty, her shirt as unbuttoned as far as possible, to call it in.
The Navy doesn't buy it. "LIsten to this crackpot report! Some gal's gone off her rocker," says the message receiver, "Bah! She's crazy! Request denied!!" says the guy in charge.

Betty's so mad, she just might spill out of her top!
Namor tries to reassure her that they'll think of something.

Let's see...how to deal with this robot invasion without the help of the Navy... Hmm...
Oh yeah! Violence!

Namor destorys a bunch of robots, plays possum so they'll take them to their leader, learns they're actually an invasion force from Venus, buries them under a mountain of coal from one of the cargo holds, digs a small hole for them to escape from so that they can only leave single-file and then slaps each one's head off as it comes out until they agree to surrender.

Their leader does so, but as soon as Namor brings him on to the island, the ship blasts off for outer space, and the captured robot collapses dead, its electronic signal shut off.

The Navy's still not sure what to believe, but they search for evidence of Namor and Betty's story anyway. Meanwhile, our hero and his friend have donned matching outfits!
Aw, isn't that adorable?

Clothes didn't really help Namor on this adventure at all, at least not with the robot-fighting, but they did help him make an impression on the ladies, and show his close-ness to Betty at the end there, so, once again, we see clothes have exerted a positive influence in Namor's life.

Hey, it turns out The Human Torch was kind of a dick too

Among the many things that Golden Age Namor, The Sub-Mariner was famous for were a) the fact that he was an incredible prick and b) his many spectacular battles with the Golden Age Human Torch.

But did you know that The Human Torch was also a bit of a prick? It's true, as I learned from a story originally created by Carl Burgos for 1940's Marvel Mystery Comics #8 (reprinted in 1997 trade paperback The Golden Age of Marvel Comics).

Let's examine the evidence, shall we?

This Human Torch story was, according to Roy Thomas' introduction to the collection, one of a pair of stories showing the same events from both the Torch's perspective and Namor's. As the story involves the Torch flying around New York City witnessing various forms of wreckage wreaked by Namor and pausing long enough to repair the damage, I'm fairly positive that the Namor half of the story was the one I posted about here.

As our story begins, the Human Torch has been made a member of the New York Police Department and charged with capturing Namor. He tells no one in particular that he's been flying around for hours without seeing a single sign of the Sub-Mariner, before landing and flaming-off in front of a police cruiser.
He then proceeds to bum a ride off of them. Can't you fly, Torch? What's the big idea?

At headquarters, he threatens to punch out the chief of police, and then melts a giant hole right through his superior officer's office wall. No time to open a window!
"Hot tempered lad!...He'll be a worthy opponent for the Sub-Mariner," the chief says while staring out the gaping hole, before barking at an underling to get the mason to patch up the wall and call out the riot squad.

Torch finds a smashed commuter train and stops to mend the rails and wheels when a nearby workman tells him that a dame wants to see him.

The dame is police woman Betty Dean, "The Sub-Mariner's only friend!", and she tries to discourage the Torch from provoking Namor.
Ha ha ha! She said Namor's dangerous when aroused! It's funny because aroused has more than one meaning, one of which is sexual! Hee hee!

Before the Torch can ask Betty how she knows so much about what Namor is like when he's aroused, the police radio crackles with news of a Namor sighting at the Empire State Building. What's he doing there? Oh, nothing much. Just ripping off the spire and throwing it at a baby!

"Step on it, Betty!" the Torch commands, but she can't, she's stuck in a traffic jam. So the Torch doesn't waste a second opening the car door, but melts his way straight through the roof of her car, setting it on fire!
He then takes a few panels to absorb the flames from her car before they can burn her to death and/or reach the gas tank and cause an explosion.
Surely it would have been quicker to get out of the car and then fly away, wouldn't it? I like how slow Torch is to realize that he nearly killed Betty too, saying in the second to last panel, "Betty looked kind of scared!"

Jeez, what's with these dames, anyway? Set their car on fire and suddenly they're scared.

Torch arrives too late at the Empire State Building, but manages to rescue some people trapped under the wreckage. Then he helps police and zoo keepers round up a bunch of animals that Namor freed from their cages.

Oh, and he totally kills a gorilla:


He finally finds Namor at the George Washington Bridge, and after the eleven-page, 82-panel search, the two engage in the most anti-climactic battle of all time:
Yes, that is what it was all leading up to! And-- Wait, what's the narration box say in that fourth panel? Namor has a sprinkler system? He doesn't even have clothes, but he has a sprinkler system...?

Anyway, that's Namor the incredible prick's greatest opponent, the Human Torch, who is apparently also kind of a prick.

Doctors Doom and Doomer

The cover of 1976’s Super-Villain Team-Up #6 promises the “The Most Unexpected GUEST STAR of all!”

As you can see, the issue's already got The Sub-Mariner, The Fantastic Four, Dr. Doom and newcomer The Shroud in it, who is this unexpected guest star, and what makes him or her the "most unexpected guest star of all?” Is this guest star a hero, or a villain, or something in between?

Let’s find out together, shall we?

It may be a little difficult to set the stage here, as this particular issue—written by Steve Englehart and drawn by Herb Trimpe and Jack Abel—is only about a quarter of the way into a huge, epic, several hundred page-long story in which Doom tries forging an alliance with Namor, and many, many other superheroes and villains end up getting fought along the way. You can read all about it in Essential Super-Villain Team-Up Vol. 1 which, I remind you, is about 450 pages of Namor and Doctor Doom yelling at each other, with about 50 pages of things like Doctor Doom fighting Red Skull on the moon or Skull teaming up with Hitler accounting for the rest of the book.

Anyway, Doom has poisoned Namor so that the Atlantean can no longer live out of water without regular administrations of an antidote of Doom’s own making. In exchange, Namor has given his word to serve Doom, and the proud prince won’t break his word no matter what.

As this issue opens, Namor is pacing around Doom’s Latverian castle, shouting “Doom!” in ever-larger font sizes. In the previous issue, Namor went to the Fantastic Four for help, but Reed Richards was unable to devise an antidote in time to save him, and so he had to return to Latveria with his new master.

Doom is all like, “Knock if off Namor, I heard you the first ten times! Now be quiet, I have a very important meeting.”

This meeting is with none other than “the most unexpected guest star of all.” Doom calls the guest star his “first official visitor,” while noticing he also has unofficial visitors, in the form of a Fantasticar full of the Fantastic Four, arriving to save Subby.

Doom activates all his automated defenses and Doombots and then proceeds to meet with his visitor.

Deep within the castle, Doom shows a mysterious man wearing a suit and glasses a controlled nuclear blast.
Then he shows his visitor “The Di-Litium Thermal Mine, capable of blockading an entire seaport by itself!” And then his Pluto Probe. And his Orbital Laser Bomb.

But he demurs when his visitor asks about the time machine: “All in good time my friend…you must allow me some secrets in this early stage of our relationship, eh?”

Doom hands his visitor, still only seen in shadow, a goblet, and makes a speech:

You have known, for all those years, what Dr. Doom is capable of-- --But you said nothing, leaving the peoples of the world to cherish their fantasy of a three-way struggle for supremacy, among Russia, China, and America.

His visitor replies:

I, too shall speak frankly, Doctor. Until now, I have not considered your weaponry enough to make you a fourth super-power! Your political base was too small! Under those conditions, I considered revelation of your tactical strength unnecessarily unsettling to the world’s peace of mind!

Who is this Realpolitick-speaking stranger? And why does he shout all of his sentences?

Apparently, with Latveria aligned with Atlantis, the stranger considers Doom to have a large enough political base to be considered a fourth super-power. This is kind of odd since the entire population of Atlantis is currently comatose in a deathless sleeping state at the bottom of the ocean, so Doom only really has one Atlantean to add to his political base, Namor The Sub-Mariner.

The visitor thus raises a toast to Victor Von Doom, while thinking to himself how dangerous his new ally is.
But who is it?

Just when it looks like we’re about to find out, a lackey interrupts to inform Doom that the FF are routing his forces and will soon breach the castle. Doom is thus forced to call upon Namor, who is duty bound to fight the Fantastic Four at Doom’s bidding, even though he himself doesn’t want to.

You see—and Namor actually says this—“Namor’s word is his bond.”

Yes.

Well Namor holds the FF off for a bit, but he eventually succumbs to the Human Torch’s dehydrating fires, and the heroes manage to breach the castle.

There they find Doom waiting, as well as Doom’s newest ally, who stops them cold with just a few sentences.

Behold—
—United States Secretary of State Dr. Henry Kissinger!

Now, they don’t actually use his name in this particular issue, although it’s pretty clear who it’s supposed to be. How many of Secretaries of State were there in 1976?

Super-Villain Team-Up #7 makes his identity quite clear, however, as seen on this splash page:
Kissinger’s say-so is enough to drive the FF off, as Reed explains in this terribly scanned panel from SVTU #6: Huh. Maybe Reed wasn’t written so out of character during Civil War after all…

Beware the violent punning of Namor!

Get it? He said we'll see who gets overthrown, while literally throwing someone! Ha ha, good one Namor!

That scene was drawn by Herb Trimpe and Jim Mooney and written by Bill Mantlo, originally for 1976's Super-Villan Team-Up #4. It's one of the fifty or so instances of Namor hurling someone or something within the pages of Essential Super-Villan Team-Up Vol. 1, a 550-page collection consisting almost entirely of scenes of Namor and Dr. Doom yelling at each other.

I fail to see what that Wertham fellow was so worked up about.

This image of Namor the Sub-Mariner pointing his huge gun at the sky to shoot down enemy airplanes, for example, looks perfectly innocent to me.



(That's the cover of 1940's Marvel Mystery Comics #14, which was recently reprinted in Mystic Comics 70th Anniversary Special #1, which you should totally read)

Behold—The kiddy table of evil!

Geez Norman Osborn, you're a big, powerful businessman type who's been running a federal superhero-busting organization for a couple of months, you just got a big, huge promotion to be in charge of The Avengers and the entire Fifty-State Initiative, and you decide to hold a super-secret meeting in the basement of Avengers Tower, a meeting with two highly irritable monarchs, the Norse god of mischief, the kingpin of super-crime and an X-Lady, and that's the table you decide to use?

Really? That's the best table you can supply for that particular meeting? My kitchen table is bigger and more stately than that. That looks like a piece of patio furniture.

Just look at poor Dr. Doom there. Dude is pissed to be seated at such a small table. He's like one second away from "Doom demands elbow room! Bah, Namor and Red Hood won't quit kicking Doom's feet under the table!"

This isn't a very auspicious beginning to your dark reign, Osborn.

Namor, The Sub-Mariner: