6 DAYS TO GO!
Looking at all the wonderful cover art, reminded me of the many artists that have drawn Namor. Since the character has been around for so long, more artists than you would think. Here are a few pieces I was surprised to discover the artist.
ADAM HUGHES ================================================== JIM LEE
MIKE MIGNOLA & P CRAIG RUSSELL =================================== JIM STERANKO
But I have to say, my favorite Namor artists are, once again, John Buscema and Jae Lee's Namor from the Inhumans and Fantastic Four 1234. Do you have a favorite Namor artist? Or find someone you didn't expect doing the art chores on a Namor book?
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5 DAYS TO GO!
Enough of the beauty, now for the beast. When Namor first appeared as Bill Everett's 'ultraman of the deep,' he had a certain set of powers. He was super humanly strong and fast, he could breathe air and water, he could fly and he could communicate via telepathy. Over the decades more powers were added. And this was the first.
Yep. Namor had his own personal sprinkler system! I'm not even going to attempt to explain how that might work.
"Possessing the powers of all the creatures who live beneath the sea" also enabled Namor to absorb lethal amounts of electricity, as he did in Daredevil #7 and Fantastic Four #6 (where he also could play leapfrog with meteors and endure the vaccum of space without a space suit.)
With this power, Namor outdoes Aquaman twice over! Not only can he command sea animals, but sea PLANTS, too! Plus, Namor can suck the life force from anything living in the sea?! Namor, Ocean Vampire! Of course, one wonders why he didn't use this handy power against Attuma, Krang or Tiger Shark.
Namor has always been a fast swimmer, but here it's beyond human or Atlantean speeds. I always felt that writers (and the VS. fans) didn't translate this amazing speed to his surface encounters accurately. If Namor could move this fast against the thickness of a water atmosphere, he should have lightning quick speed and reflexes in the thinner atmosphere of simply air. Namor could adapt this power, however, by spinning fast enough to become a HUMAN DRILL!
You may notice that most of these panels are by Jack Kirby, and thus came from stories written by Stan Lee. I think he may have gotten a little carried away when he brought Namor into the Silver Age, and most of these new powers were never used again. And I believe, somewhere, they just come out and say Namor lost the aquatic mimicry powers. While I don't recall seeing him use telepathy in modern comics, the power still appears on recent trading card sets.
However, even now, writers keep adding a few here and there. Namor apparently has a healing factor, that not only allows him to heal incredibly quickly, but also not scar. He's been cut up several times by Wolverine, including getting stuck with his claws, but shrugged off the injuries and continued to wear the body flaunting speedo. And recently, in the Torch mini-series, I learned that Namor's skin is fireproof!
Of these, my odd power for Namor is either his Personal Internal Sprinkler System or his amazing Pufferfish impression! I'm sure I've left out some, so feel free to post your favorite odd power for Namor ... or break my two consecutive posts, please. Darn annoying feature when you are trying to post daily. :(
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