Black Panther Preview: Sub-Mariner

[Barry]

The next Black Panther movie will feature the Sub-Mariner, who  is one of the two MOST IMPORTANT characters in the Marvel Universe!!!!!

Comics hit the stands in 1935 and Superman, in 1938, elevated the media and gave it super-heroes.  In 1939, Martin Godman, a publisher of pulps and entertainment magazines entered the comic book world with “Marvel Comics” #1. Marvel comics was a big hit and sold 888,000 copies. It featured, among others, The Human Torch and the Sub-Mariner, both who received their own comics. The Sub-Mariner was King of Atlantis, lived under water, had great strength and could fly with wings on his feet.  And he was two years before Aquaman, who was a copy. In fact the Aquaman movie copied the Sub-Mariner’s origin.

Subby was also comics first anti-hero. He defended Atlantis against the heroes of the Surface world.  Fans loved the fights between fire and water, the Torch and Sub-Mainer.

Virtually all super-heroes faded by the 1950s and restarted a decade later.  The Sub-Mainer had a short run in the mid 1950s. If you watch the new West Side Story, you can see his comics in the rack at the drug store!

Subby came back, first as an enemy of the Fantastic Four in 1961 and then regained his hero status.

Speaking of Anti-Heroes, Black Adam has failed at the box office. While it did better than other releases, it will not reach the $4 or $5 hundred million need for profitability. (It has $250,000,000, which is not nearly enough). This is part of the reason why Warner Brothers was sold again, this time to the Discovery network.

[Paul Heroy]

Barry, thanks for another great history lesson.

Re: Black Adam, I was just telling a co-worker earlier that I find that Dwayne Johnson's presence in action movies have become a flag for me in a bad way. I actually like him but I'm finding that he seems to make movies that are more style with little substance. When he got involved in the Fast & Furious movies (which I didn't see until the 8 movie set came out, so I'm not a huge fan) they turned into over the top spectacle, top the last movie video game with less character and story elements. He's far from the only one as that's common in blockbusters now of course. As we know movies are now a worldwide market, which responds more easily to simple flashy content than to things that might have cultural nuance and so on. 

[AVSCraig]

Barry, you are a wealth of information on comics - which I know nothing about. Thanks for the back story on all things comics!

[SRW1000]

The next Black Panther movie will feature the Sub-Mariner, who  is one of the two MOST IMPORTANT characters in the Marvel Universe!!!!!

The Sub-Mariner was King of Atlantis, lived under water, had great strength and could fly with wings on his feet.  And he was two years before Aquaman, who was a copy. In fact the Aquaman movie copied the Sub-Mariner’s origin.

Subby was also comics first anti-hero. He defended Atlantis against the heroes of the Surface world.

It's too bad they've jettisoned the whole Atlantis thing for this new movie.  Namor is now given a "new and improved" origin story that doesn't have anything to do with the comics.  

[David Vaughn]

Well done Barry! Thanks!

[tripplej]

Thanks Barry for the historical background. Very interesting to read about.