Watching a Bunch of Old Marvel Cartoons

[The Baron]

OK, a gap opened up in the Sourcewall, see, and out dropped disks of the old 60's Marvel Captain America, Hulk, Thor, Iron Man and Sub-Mariner cartoon.  It's been close to forty-five since I've seen them last, and I never even knew they was Thor and Sub-Mariner ones when I was a kid. So, anyway, let's see what I see.

[Ron M.]

Interestingly, that was pretty much the plot of Sub-Mariner#17 and #18 three years later, except Triton showed up and they drove the aliens away, but not before they closed Namor's gills so he couldn't breath underwater.

[Luke Blanchard]

I don't think the stories from these last four episodes have Tales to Astonish analogues. They might in pre-Silver Age comics. A story about aliens stealing Earth's water appeared in Sub-Mariner Comics #36 (1954) - the Supermegamonkey website has an account of it - but its details might not correspond to the episode's.

The premise is one of those recurring ones. I've seen it Astro Boy and Supergirl stories too.

[Jeff of Earth-J]

Jack Kirby's OMAC, too.

[The Baron]

"Dr. Doom's Day!"  - In which Namor reminisces about the time he teamed up with Doom, and maybe it didn't work out so well.  Doom, who lives on the island of Latveria, uses his emotion-charger to prompt a bunch of villains - Mole Man, the Mandarin, the Black Knight, Kang, the Awesome Android, a badly mis-colored Grey Gargoyle, the Super-Skrull, Atutma and same HYDRA guys - to attack the Alliance foe Peace, which apparently means the X-Men, though they are joined by Cap, Thor and Iron Man,  (shame they couldn't work in the Hulk, too)  who quickly despatches the heels. Doom sucks the Baxter Alliance building up into space, but Namor thumps him, and then goes home.  I note that Cyclops' eye-beams are colored blue, and that the Iceman running is indeed risible.

[Luke Blanchard]

This episode's a combination of Fantastic Four Annual #3 (Doom uses his emotion-charger to disrupt Reed's and Sue's wedding) and Fantastic Four #5 (Doom recruits the Sub-Mariner to place a device in the Baxter Building and then takes the Building into space while he's inside, intending to kill him with the others. Namor crosses to Doom's craft and defeats him).

I mistakenly said Annual #1 instead of Annual #3 on p.10, a bad error as that one was an FF/Namor story in which Namor was reunited with the Atlanteans and invaded New York, proving you can go home again. Most of Marvel's heroes appeared in Annual #3 but not the Hulk or Namor.

[The Baron]

And we end with "Let the Stranger Die...!" in which the evil Zantor sends Namor back to ancient Rome, and Namor fights Nero and a fire demon who starts the fire of Rome, and then Neptune sends Namor home again.

Well, that's the end. It''s been a fun look at a sort of alternate Marvel Universe.

[Richard Willis]

Luke Blanchard said:

This episode's a combination of Fantastic Four Annual #3 (Doom uses his emotion-charger to disrupt Reed's and Sue's wedding) and Fantastic Four #5 (Doom recruits the Sub-Mariner to place a device in the Baxter Building and then takes the Building into space while he's inside, intending to kill him with the others. Namor crosses to Doom's craft and defeats him).

Actually, the Doom/Sub-Mariner teamup was Fantastic Four #6. FF #5 (my first FF) was the debut of Doom. FF #6 was my second issue.

[Luke Blanchard]

Thanks, Richard. I should've known that, and got it wrong on p.10 too.

[Ron M.]

Extremely odd choice for Namor, since Stan specifically notes that Namor is almost the only Marvel character at the time that does not appear in Fantastic Four Annual#3.

Also interesting Hanna-Barbera could not use Namor in their Fantastic Four show and had to make him blue and give both him and Atlantis different names, yet both companies were able to use Dr. Doom.

A pity there was no second season, but then they would have probably had to retire Namor, or use a lot of 40s material.

[Richard Willis]

Ron M. said:

Also interesting Hanna-Barbera could not use Namor in their Fantastic Four show and had to make him blue and give both him and Atlantis different names, yet both companies were able to use Dr. Doom.

Sub-Mariner was a hero with his own Grantray-Lawrence cartoon series and Dr Doom wasn't. This may be the distinction. Grantray-Lawrence had greater rights to Sub-Mariner.

[Ron M.]

Probably wouldn't work today if Marvel used that argument to put Doom in an Avengers movie. Even if they made him blue.

[Ron M.]

I'd guess the Hulk disc never did work right? I'd love to get all five, but you're not the first person I've read that said some episodes won't play. Far too many DVDs are being made and sold that won't play or go crazy when they do. I got a 4 movie DVD of 20 Million Miles to Earth, The Giant Claw, It Came From Beneath the Sea, and Mothra, just for the It Came From Beneath the Sea, and of course that was the only film that won't play. Surprisingly it was actually cheaper to get a second disc of the four films than a couple of that one movie by itself, and luckily the second one plays. I can see this happening with cheap companies like Mill Creek, but not when they're released by Disney or Warner Brothers. Fans of Looney Tunes are very angry that Warner keeps starting series collecting all of their cartoons, then suddenly drops it for another series, meaning to get cartoons you don't have yet you have to get ones you already have. To get One Froggy Evening and What's Opera Doc, I had to get two copies of several of those horrible late 60s Daffy and Speedy cartoons.