SUB-MARINER VS. THE SLIME-THING!

It was announced by editor Roy Thomas in the letters column of SUB-MARINER #72 (September 1974) that this would be the last issue of Subby's own comic mag. Beginning with his first issue in May 1968, I stayed with him for the entire run (having to fill in a few issues I missed here and there thanks to a couple of local comic shops).

I really liked the concept of this character who, over the years, went through writers and artists like seawater through a drift net. I particularly like Subby's early art by his creator, Bill Everett, who said he got inspiration from Samuel Taylor Coleridge's epic poem "The Rime of the Ancient Mariner" and his name from "Roman" spelled backwards.

Writers of later issues, including this one by Steve Skeates would seldom miss the opportunity to incorporate socially-relevant metaphors of bigotry and pollution into their stories, considering Namor was "half-human" and therefore, a "half-breed" and lived in a befouled ocean caused by the "surface-dwellers".

Nicely penciled by Dan Adkins and inked by Vinnie Colletta, in this issue's story, "From the Void It Came", Namor not only faces off with one of the aforementioned bigots, but also with a green space blob that has come to Earth and assimilated with slime from the bottom of the San Francisco bay! And talk about playing the "relevant" card a little too heavy-handedly, there's even a weird, and I think seriously off-putting quote by Adolph Hitler (!) inserted in a full-page panel during an action sequence.

NOTE: There's a goof on the cover: Artie Simek's lettering has the Slime-Thing saying "This is it, Namor -- you're final defeat beneath the talons of The Slime-Thing!" The problem is, the Muckman is clearly seen without "talons" and instead, merely has --well-- slimy fingers.

Subby would, of course, return again and again, including in another 62-issue solo series, NAMOR, THE SUB-MARINER (1990-1995), as well as stints with THE AVENGERS, THE DEFENDERS, and THE INVADERS, to name just a few.