In the latest Comic Book Legends Revealed, learn whether Namor was created in response to the creation of the Human Torch

Welcome to Comic Book Legends Revealed! This is the eight hundred and seventy-seventh installment where we examine three comic book legends and determine whether they are true or false. As usual, there will be three posts, one for each of the three legends.This time around, all of the legends will involve Namor's creator, Bill Everett!

NOTE: If my Twitter page hits 5,000 followers, I'll do a bonus edition of Comic Book Legends Revealed that week. Great deal, right? So go follow my Twitter page, Brian_Cronin!

COMIC LEGEND:

Namor was created in response to the Human Torch

STATUS:

I'm Going With False, but it's Close

This is my last leftover Namor legend! That was a whole lot of Namor legends, huh? Well, who knows, maybe another one will come to me! In any event, as I wrote about recently, Namor and Human Torch have been linked to each other for many years, right from sharing their debuts in Marvel Comics #1 and then fighting against each other in Marvel Mystery Comics #8-10. However, there is a longstanding legend that there were even MORE direct connections between the two, namely that Namor was INSPIRED by the Human Torch!

Is that true?

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WHAT IS THE CLAIM THAT HUMAN TORCH INSPIRED NAMOR?

I've seen this claim mentioned a few different places, but here's probably the most definitive one:

Allegedly, the seed of the idea that became Sub-Mariner originated when Everett was told by his publisher they needed hero strips, and that his colleague Carl Burgos was working on one about a man enveloped in flames; immediately, the notion of “fire and water” took root. Everett’s instinct proved to be spot on, as the Sub-Mariner and the Human Torch made for a great dynamic, and resulted in the medium’s first multi-book story. In a fun twist, only Everett drew Namor, and only Burgos drew the Human Torch across both titles.

It certainly sounds like it makes sense, right? Burgos is creating a fire hero, so Everett figured he would create a water hero.

However, I don't believe that the timeline makes sense for it to have worked out that way.

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DID THE HUMAN TORCH INSPIRE THE CREATION OF NAMOR?

As I pointed out in another recent Comic Book Legends Revealed, Lloyd Jacquet started up a studio that he INITIALLY planned to do as a comic book publishing company, but he just couldn't get anyone to buy his work independently, so he instead got into the packaging game, where he and his artists would package comic books for other publishers.

Before he came to that decision, however, he first tried to publish a giveaway comic called Motion Picture Funnies Weekly for movie theaters (a full 36-page comic book, rather than the short pamphlets most other comic book giveaways were like).

motion-picture-funnies-weekly

In this issue, there was a Sub-Mariner story by Bill Everett (in black and white)...

Motion-Picture-Funnies-Weekly-13

The comic book was not picked up to go to an actual series and so Jacquet pivoted to packaging.

His first packaged comic book was Marvel Comics #1, which included an expanded version of that Namor story...

Marvel Comics #1 came out about four months after Motion Picture Funnies Weekly would have come out, and I just don't think that it makes any sense for Everett to have had knowledge about Burgos' plans for Human Torch so far ahead of time.

In the classic interview with Roy Thomas that Thomas conducted in the late 1960s (reprinted in TwoMorrows' Alter Ego #46), Thomas asked the question we're all here for:

Thomas: One thing that Marvel Comics #1 particularly interesting was the fact that the two feature characters had the twin gimmicks of fire and water. Was this pairing in any way conscious? Did you know, for example, that Carl Burgos had created a Torch when you created a Sub-Mariner, or vice-versa?

Everett: No, it was done almost simultaneously, and I've been trying and trying to remember just how it came about. I honestly can't remember the exact instant. We were asked to develop new characters, and Carl and I were quite close friends. Between us somewhere - I don't know whether it was his idea or mine or a combination - we came up with the two elements and what we could do with them. I think, if I'm not greatly mistaken, that the Human Torch idea came first - the idea of a character turning himself into flame. And then, for an adversary, we decided, well, what better natural adversary for flame than water? So what can we do with somebody with water? So that part of it was my idea. But it was so dovetailed that it's hard to remember this many years later just exactly how it commenced.

However, Thomas also asked if Everett's Merchant Marines service had an impact and Everett replied, "Definitely! Sure! Because I had always been interested in anything nautical, anything to do with the sea, ever since I was born."

And really, with Everett specifically noting that he doesn't remember exactly how it all went down thirty years earlier at that point, I think it is more fair to look to the timeline issues and come to the conclusion that Namor was created first, independent of Burgos' Human Torch. Not even to say that Burgos was then influenced by Namor, but perhaps he was, but just that Namor wasn't following Human Torch's creation. I could be wrong, and Burgos just sat on the Torch for a number of months, but that just doesn't ring true to me (Burgos never spoke on the subject). So I'm going with false, but I wouldn't begrudge anyone for choosing to believe it.

Thanks to Roy Thomas and Bill Everett for the information.

SOME OTHER ENTERTAINMENT LEGENDS!

Check out some entertainment legends from Legends Revealed:

1. Did the Iron Sheik Really Win a Gold Medal at the 1968 Olympics?

2. Did Bill Cosby Really Try to Buy the Rights to Amos and Andy to Keep it Off the Air?

3. Did Giorgio Moroder Write “Danger Zone” and “Take My Breath Away” with his Former Mechanic?

4. Were Some of Shel Silverstein’s Poems for Children Originally Published in Playboy?

PART TWO SOON!

Check back soon for part 2 of this installment's legends!

Feel free to send suggestions for future comic legends to me at either cronb01@aol.com or brianc@cbr.com