Namor and Invisible Woman Nearly Dated in the Mid-1990s

In the latest Comic Book Legends Revealed, see how close we came to Namor and Invisible Woman dating in the mid-1990s

Welcome to Comic Book Legends Revealed! This is the eight hundred and seventy-fifth 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 is the last of a group of installments that were all Namor-centric, in honor of the historic Marvel character making his Marvel Cinematic Universe debut. Click here for the first legend in this installment.

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 and the Invisible Woman almost dated in the mid-1990s

STATUS:

Close Enough to a True for a True

One of the great ironies in the history of writing comic book team books, is when you do such a good job on a comic book character in the team book that the character is then spun off into their own book...which you don't write. This was particularly a problem in the speculator boom period of the 1990s, as everyone was selling so many comic books that Marvel and DC really plumbed the depths of their character roster for a number of series where they were really stretching things in terms of whether a book would be able to sustain itself as an ongoing series. We're not talking about a deluge of miniseries (although there certainly were plenty of those, as well), but giving solo books to character who had previously only been team characters, and not especially famous ones, like Night Thrasher, Valor and Wonder Man.

Wonder Man is a perfect example of how a character getting his or her own series can mess with the original team book, as Roy and Dann Thomas had been slow-playing a Wonder Man/Scarlet Witch romance for a while in Avengers West Coast, and then Wonder Man got his own comic book series and, naturally, any romantic developments in his life were going to happen in THAT comic book, not Avengers West Coast, and so their relationship fell apart and Wonder Man eventually left the team entirely. Editorial control was difficult to maintain back in those days, with so many titles, but as a result, sometimes characters would be kept out of books where you would naturally expect them to show up in. Like how Nightwing was caught up in the New Titans books in 1993, so he couldn't try to take over as Batman after Bane broke Batman's back or how Namor had his own book when the Fantastic Four suffered a tragic loss.

WHAT WAS GOING ON IN THE PAGES OF FANTASTIC FOUR AND NAMOR IN 1994?

Tom DeFalco, Paul Ryan and Danny Bulanadi took over as the creative team of Fantastic Four in 1991, during the middle of the aforementioned sales boom that had seemed to kind of sort of left the Fantastic Four behind a bit (outside of a hilariously awesome storyline by Walter Simonson and Arthur Adams that introduced the "new" Fantastic Four). DeFalco did his best to improve sales on the series, which included a slightly-greater-than-normal series of special covers for the book, starting with a die-cut cover on the third issue of their run and most famously including an all-white embossed cover for Fantastic Four #371 (when Johnny Storm "went nova" and caused damage to Empire State University)...

Things came to a head ten issues later in Fantastic Four #381, when Mister Fantastic and Doctor Doom were seemingly both killed in an explosion, leaving the Fantastic Four down to just three members...

By the way, back in #371, Sue Richards (influenced by the malevolent Malice, which had merged with her during Infinity War), gained a new skimpy costume...

Now, knowing Namor's near obsession with the Invisible Woman over the years, naturally, you'd think that Namor would be quickly running to join the Fantastic Four, but the problem was that due to the boom of new titles, Namor also had his own title, and thus his own plotlines and there was no real call to complicate things by tying both books together.

However, following a story when a villain impersonated Sue to prey on Namor's love for Sue (a story I'll detail in the future), Invisible Woman DID guest-star in Namor #50 (by Glenn Herdling and Geof Isherwood) and besides this special foil cover featuring them kissing (this is technically the non-foil version, but just imagine this cover, shiny)...

the issue DID have a "Trust us, we didn't try to mislead you with the cover!" kiss between the two heroes at the end...

But otherwise, it was "We can't be together now, Namor" from Sue, as she went off to a whole other storyline in the pages of Fantastic Four.

WHAT COULD HAVE HAPPENED BETWEEN SUE AND NAMOR HAD NAMOR'S SERIES CONTINUED?

In a really weird turn of events, Herdling came up with the idea for a crossover involving Atlantis, and it took place...but it took place AFTER Namor had been canceled! It was in the pages of Fantastic Four, Fantastic Force and a couple of Atlantis Rising one-shot bookends.

Herdling at least got to co-write the bookends and also wrote a Fantastic Four Unlimited #11 epilogue (art by Herb Trimpe) where Namor rules over the new raised island nation of Atlantis, but all by himself now...

However, in James Heath Lantz's article about Namor in TwoMorrows' Back Issue #91, Herdling explained that had the book not been canceled before the crossover, he would have had Namor pursue a romance with Sue, as DeFalco was planning on Namor joining the Fantastic Four. Herdling was fascinated with how things would play out if Sue and Namor dated and then Reed inevitably returned to life.

Namor joining the FF DID happen after Namor's book was canceled, in Fantastic Four #404 (by DeFalco, Ryan and Bulanadi)...

But wouldn't you know it, three issues later, Reed turned out to be alive....

So the Sue/Namor romance never got started. Just a case of bad timing! At least Wonder Man and Scarlet Witch eventually got together in Kurt Busiek and George Perez's Avengers run!

I went with "True Enough for a True," because obviously Herdling would have still had to coordinate with DeFalco. I just tend to think he would have been able to pull it off.

Thanks to James Heath Lantz and Glenn Herdling for the information!