![Namor The Sub-mariner - Marvel (21 - Dec 1991) comic book collectible [Barcode 009281028093] - Main Image 1](https://www.icollecteverything.com/images/comic/main/68/689814_1.jpg)
Title:
Namor The Sub-mariner
Synopsis:
Namor #21-25
Issue(s): Namor #21, Namor #22, Namor #23, Namor #24, Namor #25 Cover Date: Dec 91 - Apr 92 Title: ”Call my land K’un-L’un” / ”Root of evil” / ”Like unto a thing of iron” / ”Green war!” / ”Finale!” Credits: John Byrne - Writer John Byrne - Penciler John Byrne / Bob Wiacek - Inker Mark Powers - Assistant Editor Terry Kavanagh - Editor
Review/plot: Bob Wiacek inks issues #22-23.
Issue #21 is kind of a transition issue. It begins with Namor having the Atlanteans destroy all of the Lady Dorma clones (telling Namorita not to think about the implications that they, like she, are clones and that they therefore may have - or develop - souls). Namor then refuses Vyrra’s final wish to be buried in Atlantis, which Namorita thinks is an unfeeling decision, but we then cut away to Namor returning the remains of Dorma, mutilated by Vyrra, to her grave.
We then jump ahead a ”few days” to see Spitfire overseeing an Oracle takeover of Ward-Meachum, to the displeasure of Joy Meachum (who was operating under hypnosis when working for the Super-Skrull). And then a reunification of Ka-Zar and Shanna. Then Namorita recovering from her injuries from New Warriors #14. Then Phoebe Marrs telling Namor that Marrs Corp is broke, and Namor promising to do something about that (and although Phoebe is shown slyly smiling to herself, she’ll find out that it’s not as altruistic as it seems). And then finally we get to our main plot, which begins with Namor agreeing with Misty Knight (who has had her missing arm restored) that it is worth investigating the fact that the Super-Skrull seemed to know more about Iron Fist than he should have if Fist was already dead. So Danny takes Misty and Colleen Wing to Dr. Strange. Strange confirms that the plant matter found in Iron Fist’s coffin was H’ylthri.
Dr. Strange notes that any hippie-dippie attempt by later Iron Fist writers to say that the H’ylthri plant people were really good guys to be used in an environmental themed story obviously never had a garden.
Strange agrees to transport them to K’un-Lun (the cover shows that Namorita was originally intended to be included on this trip as well, but that’s because Byrne apparently draws his covers six months in advance; in the lettercol it’s explained that when he found out about the fact that Namorita was going to be injured in New Warriors, he wrote her out of the story and told his editor to erase her from the cover, but that got neglected). In K’un-Lun, they find an obviously possessed Lei Kung the Thunderer (although it’s not obvious to Namor, who never met him before).
Meanwhile, Plantman’s mansion has attracted the attention of Wolverine, but Wolvie gets captured.
Issue #22 opens up with a development for Tyrone King, who resurfaced at the end of the last arc. A police officer is telling police captain Rafael Scarfe that there are actually no records of King, despite him being a twelve year veteran on the police force. The officer then notes that the name Tyrone actually means King.
In a lettercol, it’s noted that it was Roger Stern that originally told John Byrne that Tyrone means king. But this may not be entirely true. The most common explanation for the name is that it’s Gaelic in origin, coming from Tir Eoghain meaning ”land of Eoghain”. Of course the name also looks like the word ”tyrant”, and some name origin websites will say that’s an alternative source of the name. But if you think about how the name came to America, the Irish explanation probably makes more sense than the Greek/Latin one. I’d also say this whole thing is a little silly. The idea is that Tyrone’s name translates to King King, and so (roughly) does the name Master Khan, and so that’s a clue that Tyrone King is really Master Khan. But that means Khan was being too cute by half. Why would he allow such a clue at the same time that he’s making sure that no records of him exist and while he’s trying to disguise himself? On the other hand, Christopher Priest never got to finish his story for Tyrone King, so at least this wraps up that loose end.
King himself shows up. The fact that he identifies himself as human struck me as odd, but the people of K’un-Lun are indeed meant to be humans.
King then transforms into Khan (or at least his hand transforms) and does something to Scarfe’s mind (although Scarfe will be needed to provide exposition for all of this, so Khan’s manipulations will turn out to not be all that effective).
Another thing that kind of annoys me about this revelation is that the big deal about Tyrone King was that he didn’t cast a shadow. A lot of effort was made to ensure that he never had a shadow, which resulted in some erasing sessions when the inker tried to ”correct” M.D. Bright’s pencils. But here the scene with Tyrone transforming is deliberately shown as shadow (and he has a shadow even before he transforms). I understand that we’re tying up loose ends so Byrne’s mission here isn’t to deliver fully on the unfulfilled original story, but the basic choice of using shadow to depict this scene is actively contradictory, and it seems like that could have been avoided.
Let’s jump back to the fight with Lei Kung. Colleen Wing gets to get in on the action, although she has to (mentally) apologize to her former teacher for drawing her blade without the intention of drawing blood, and then she has to get into a long winded defense of feminism that looks less like an affirmation and more like she has a chip on her shoulder...
...but finally she uses her blade to cut all the vines off Lei Kung, freeing him from the control of the H’ylthri.
Misty’s clothes weirdly get torn up during the fight (shades of Byrne’s She-Hulk stories)...
...so she’s given some K’un-Lun clothing that don’t seem to address the fact that she needed new clothes because she was cold. Granted they go immediately to a warm jungle next.
Lei Kung leads them to where he was possessed. Everyone except Namor gets captured by the H’ylthri. Namor locates the H’ylthri base, and finds that all the missing people of K’un-Lun have been put in pods to be used as fertilizer.
And that includes Iron Fist.
Namor fights the H’ylthri.
Namor is defeated, but Misty Knight breaks free long enough to make an appeal to Iron Fist.
And then Fist recovers and breaks free.
Last arc, when the Super-Skrull was impersonating him, the fact that Fist repeatedly used his iron fist power was a clue that he wasn’t the real deal. But in this fight, i guess because of that ”pent-up fury”, he is able to use it multiple times.
Danny passes out after defeating the H’ylthri. We next see Namor, Colleen, Misty, and Iron Fist getting teleported home by Dr. Strange. They are nearly pulled back by some H’ylthri-controlled plants, and the impression you get is that they’re fleeing a world overrun by the H’ylthri.
So of course my first thought was, ”And they just left the people of K’un-Lun there to rot?!”. But it turns out that some time has passed since Iron Fist’s fight, and all of the surviving people of K’un-Lun have been freed and they’ve elected to stay behind under the leadership of Lei Kung. It seems a little contradictory - our heroes are barely escaping K’un-Lun with their lives but the people of K’un-Lun are staying behind to rebuild their kingdom. I guess the real issue is that it’s another truncated storyline, an oddly compressed way of dealing with K’un-Lun in a story that is otherwise stretched out quite a bit.
The immediate concern is that there are H’ylthri on Earth, and that they may take over here the way that have on K’un-Lun. Dr. Strange notes that there are three connections between Earth and K’un-Lun. The first is in Tibet, and it’s the one that brought Danny Rand to K’un-Lun in his origin story (in Marvel Premiere #15). The second i am not sure about, and might have deserved a footnote. It might be referring to a specific Iron Fist story, maybe the sphere from Power Man & Iron Fist #100. Or it might be a reference to Tyrone King/Master Khan, since he’s currently on Earth. But the third is the most immediately relevant, since it’s pointing to the mansion where Plantman is lurking with Sssesthugar, one of the H’ylthri.
Plantman also has some human henchmen. Or at least i assume they are human.
Two of them are killed by Sssesthugar for being disloyal. The third, who is given the nickname Weed (which makes me wonder if she’s really a plant construct), is shown having sex with Plantman, but that’s the last we see of her. Another weird, seemingly dropped element.
Misty and Colleen stay behind with the recovering Iron Fist (who is said to have stayed alive by remembering his undying love for Misty), so Namor goes to New Jersey to investigate the third K’un-Lun portal. He’s attacked by Wolverine, who we previously saw was captured by Plantman.
Wolverine’s savagery almost wins the day, but we’re reminded that Namor’s comic was once titled ”The Savage Sub-Mariner” (and it will become the ”The Savage Namor” after this arc), so Namor is able to defeat Wolverine. Namor will later say that it was only because Wolverine was mind controlled, so adjust your Battleboard arguments accordingly (in my opinion, Namor beats Wolverine 9 fights out of 10, although i will admit that he’s not fighting at full power since he can’t fly at the moment, which probably affects his fighting style as well).
Anyway, after Wolverine is defeated, Plantman reveals himself.
Plantman says that the H’ylthri have always secretly been behind his origin and powers. Plantman’s experiments with controlling plants attracted the attention of the H’ylthri. But as soon as Plantman is finished explaining this, Sssesthugar shows up and kicks him to the side.
Namor is then captured by Sssesthugar.
The art in issue #25 looks a little different. It’s still definitely Byrne, but it looks like he’s trying something new, especially with faces.
We are definitely looking at bigger panels with more close-ups, and then there’s
Issue(s): Namor #21, Namor #22, Namor #23, Namor #24, Namor #25 Cover Date: Dec 91 - Apr 92 Title: ”Call my land K’un-L’un” / ”Root of evil” / ”Like unto a thing of iron” / ”Green war!” / ”Finale!” Credits: John Byrne - Writer John Byrne - Penciler John Byrne / Bob Wiacek - Inker Mark Powers - Assistant Editor Terry Kavanagh - Editor
Review/plot: Bob Wiacek inks issues #22-23.
Issue #21 is kind of a transition issue. It begins with Namor having the Atlanteans destroy all of the Lady Dorma clones (telling Namorita not to think about the implications that they, like she, are clones and that they therefore may have - or develop - souls). Namor then refuses Vyrra’s final wish to be buried in Atlantis, which Namorita thinks is an unfeeling decision, but we then cut away to Namor returning the remains of Dorma, mutilated by Vyrra, to her grave.
We then jump ahead a ”few days” to see Spitfire overseeing an Oracle takeover of Ward-Meachum, to the displeasure of Joy Meachum (who was operating under hypnosis when working for the Super-Skrull). And then a reunification of Ka-Zar and Shanna. Then Namorita recovering from her injuries from New Warriors #14. Then Phoebe Marrs telling Namor that Marrs Corp is broke, and Namor promising to do something about that (and although Phoebe is shown slyly smiling to herself, she’ll find out that it’s not as altruistic as it seems). And then finally we get to our main plot, which begins with Namor agreeing with Misty Knight (who has had her missing arm restored) that it is worth investigating the fact that the Super-Skrull seemed to know more about Iron Fist than he should have if Fist was already dead. So Danny takes Misty and Colleen Wing to Dr. Strange. Strange confirms that the plant matter found in Iron Fist’s coffin was H’ylthri.
Dr. Strange notes that any hippie-dippie attempt by later Iron Fist writers to say that the H’ylthri plant people were really good guys to be used in an environmental themed story obviously never had a garden.
Strange agrees to transport them to K’un-Lun (the cover shows that Namorita was originally intended to be included on this trip as well, but that’s because Byrne apparently draws his covers six months in advance; in the lettercol it’s explained that when he found out about the fact that Namorita was going to be injured in New Warriors, he wrote her out of the story and told his editor to erase her from the cover, but that got neglected). In K’un-Lun, they find an obviously possessed Lei Kung the Thunderer (although it’s not obvious to Namor, who never met him before).
Meanwhile, Plantman’s mansion has attracted the attention of Wolverine, but Wolvie gets captured.
Issue #22 opens up with a development for Tyrone King, who resurfaced at the end of the last arc. A police officer is telling police captain Rafael Scarfe that there are actually no records of King, despite him being a twelve year veteran on the police force. The officer then notes that the name Tyrone actually means King.
In a lettercol, it’s noted that it was Roger Stern that originally told John Byrne that Tyrone means king. But this may not be entirely true. The most common explanation for the name is that it’s Gaelic in origin, coming from Tir Eoghain meaning ”land of Eoghain”. Of course the name also looks like the word ”tyrant”, and some name origin websites will say that’s an alternative source of the name. But if you think about how the name came to America, the Irish explanation probably makes more sense than the Greek/Latin one. I’d also say this whole thing is a little silly. The idea is that Tyrone’s name translates to King King, and so (roughly) does the name Master Khan, and so that’s a clue that Tyrone King is really Master Khan. But that means Khan was being too cute by half. Why would he allow such a clue at the same time that he’s making sure that no records of him exist and while he’s trying to disguise himself? On the other hand, Christopher Priest never got to finish his story for Tyrone King, so at least this wraps up that loose end.
King himself shows up. The fact that he identifies himself as human struck me as odd, but the people of K’un-Lun are indeed meant to be humans.
King then transforms into Khan (or at least his hand transforms) and does something to Scarfe’s mind (although Scarfe will be needed to provide exposition for all of this, so Khan’s manipulations will turn out to not be all that effective).
Another thing that kind of annoys me about this revelation is that the big deal about Tyrone King was that he didn’t cast a shadow. A lot of effort was made to ensure that he never had a shadow, which resulted in some erasing sessions when the inker tried to ”correct” M.D. Bright’s pencils. But here the scene with Tyrone transforming is deliberately shown as shadow (and he has a shadow even before he transforms). I understand that we’re tying up loose ends so Byrne’s mission here isn’t to deliver fully on the unfulfilled original story, but the basic choice of using shadow to depict this scene is actively contradictory, and it seems like that could have been avoided.
Let’s jump back to the fight with Lei Kung. Colleen Wing gets to get in on the action, although she has to (mentally) apologize to her former teacher for drawing her blade without the intention of drawing blood, and then she has to get into a long winded defense of feminism that looks less like an affirmation and more like she has a chip on her shoulder...
...but finally she uses her blade to cut all the vines off Lei Kung, freeing him from the control of the H’ylthri.
Misty’s clothes weirdly get torn up during the fight (shades of Byrne’s She-Hulk stories)...
...so she’s given some K’un-Lun clothing that don’t seem to address the fact that she needed new clothes because she was cold. Granted they go immediately to a warm jungle next.
Lei Kung leads them to where he was possessed. Everyone except Namor gets captured by the H’ylthri. Namor locates the H’ylthri base, and finds that all the missing people of K’un-Lun have been put in pods to be used as fertilizer.
And that includes Iron Fist.
Namor fights the H’ylthri.
Namor is defeated, but Misty Knight breaks free long enough to make an appeal to Iron Fist.
And then Fist recovers and breaks free.
Last arc, when the Super-Skrull was impersonating him, the fact that Fist repeatedly used his iron fist power was a clue that he wasn’t the real deal. But in this fight, i guess because of that ”pent-up fury”, he is able to use it multiple times.
Danny passes out after defeating the H’ylthri. We next see Namor, Colleen, Misty, and Iron Fist getting teleported home by Dr. Strange. They are nearly pulled back by some H’ylthri-controlled plants, and the impression you get is that they’re fleeing a world overrun by the H’ylthri.
So of course my first thought was, ”And they just left the people of K’un-Lun there to rot?!”. But it turns out that some time has passed since Iron Fist’s fight, and all of the surviving people of K’un-Lun have been freed and they’ve elected to stay behind under the leadership of Lei Kung. It seems a little contradictory - our heroes are barely escaping K’un-Lun with their lives but the people of K’un-Lun are staying behind to rebuild their kingdom. I guess the real issue is that it’s another truncated storyline, an oddly compressed way of dealing with K’un-Lun in a story that is otherwise stretched out quite a bit.
The immediate concern is that there are H’ylthri on Earth, and that they may take over here the way that have on K’un-Lun. Dr. Strange notes that there are three connections between Earth and K’un-Lun. The first is in Tibet, and it’s the one that brought Danny Rand to K’un-Lun in his origin story (in Marvel Premiere #15). The second i am not sure about, and might have deserved a footnote. It might be referring to a specific Iron Fist story, maybe the sphere from Power Man & Iron Fist #100. Or it might be a reference to Tyrone King/Master Khan, since he’s currently on Earth. But the third is the most immediately relevant, since it’s pointing to the mansion where Plantman is lurking with Sssesthugar, one of the H’ylthri.
Plantman also has some human henchmen. Or at least i assume they are human.
Two of them are killed by Sssesthugar for being disloyal. The third, who is given the nickname Weed (which makes me wonder if she’s really a plant construct), is shown having sex with Plantman, but that’s the last we see of her. Another weird, seemingly dropped element.
Misty and Colleen stay behind with the recovering Iron Fist (who is said to have stayed alive by remembering his undying love for Misty), so Namor goes to New Jersey to investigate the third K’un-Lun portal. He’s attacked by Wolverine, who we previously saw was captured by Plantman.
Wolverine’s savagery almost wins the day, but we’re reminded that Namor’s comic was once titled ”The Savage Sub-Mariner” (and it will become the ”The Savage Namor” after this arc), so Namor is able to defeat Wolverine. Namor will later say that it was only because Wolverine was mind controlled, so adjust your Battleboard arguments accordingly (in my opinion, Namor beats Wolverine 9 fights out of 10, although i will admit that he’s not fighting at full power since he can’t fly at the moment, which probably affects his fighting style as well).
Anyway, after Wolverine is defeated, Plantman reveals himself.
Plantman says that the H’ylthri have always secretly been behind his origin and powers. Plantman’s experiments with controlling plants attracted the attention of the H’ylthri. But as soon as Plantman is finished explaining this, Sssesthugar shows up and kicks him to the side.
Namor is then captured by Sssesthugar.
The art in issue #25 looks a little different. It’s still definitely Byrne, but it looks like he’s trying something new, especially with faces.
We are definitely looking at bigger panels with more close-ups, and then there’s
Cover Date:
Dec 1991
Publisher:
Marvel
Barcode:
009281028093
Issue Number:
21
Month:
December
Year:
1991
Variant Number:
Namor
Printing:
1
Country:
United States
Cover Price:
$1.00
Era:
Copper Age
Genre:
Fantasy
Adventure
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Language:
English
Characters:
Sub-Mariner (Namor McKenzie) Creator Bill Everett 1st Motion Picture Funnies Weekly #1 (April, 1939) https://marvel.fandom.com/wiki/Namor_McKenzie_(Earth-616)
Shanna the She-Devil Creators Carole Seuling, Steve Gerber & George Tuska 1st App. Shanna, The She-Devil #1 (August, 1972) https://marvel.fandom.com/wiki/Shanna_O%27Hara_(Earth-616)
Ka-Zar (Kevin Plunder Earth-616) Creators Stan Lee & Jack Kirby 1st App. X-Men #10 (January, 1965) https://marvel.fandom.com/wiki/Kevin_Plunder_(Earth-616)
Colleen Wing, Dr. Strange, Iron Fist, Joy Meachum, Ka-Zar, Lei Kung the Thunderer, Llyra, Master Khan, Misty Knight, Namorita, Phoebe Marrs, Plantman, Rafael Scarfe, Shanna the She-Devil, Spitfire, Sssesthugar, Sub-Mariner, Vashti, Vyrra, Wolverine , Wong
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Date Added:
2018-07-02 23:37:07
Series:
John Bryne
Story Arc:
Call My Land K’un-L’un
Automatic Estimated Value:
~$140.00
Automatic Estimated Date:
2025-10-23
Date Added:
2018-07-02 23:37:07
Created By:
Sub-Mariner (Namor McKenzie) Creators Bill Everett 1st Motion Picture Funnies Weekly #1 (April, 1939) https://marvel.fandom.com/wiki/Namor_McKenzie_(Earth-616)
Shanna the She-Devil Creators Carole Seuling, Steve Gerber & George Tuska 1st App. Shanna, The She-Devil #1 (August, 1972) https://marvel.fandom.com/wiki/Shanna_O%27Hara_(Earth-616)
Ka-Zar (Kevin Plunder Earth-616) Creators Stan Lee & Jack Kirby 1st App. X-Men #10 (January, 1965) https://marvel.fandom.com/wiki/Kevin_Plunder_(Earth-616)
Dr. Strange Creators Stan Lee & Steve Ditko 1st App. Strange Tales #110 (April, 1963). https://marvel.fandom.com/wiki/Stephen_Strange_(Earth-616)
Wolverine (James Howlett) Creators Roy Thomas, Len Wein & John Romita 1st App. Incredible Hulk #180 (July, 1974)Death by Dr. Doom[Super Heroes Secret War #11](revived Battleworld’s med f [Super Heroes Secret Wars #12] 2nd. Thanos[Infinity Gauntlet #4] (revived by Nebula)[Infinity Gauntlet #6] 3rd Life force sucked translation by Phoenix[Uncanny X-Men #203] (revived by Phoenix)[Uncanny X-Men #203]. 11th time Beheaded by Beast[Wolverine(Vol. 7)#27](resurrected The Five)[Wolverine (V. 7) #27] https://marvel.fandom.com/wiki/James_Howlett_(Earth-
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Writer:
John Bryne
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Artist:
John Bryne
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Penciller:
John Bryne
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Cover Artist:
John Bryne
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