![Namor The Sub-mariner #23 - Marvel (23 - Feb 1992) comic book collectible [Barcode 009281028093] - Main Image 1](https://www.icollecteverything.com/images/comic/main/68/689816_1.jpg)
Title:
Namor The Sub-mariner #23
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
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 the full page trifurcated splash. Byrne jokingly admitted in She-Hulk #31 that he was mimicking Todd McFarlane to an extent, and although that was about layouting specifically, maybe this is another example of that. There is definitely a shake-up coming next issue, with Byrne getting replaced by Jae Lee on art, and this may all be due to sales concerns. More on that below.
Anyway, Namorita has come looking for Namor, drawn by the mysterious connection between them that has always been there since her earliest appearances. Meanwhile, Misty Knight and Colleen Wing find Rafael Scarfe, and as i mentioned earlier, despite the fact that King King King King was shown messing with his mind, Scarfe is able to explain what’s going on. It turns out that Master Khan pulled the Super-Skrull out of the radiation belts that he was trapped in while he was dying of super-leukemia, and cured him. And helped him transform into young Bobby Wright, the kid that appeared in Power Man & Iron Fist and could change into Captain Hero.
This is all a bit over-complicated. As a Skrull, Super-Skrull is a shapeshifter, so that was probably meant to be all there was behind the idea that he was posing as Bobby Wright. But someone probably pointed out to Byrne that Iron Fist did a mind-meld with Bobby, and would have learned that he was a Skrull. So that’s why it’s said that the Skrull was transformed via Khan’s magic. I also have to assume that the original idea was that Bobby’s transformations into Captain Hero were meant to be related to the Super-Skrull’s shapeshifting powers. But Bobby Wright’s appearances also (partially) overlap with the period where the Skrulls had lost their shape-shifting ability, so the magic explanation helps with that as well (although it isn’t mentioned).
The idea is that Khan wanted Iron Fist to take on a fatherly role with Bobby. And of course Khan was lurking around as Tyrone King at this time (and also as Bobby’s guardian).
And that means that Misty slept with Master Khan.
But Khan’s plan was thwarted, because Iron Fist was replaced by a H’ylthri imposter.
So when Bobby transformed into Captain Hero and killed ”Iron Fist”, he was really killing the H’ylthri. Khan then betrayed the Super-Skrull by putting him back in the radiation belt, neatly making him available to be revived again in Silver Surfer annual #1 (based on responses in the lettercols, Byrne apparently really did not like what he calls the ”I got better” explanation to the Super-Skrull’s revival in that story).
So, as i’ve noted before, this retcon results in the fact that three imposters were running around in the Power Man & Iron Fist series. Tyrone King was really Master Khan, Bobby Wright was really Super-Skrull, and Iron Fist was really a H’ylthri. You would think that Christopher Priest’s Power Man & Iron Fist run was one of the most hated runs ever for it to merit so many retcons. I think it’s actually a really good run, and it’s generally well liked except for the brutal ending. Priest says that he did have a way to bring Iron Fist back, and since the end of the series involved Fist transferring all of his Chi into a shapeshifter, it’s not too hard to think of what that may have been. That story might have happened in Avengers, since Roger Stern was planning to have Luke Cage’s fugitive status addressed and then have Cage join the Avengers. Stern was also going to do the same Master Khan/Tyrone King reveal that happened here, but since he got fired from the Avengers, he gave the idea to Byrne.
For what it’s worth, according to Priest’s website, the Master Khan retcon was done with Priest’s blessing (i would assume they discussed the other elements as well). It’s nice that Byrne reached out to discuss it with him at a time that Priest wasn’t even at Marvel.
But as nice as it is to have all this stuff dropped in here, it’s worth noting that we’re being provided an explanation for an old story without really getting a new one. With this arc and the last one, John Byrne is rivaling Mark Gruenwald with stories that are more about providing explanations and retcons (Namorita’s origin and everything relating to the Super-Skrull, Iron Fist, and Master Khan) than stories that have dramatic purpose in their own right. This isn’t necessarily new for Byrne (his first solo writing assignment, after all, was Marvel Two-In-One #50, which was as much about setting the rules for time travel in the universe and acknowledging the art evolution of the Thing as it was an actual story), but it feels more overt in this series, again possibly relating to the fact that the stories seem simultaneously rushed through and decompressed.
To illustrate that, let me get back to the main plot. We saw that Namorita was captured by the H’ylthri. She briefly gets a reprieve when Plantman gives her his plant-controlling gun since the H’ylthri betrayed him (i’ll observe that Namorita only recognizes Plantman from Namor’s stories, not from having fought a plant-construct duplicate of him in New Warriors #7-9; it’s especially odd to not see a reference to that if, as i’ve speculated, the character in the New Warriors was made a duplicate because Byrne was reserving the use of the real Plantman for this story, since it would mean that Byrne knew about that one).
But of course the H’ylthri have made sure that the gun doesn’t work on them. Wolverine then gets free and briefly hacks away at the plants, but then Master Khan shows up...
...teleports Wolverine away...
...and then destroys all the H’ylthri as vengeance for them messing up his old plan to kill Iron Fist.
He then zaps away Namor’s memory simply because Namor allied himself with Iron Fist recently.
And that’s the end of the arc except for a next issue preview showing us that Namor will go missing for six months and previewing new artist Jae Lee’s art.
https://www.supermegamonkey.net/chronocomic/entries/namor_21-25.shtml
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
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 the full page trifurcated splash. Byrne jokingly admitted in She-Hulk #31 that he was mimicking Todd McFarlane to an extent, and although that was about layouting specifically, maybe this is another example of that. There is definitely a shake-up coming next issue, with Byrne getting replaced by Jae Lee on art, and this may all be due to sales concerns. More on that below.
Anyway, Namorita has come looking for Namor, drawn by the mysterious connection between them that has always been there since her earliest appearances. Meanwhile, Misty Knight and Colleen Wing find Rafael Scarfe, and as i mentioned earlier, despite the fact that King King King King was shown messing with his mind, Scarfe is able to explain what’s going on. It turns out that Master Khan pulled the Super-Skrull out of the radiation belts that he was trapped in while he was dying of super-leukemia, and cured him. And helped him transform into young Bobby Wright, the kid that appeared in Power Man & Iron Fist and could change into Captain Hero.
This is all a bit over-complicated. As a Skrull, Super-Skrull is a shapeshifter, so that was probably meant to be all there was behind the idea that he was posing as Bobby Wright. But someone probably pointed out to Byrne that Iron Fist did a mind-meld with Bobby, and would have learned that he was a Skrull. So that’s why it’s said that the Skrull was transformed via Khan’s magic. I also have to assume that the original idea was that Bobby’s transformations into Captain Hero were meant to be related to the Super-Skrull’s shapeshifting powers. But Bobby Wright’s appearances also (partially) overlap with the period where the Skrulls had lost their shape-shifting ability, so the magic explanation helps with that as well (although it isn’t mentioned).
The idea is that Khan wanted Iron Fist to take on a fatherly role with Bobby. And of course Khan was lurking around as Tyrone King at this time (and also as Bobby’s guardian).
And that means that Misty slept with Master Khan.
But Khan’s plan was thwarted, because Iron Fist was replaced by a H’ylthri imposter.
So when Bobby transformed into Captain Hero and killed ”Iron Fist”, he was really killing the H’ylthri. Khan then betrayed the Super-Skrull by putting him back in the radiation belt, neatly making him available to be revived again in Silver Surfer annual #1 (based on responses in the lettercols, Byrne apparently really did not like what he calls the ”I got better” explanation to the Super-Skrull’s revival in that story).
So, as i’ve noted before, this retcon results in the fact that three imposters were running around in the Power Man & Iron Fist series. Tyrone King was really Master Khan, Bobby Wright was really Super-Skrull, and Iron Fist was really a H’ylthri. You would think that Christopher Priest’s Power Man & Iron Fist run was one of the most hated runs ever for it to merit so many retcons. I think it’s actually a really good run, and it’s generally well liked except for the brutal ending. Priest says that he did have a way to bring Iron Fist back, and since the end of the series involved Fist transferring all of his Chi into a shapeshifter, it’s not too hard to think of what that may have been. That story might have happened in Avengers, since Roger Stern was planning to have Luke Cage’s fugitive status addressed and then have Cage join the Avengers. Stern was also going to do the same Master Khan/Tyrone King reveal that happened here, but since he got fired from the Avengers, he gave the idea to Byrne.
For what it’s worth, according to Priest’s website, the Master Khan retcon was done with Priest’s blessing (i would assume they discussed the other elements as well). It’s nice that Byrne reached out to discuss it with him at a time that Priest wasn’t even at Marvel.
But as nice as it is to have all this stuff dropped in here, it’s worth noting that we’re being provided an explanation for an old story without really getting a new one. With this arc and the last one, John Byrne is rivaling Mark Gruenwald with stories that are more about providing explanations and retcons (Namorita’s origin and everything relating to the Super-Skrull, Iron Fist, and Master Khan) than stories that have dramatic purpose in their own right. This isn’t necessarily new for Byrne (his first solo writing assignment, after all, was Marvel Two-In-One #50, which was as much about setting the rules for time travel in the universe and acknowledging the art evolution of the Thing as it was an actual story), but it feels more overt in this series, again possibly relating to the fact that the stories seem simultaneously rushed through and decompressed.
To illustrate that, let me get back to the main plot. We saw that Namorita was captured by the H’ylthri. She briefly gets a reprieve when Plantman gives her his plant-controlling gun since the H’ylthri betrayed him (i’ll observe that Namorita only recognizes Plantman from Namor’s stories, not from having fought a plant-construct duplicate of him in New Warriors #7-9; it’s especially odd to not see a reference to that if, as i’ve speculated, the character in the New Warriors was made a duplicate because Byrne was reserving the use of the real Plantman for this story, since it would mean that Byrne knew about that one).
But of course the H’ylthri have made sure that the gun doesn’t work on them. Wolverine then gets free and briefly hacks away at the plants, but then Master Khan shows up...
...teleports Wolverine away...
...and then destroys all the H’ylthri as vengeance for them messing up his old plan to kill Iron Fist.
He then zaps away Namor’s memory simply because Namor allied himself with Iron Fist recently.
And that’s the end of the arc except for a next issue preview showing us that Namor will go missing for six months and previewing new artist Jae Lee’s art.
https://www.supermegamonkey.net/chronocomic/entries/namor_21-25.shtml
Cover Date:
Feb 1992
Publisher:
Marvel
Barcode:
009281028093
Issue Number:
23
Year:
1992
Variant Number:
Namor
Printing:
1st
Country:
United States
Cover Price:
$1.25
Era:
Copper Age
Genre:
Fantasy
Adventure
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Language:
English
Type of Comic:
Magazine
Characters:
Namorita (Namorita Prentiss) [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-
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:
”Mighty”
Automatic Estimated Value:
~$20.00
Automatic Estimated Date:
2025-06-14
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)
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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