Captain America and Namor WW II

[CTTT]

I know that the 40s was a huge area for Captain America and Namor. I've tried reading that era of Cap and Namor and I like it but it's a lot to slog through and it makes me impatient to get on towards the FF and the Avengers introduction. Do I need to read those early Golden Age Issues to get a better understanding of Cap and Namor? Or is all of that pretty much covered in the Silver Age stories?

[Reviresco]

I know that the 40s was a huge area for Captain America and Namor. I've tried reading that era of Cap and Namor and I like it but it's a lot to slog through and it makes me impatient to get on towards the FF and the Avengers introduction. Do I need to read those early Golden Age Issues to get a better understanding of Cap and Namor? Or is all of that pretty much covered in the Silver Age stories?

If you are trying to get a better understanding of Cap and Namor in the Marvel Universe proper, I wouldn't look to actual Golden Age comics. If you want to read about their WWII past, then you are better off reading Roy Thomas' Invaders.

The actual Golden Age comics / stories are not part of Marvel proper continuity -- until a writer brings some version of them into Marvel's continuity. The Golden Age comics are comic books in the MU. So, their stories are either completely fictional, or fictionalized retellings of events that might have occurred, that have been "reduced" to kids comics.

There really wasn't much of such a thing as continuity in the Golden Age comics. I think Bill Everett's Namor was one of the few books that made an attempt at continuity, by having a serialized book, with the stories ending on cliff hangers, or leading into the next issue. But even Everett wasn't consistent. And, like most of the early creators, Everett left comics to fight in WWII, so there's a good portion of Golden Age Namor that wasn't created by Everett.

So, I'd just jump in with FF#4, for Namor. If you want a quick overview of Namor, read SAGA OF THE SUB-MARINER. It's a 12 issue mini-series, where Namor himself tells his life story from birth to right before John Byrne's 1990s run. It's written by Roy Thomas.

[CTTT]

Ok, great thanks, yeah I'll check those out. So the actual Marvel Universe as it exists today started with Lee and Kirby with Fantastic Four. Good to know. Add to the confusion that the later Captain America Comics feature a Cap that isn't Steve Rogers as well and Bucky is still alive also.

[Reviresco]

Ok, great thanks, yeah I'll check those out. So the actual Marvel Universe as it exists today started with Lee and Kirby with Fantastic Four. Good to know. Add to the confusion that the later Captain America Comics feature a Cap that isn't Steve Rogers as well and Bucky is still alive also.

Well ... yes, sort of. Stuff was cherry picked and altered from the Golden Age comics and brought into the Silver Age and even in today's comics (like Incoming), because, as I said, the Golden Age stuff really didn't make any attempt to be consistent. Stan Lee changed the Cap stuff, because in the Golden Age, it was always Steve and Bucky right through the 1950s. And of course, writers keep adding / retconning things into the history of the MU, like Jason Aaron's prehistoric Avengers, which obviously takes place waaaaay before the Fantastic Four appeared.

However, the idea that the Golden Age comics are actual comics in the MU first appeared in FF #4, where we see Johnny Storm reading old Subby comics.

There's an editorial from Invaders where Roy Thomas explains it much better than I can. It was posted in one of the threads, but I'm not sure where.

[CTTT]

Well ... yes, sort of. Stuff was cherry picked and altered from the Golden Age comics and brought into the Silver Age and even in today's comics (like Incoming), because, as I said, the Golden Age stuff really didn't make any attempt to be consistent. Stan Lee changed the Cap stuff, because in the Golden Age, it was always Steve and Bucky right through the 1950s. And of course, writers keep adding / retconning things into the history of the MU, like Jason Aaron's prehistoric Avengers, which obviously takes place waaaaay before the Fantastic Four appeared.

However, the idea that the Golden Age comics are actual comics in the MU first appeared in FF #4, where we see Johnny Storm reading old Subby comics.

There's an editorial from Invaders where Roy Thomas explains it much better than I can. It was posted in one of the threads, but I'm not sure where.

So again is it necessary to wade through the Cap/Namor/Human Torch Golden Age stuff to get context through the cherry picked stuff that we read through the lenses of modern comics? That'd be cool to check out the Roy Thomas editorial.

[Reviresco]

So again is it necessary to wade through the Cap/Namor/Human Torch Golden Age stuff to get context through the cherry picked stuff that we read through the lenses of modern comics? That'd be cool to check out the Roy Thomas editorial.

No, not really.

I'll see if I can find that page / post.

[CTTT]

Yeah I tried to find it in the search couldn't find it.

[shooshoomanjoe]

No answer from me either but I agree with you. The Golden Age is rough to read.

[Reviresco]

FINALLY found the editorial pages in an older Invaders appreciation thread.

Interesting response in regards to how The Invaders is treated in relation to Marvel's Golden Age stories and how they may affect current Marvel continuity (The Invaders #36, January 1979).