IMPERIUS REX! Namor the Sub-Mariner Appreciation 2023

[Reviresco]

Normal Evolution..The first amphibians that didn't make it to shore got swept back away by the waves.
They evolved underwater, not on the surface world.

Parallel evolution. Bold choice, dzub!

[Doombot]

Normal Evolution..The first amphibians that didn't make it to shore got swept back away by the waves.
They evolved underwater, not on the surface world.

They could be descendants of some other group of people, other than the Atlanteans. I'm sure they had merfolk before the cataclysm roaming around in Kull stories. Or they could even have helped with the change of some of the chosen believers to water breathers. I also favor some sort of magical transformation, perhaps even partially divine, as the water breathing Atlanteans have some intrinsic magical property.

People do adopt native names of places they've taken over. It wouldn't be too much of a reach for them to have settled the ruins. That said, there probably HAS to be some connection, if the Tales to Atlantis story is to believed. I mean, basically, it appeared that Kamuu and Zarta had reincarnated into the first water breather rulers.


I personally hate the aliens idea. Humans and space aliens sleeping with each other, oh my. Totally WTF?

I am so against all of this. I can't even.

[Reviresco]

I am so against all of this. I can't even.

LOL!

Admit it. You hate the aliens idea, also.

Well, how do you explain their magical properties?

[Doombot]

Normal Evolution..The first amphibians that didn't make it to shore got swept back away by the waves.
They evolved underwater, not on the surface world.

LOL!

Admit it. You hate the aliens idea, also.

Well, how do you explain their magical properties?

Magic exists in the MU, I mean, the Atlanteans have literally met their god. It wouldn't be shocking if Marvel decided that magic is how the Atlanteans came to be, though it would be disappointing to me. For me, I want the Atlanteans to have had the agency in this. They may have used sorcery, along with science, to come up with a way to transform themselves in the face of, what they saw as, certain death. But they did it themselves. Deus Ex Machina doesn't do it for me.

If the Atlanteans are simply some other fantasy race that moved into the sunken ruins of Atlantis and then just called themselves such from then on, it still doesn't save you from then explaining where they came from. The 616, as unrealistic as it may be, is supposed to have some sort of root in reality, so having fantasy races like LOTR that just grew out of the earth or were made directly by gods and things like this are just very unsatisfying to me. If they were some pre-existing aquatic race, then why all the history and reference to Atlantis and the cataclysm? What does it even have to do with them? "Well Timmy, your great great great great great grandfather totally watched those land people all get destroyed, then later took all their **** and moved in." What's the point?

[Ravin' Ray]

They could be descendants of some other group of people, other than the Atlanteans. I'm sure they had merfolk before the cataclysm roaming around in Kull stories. Or they could even have helped with the change of some of the chosen believers to water breathers. I also favor some sort of magical transformation, perhaps even partially divine, as the water breathing Atlanteans have some intrinsic magical property.

I remember the 80's Handbooks mentioning the possibility of Deviants mutating their human slaves into the water-breathing Atlanteans, perhaps after their chief city Lemuria sunk beneath the seas following the Great Cataclysm.

[Reviresco]

Magic exists in the MU, I mean, the Atlanteans have literally met their god. It wouldn't be shocking if Marvel decided that magic is how the Atlanteans came to be, though it would be disappointing to me. For me, I want the Atlanteans to have had the agency in this. They may have used sorcery, along with science, to come up with a way to transform themselves in the face of, what they saw as, certain death. Deus Ex Machina doesn't do it for me.

Exactly. I don't think we are talking too far apart. They could have agency in their creation, even if their transformation came about by sorcery, instead of science -- though one doesn't preclude the other ... it could have been a combination of both.

If the Atlanteans are simply some other fantasy race that moved into the sunken ruins of Atlantis and then just called themselves such from then on, it still doesn't save you from then explaining where they came from. The 616, as unrealistic as it may be, is supposed to have some sort of root in reality, so having fantasy races like LOTR that just grew out of the earth or were made directly by gods and things like this are just very unsatisfying to me. If they were some pre-existing aquatic race, then why all the history and reference to Atlantis and the cataclysm? What does it even have to do with them? "Well Timmy, your great great great great great grandfather totally watched those land people all get destroyed, then later took all their **** and moved in." What the point?

LOL! You forgot the part where they 'cackled at the land people who had been polluting their oceans.'

Good point. I'll have to think more on this. Though the springing from the earth does give me ideas. The references to the cataclysm were because they added it in later, and wanted to build out from it, especially for their magical creatures / world. Conflating the already existing MU Atlantis of Namor with the newly added Robert E Howard Pre-Cataclysm Atlantis just made sense. Then of course, the Eternals got thrown into the mix, and after they lost the Conan license, they started to push that origin.

[Reviresco]

I remember the 80's Handbooks mentioning the possibility of Deviants mutating their human slaves into the water-breathing Atlanteans, perhaps after their chief city Lemuria sunk beneath the seas following the Great Cataclysm.

I'd heard that somewhere. Is that where it came from? I was wondering. I rate that far below space aliens.

[Klaue's Mixtape]

[Ravin' Ray]

I'd heard that somewhere. Is that where it came from?

Yup, it's in the Deviants entry (issue #3 of the Deluxe edition).

[Reviresco]

Yup, it's in the Deviants entry (issue #3 of the Deluxe edition).

Thanks! Been wanting to track that down.

I LOVE that art. There's something about the stance or the attitude or all the shiny gold. It really grabs me.

[Doombot]

The entire Lemuria vs Deviant Lemuria is such headache, I don't know why Marvel allowed it to become canon. I love the Celestials, they're one of the coolest comic creations that exist at Marvel (or at least they were until like the mid 2000s) but as much as I love them, I really don't like the Eternals, which includes the Deviants. Many very talented people have tried, but no one has been able to successfully mesh the Eternal mythos with the greater MU. The Celestials work as distant, unknowable spade gods, and they can be used to represent many things in many types of stories. But the Eternals and Deviants are weird, redundant, stiff, and mostly charmless and unlikeable. I've tried many times to like them, by re-reading Kirby's stories and the attempts made by others later, but I just can't.

That being said, it is what it is, and the Eternals along with the Robert E Howard histories are now merged with 616 Marvel history and Atlantis. There is a lot to like and many possibilities and potential for greatness. If the Celestials did in fact destroy Atlantis and Lemuria, why did they do it? Why just those places? Was it something caused by humanity? Was it punishment for the Eternals failing to control the Deviants, and then also correcting this failure? Are there other players? Are the Atlanteans just bit-players in their own destruction or did they have a bigger hand in it or cause it outright? If so, why then also Lemuria? Is the worship of Set involved? Were there humans living in pre-fall Lemuira? How did the worship of Set transfer to the water-breathing Lemurians from the Deviant Lemurians? Does Set worship, or possible conjuring/invoking/opening of dimensions for Set somehow trigger the Celestial retaliation? Were they really destroying the potential dangers of opening our reality to Set? Could the pre-fall Atlantean sorcerer, that would eventually become known as Suma-Ket, actually help in it's destruction by invoking or messing with Set or other Outer-Gods without the knowledge of his King or brethren? Were the Celestials pissy about this? Could Set worship in Lemuria and other unknown Outer-God sorcery in Atlantis cause a chain reaction or threat scale so high that the Celestials had to step in?

The answer to how and why Atlanteans came to be water-breathers are, in my opinion, wrapped up in the mystery of the Cataclysm itself. How and why that event happened will lend itself to the how and whys of Atlanteans having to become ocean dwellers.

[Doombot]

I remember the 80's Handbooks mentioning the possibility of Deviants mutating their human slaves into the water-breathing Atlanteans, perhaps after their chief city Lemuria sunk beneath the seas following the Great Cataclysm.

I've heard something similar before, probably in this forum. It doesn't make sense to me. It turns the entire Atlantis myth upside down. The event of humans becoming water-breathers would had to have happened post Cataclysm in the distant Pacific location of Deviant Lemuria, with the human slaves turned water-breathing beings escaping Deviant Lemuria and founding their own Lemuria, seemingly just up the road, and then what, some offshoot of that population leaving and making the massive trek across the globe to take up residence in the mid-Atlantic ruins of Atlantis, then declaring themselves as the Atlanteans themselves?

[Reviresco]

The entire Lemuria vs Deviant Lemuria is such headache, I don't know why Marvel allowed it to become canon. I love the Celestials, they're one of the coolest comic creations that exist at Marvel (or at least they were until like the mid 2000s) but as much as I love them, I really don't like the Eternals, which includes the Deviants. Many very talented people have tried, but no one has been able to successfully mesh the Eternal mythos with the greater MU. The Celestials work as distant, unknowable spade gods, and they can be used to represent many things in many types of stories. But the Eternals and Deviants are weird, redundant, stiff, and mostly charmless and unlikeable. I've tried many times to like them, by re-reading Kirby's stories and the attempts made by others later, but I just can't.

That being said, it is what it is, and the Eternals along with the Robert E Howard histories are now merged with 616 Marvel history and Atlantis. There is a lot to like and many possibilities and potential for greatness. If the Celestials did in fact destroy Atlantis and Lemuria, why did they do it? Why just those places? Was it something caused by humanity? Was it punishment for the Eternals failing to control the Deviants, and then also correcting this failure? Are there other players? Are the Atlanteans just bit-players in their own destruction or did they have a bigger hand in it or cause it outright? If so, why then also Lemuria? Is the worship of Set involved? Were there humans living in pre-fall Lemuira? How did the worship of Set transfer to the water-breathing Lemurians from the Deviant Lemurians? Does Set worship, or possible conjuring/invoking/opening of dimensions for Set somehow trigger the Celestial retaliation? Were they really destroying the potential dangers of opening our reality to Set? Could the pre-fall Atlantean sorcerer, that would eventually become known as Suma-Ket, actually help in it's destruction by invoking or messing with Set or other Outer-Gods without the knowledge of his King or brethren? Were the Celestials pissy about this? Could Set worship in Lemuria and other unknown Outer-God sorcery in Atlantis cause a chain reaction or threat scale so high that the Celestials had to step in?

The answer as to how and why Atlanteans came to be water-breathers are, in my opinion, wrapped up in the mystery of the Cataclysm itself. How and why that event happened will lend itself to the how and whys of Atlanteans having to become ocean dwellers.

TBH, I've never been all that excited about the Eternals (the Deviants and the Celestials) either, even (yes, I'll admit it) Kirby's mini-series for many of the reasons you state. And originally it wasn't meant to be part of the MU continuity, which is partly why it's mess.

I'm pretty sure the Celestials destroyed everybody in a Judgement, or at least that was their intent, except for a few humans to start things back up. It was like Ragnarok. Of course the exact reason has probably been retconned / changed a few times. I think one reason was to eliminate the Deviants, as a failure.

Yes, there were humans living in pre-Cataclysm Lemuria. There was some REH stuff, with Set plus they had the Lin Carter Thongor mashed up with it, IIRC. Remember, in Tales of Atlantis, pre-Eternals, it was a war with Lemuria that caused the destruction of the city. Their defense system tapped into the molten level of the crust, and that went South, of course, causing world wide seismic activity. Who knows how much of that was kept?

Wasn't the worship of Set in sunken Lemuria caused by the Serpent Crown? And no, I don't think Set has anything to do with the Celestials. One of the flaws of the concept, IMO, is that it is basically about 'debunking' anything magical or divine. The Greek gods aren't gods, but stories based off the Eternals, and that sort of stuff. Though, there was that storyline in Thor, which I don't recall clearly.

Hmmmm. I didn't remember that detail of Suma-ket. Interesting.

That's the take I think Marvel is going with now. That the water breathing Atlanteans have a connection to the Cataclysm.

[Doombot]

I do not believe the Cataclysm was meant to have been a world wide event. There would be no one left to find it mysterious that an island kingdom disappeared or sank into the sea if the entire world was drowned and began anew. I believe the original idea was that it was a direct Celestial punishment of the Eternals and Deviants, and not of humanity. (The Eternals for being cold, aloof, uninvolved and the Deviants for being overly involved, enslaving, aggressive, warlike)

I do remember the bit about Atlantis being at war with Lemuria, which doesn't make a lot of sense either lol. How do two, even very advanced societies, engage in war from opposite sides of the planet? That's something that's very difficult even today. Only the Superpowers can do so. Do you find this story, with across the globe conflict and molten machine highjinkes as satisfying one?

The Serpent Crown , and it's predecessor the Cobra Crown, were both created in pre-fall Lemuria.

The bit about pre-fall sorcerer Suma-Ket was something I just made up. Just putting ideas out there lol

[Reviresco]

I do not believe the Cataclysm was meant to have been a world wide event. There would be no one left to find it mysterious that an island kingdom disappeared or sank into the sea if the entire world was drowned and began anew. I believe the original idea was that it was a direct Celestial punishment of the Eternals and Deviants, and not of humanity. (The Eternals for being cold, aloof, uninvolved and the Deviants for being overly involved, enslaving, aggressive, warlike)

Okay, I guess I need to do some reading. I thought the Cataclysm is supposed to correspond to the Dinosaur extinction / asteroid strike in the Gulf of Mexico, but with some human survivors -- cause I thought it was the opposite, that the appearance of the Celestials is supposed to be about judging the humans, not the Eternals and Deviants.

I do remember the bit about Atlantis being at war with Lemuria, which doesn't make a lot of sense either lol. How do two, even very advanced societies, engage in war from opposite sides of the planet? That's something that's very difficult even today. Only the Superpowers can do so. Do you find this story, with across the globe conflict and molten machine highjinkes as satisfying one?

I don't have too much problem with the distance between the two continents to be too implausible, they are both supposed to highly advanced -- though the Tales of Atlantis portrayed both as more fantasy like, or like Burroughs Martians, with flying air ships, but fighting in thongs with swords. I did find the world wide seismic activity to be suspect, however.

The Serpent Crown , and it's predecessor the Cobra Crown, were both created in pre-fall Lemuria.

Yes, but didn't it sink with the continent, and was found by the water breathing Lemurian Naga?

The bit about pre-fall sorcerer Suma-Ket was something I just made up. Just putting ideas out there lol

LOL! Okay, you had me going. Going hmmmmm. Cause it did sound good.