Sub Mariner: The Depths #1
Posted: Tuesday, September 2, 2008
By: Paul Brian McCoy/David Wallace
Peter Milligan
Esad Ribic
Marvel Comics/Marvel Knights
"Chapter One"
Paul Brian McCoy: 3.5 Bullets
Dave Wallace: 4 Bullets
Paul Brian McCoy: 
Man, I've been reading a lot of alternative versions of old characters lately. There was Starr the Slayer earlier in the week, and today I've got Devil Slayer and Namor on the docket. I wasn't really excited about Devil Slayer, but Namor has got my interest piqued.
It's written by one of my favorite (if, perhaps, the most inconsistent) current writers, Peter Milligan. Of his recent work, I've loved Dead Girl, hated Batman Annual #26 and really don't know what to think about The Programme. Oh, and I almost forgot Infinity, Inc. for DC. I read two issues and dropped it.
Esad Ribic is on art duties, which also excites me (in a healthy, non-sexual way), since I loved his work on Loki. So the creative team is aces, and Namor is one of those characters I really like, but no one ever does anything good with. The less said about last year's Namor mini-series, the better.
But back to this story. It's a solid first issue, but it's mainly set-up and exposition, so there's a general sense of not a lot happening. The characterizations aren't the best either, with everyone essentially being the exact sort of character-types one would expect in this situation.
Marlowe, the explorer who claims to have discovered Atlantis, is suitably insane, with a tranquil yet messianic (and murderous) intensity. Doctor Stein, the skeptic and rationalist hired to track down Marlowe, is arrogant and prone to melodramatic outbursts - usually declaiming some superstitious drivel, as he sees it. His employers are traditionally mysterious and one-note, while the sailors on the submarine hired to take Stein to the Marianas Trench are hearty and hale, sharing mythic tales of shipwrecks and superstitiously regarding the legend of Namor as absolutely believable.
Milligan isn't exactly breaking any molds with these characters, but the setting is odd and interesting enough to help freshen it up. The story begins with a contrast of settings - Marlowe in the deep, and Stein in the Himalayas - which helps to establish both the differences and similarities in the characters themselves, especially the lengths to which both will go to discover the Truth. There's a definite Heart of Darkness quality to the plot, which again, isn't the most original approach, but is effectively utilized to establish where we'll be heading with the narrative.
I was a little confused by the setting, though. There are a lot of zeppelins flying around what appears to be New York, but there are no establishing tags letting the reader in on the date or place. It appears to be an alternate history sort of approach, which the Marvel Knights imprint allows, but I could have used a little bit more grounding. There are a few dates mentioned that help, but everything seems intentionally left vague.
Here's a quick timeline of events discussed in this issue:
- The Medusa sank in 1816, and you may be familiar with the famous painting about the wreck. Namor gets the blame here.
- The Titanic sank in 1912. Namor again is blamed by those in the know.
- Marlowe's first voyage for Atlantis occurs in 1939.
- The Marianas Trench, the deepest part of the world's oceans, has a scientific outpost established at its edge. The Trench was originally first surveyed in 1951.
The issue is structured almost identically to Grant Morrison's ill-fated Authority relaunch, right down to the violence on a sub-marine opening and mysterious discovery in the darkness of the ocean depths ending. And like that issue, the title character doesn't really show up at all, except as a fuzzy figure in the distance that may or may not be him. So if you're all up in arms about needing to see your title characters, you might want to pass. But that's really kind of silly, if you ask me.
The story is atmospheric and intriguing, and Ribic's art is exactly what you expect from him: Soft colors, water-color effects, dramatic visual vistas, and realistic, if somewhat pale, people. It's another beautiful example of Ribic's painting style that is almost worth the price of the book by itself.
This is an interesting and lovely book. I recommend it just as an aesthetic work, but the narrative shows promise, too. I get the feeling that this will be one of those minis that I'll probably not buy, but will maintain an awareness of, eventually dropping some cash on a hardback collection. That's what I did with Loki, and it was worth it. But if you don't plan on stocking your bookshelf with a nice collected edition, then definitely pick this up. It's not your typical superhero comic so far.
Dave Wallace: 
Sub-Mariner: The Depths is the newest "Marvel Knights" series to emerge from the publisher since the line was relaunched. As the title suggests, this mini is all about Namor the Sub-Mariner, with the out-of-continuity imprint allowing writer Peter Milligan to tackle the character without his ideas being restricted by established Marvel Universe lore. In some ways, this opening chapter reminded me of the first issue of Grant Morrison's aborted Authority relaunch: both issues barely feature their title characters, keeping them off-panel in order to build suspense for their eventual reveal; both issues feature a cast of unknown characters, who take centre stage in the absence of the established "stars"; and both issues approach fantastical concepts from a grounded perspective, before plunging their central characters into an atmospheric world of undersea horror.
Milligan gives his story a retro (1940s?) vibe, both in the setting and the style of his story: this is much more of a pulp horror/adventure comic than it is a superhero book, and it feels fresher and more interesting for it. I enjoyed Milligan's take on Namor as a mythical creature whose existence is talked about in hushed tones by superstitious seamen, but who is seen as a mere fantasy by others - notably Doctor Stein, the sceptical "rationalist" scientist who sets out to disprove the existence of the Sub-Mariner and Atlantis. There's an effective slow build of suspense that is reinforced by the reader's knowledge that Namor and Atlantis are indeed real - and are out there waiting for the protagonists - and Milligan ratchets up the tension with some irate disagreements between Stein and his ship's crew, suggesting that (as with many such stories) the horror is going to come as much from inside these characters as from the outside influences.
Esad Ribic's art also conveys the historical setting well, evoking an art deco flavour with the architecture of his cityscapes (the shots of the city that we see here are exactly how I think that Superman's Metropolis should look). Ribic also provides some satisfying renderings of machinery and technology, again capturing a retro vibe with his renderings of the crew's submarine, in both the interior and exterior shots. I wonder whether Ribic makes use of computer models in the creation of his artwork, because I found the design of the ship to be incredibly consistent throughout the book. Ribic also conveys the sailors' fear of the unknown effectively, with large black areas depicting the inky darkness of the undersea world, occasionally punctuated by mere suggestions of Namor's figure and form. This is quite a different kettle of fish to the cosmically-flavoured work that we recently saw from him in the pages of Silver Surfer: Requiem, but it's no less impressive. The only thing that I'm not completely sold on is the heavy use of light pink tones for the claustrophobic scenes set inside the submarine - but it could be that these colours will print darker than they appeared in my electronic preview copy, in which case a stronger, darker red hue might underscore the tension more effectively.
Sub-Mariner: The Depths already looks as though it'll make a fine addition to the ranks of claustrophobic undersea adventure stories that constitute a sub-genre of fantasy fiction, whether it's classic tales like Twenty Thousand Leagues Under the Sea or more recent efforts such as The Abyss and Sphere. If the book has one weakness, it's that the end of the issue doesn't really provide the moment of release that you might expect of a serialised story like this one--in all honesty, I was expecting a slightly stronger cliffhanger--but Milligan at least succeeds in bringing his story to a tense and fairly chilling place by the time the issue is over. I just hope that that tension doesn't evaporate in the month-long gap between this chapter and the next.
What did you think of this book?
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