The Marvel Super Heroes · Season 1 · Episode 5
Peril in the Surface World / So Spreads the Net / The Unveiling
Synopsis
Fever grips the Prince of Atlantis. Namor lies senseless in his palace while Lady Dorma keeps vigil at his side. Some deeper pull drags him from the sea in the dead of night. He wakes on a surface-world beach with no memory of his name or his purpose. A patrolman tries to book him, and Namor answers by smacking the gun out of the officer's hand before taking to the air on his winged ankles. Word races through the precinct that the Sub-Mariner has returned to the city. Captain Byrne throws a police cordon across every rooftop, river, and hydrant. Namor knows only that the sea restores him, and that without water his strength bleeds away.
An old woman watches the manhunt with designs of her own. Mrs. Bean sends her hirelings Freddy and George to reach Namor before the law does. They fail, but are able to post his bail and bring him to her parlor. There, she gives him back the one thing he has lost: his name and his story. Years ago a surface captain's icebreaker shelled the deep near the South Pole. An Atlantean princess rose to investigate, fell for the captain, and bore his son before grief killed her. That son is Namor, and the captain was, of course, Mrs. Bean's son. She offers her grandson a fortune to stay. Namor chooses Dorma and Atlantis instead, and the old woman lets him go.
Reality Designation
This story takes place outside the main Marvel continuity: 600026
Reality numbers are Marvel's official designations.
Where a universe has no official number we follow the Marvel Database and use its Temporary Reality Number (TRN-1092). Where there is neither — official or temporary — at the time we watch it, we assign a Snark Industries number of our own (SI-001).
Characters in the Episode
Milestone: Learns of his true heritage
Amnesiac Prince of Atlantis, driven to the surface world by a compulsion he cannot name; recovers himself only at the close.
Namor's beloved; keeps vigil at his sickbed and waits for his return.
Atlantean noble overseeing the prince's care alongside the court physician.
Surface-world matriarch who claims to be Namor's paternal grandmother and schemes to keep him.
Mrs. Bean's hireling; posts Namor's bail and phones a false tip under the alias "Red Herring."
Mrs. Bean's second hireling; the muscle who learns Namor's strength the hard way.
Atlantean Princess. Mother of Namor
Captain of the Icebreaker Oracle. Meets Fen, saves, and falls in love with her. Father of Namor
King of Atlantis at the time of Namor's birth. Sends forces to recover Fen, not realizing she had stayed by choice
The Police Captain bent on bringing Namor in
In-Universe Dates
Flashback to Namor's parents meeting.
Cannon date for Namor's birth is around 1920
The surface-world scenes present a contemporary mid-1960s New York, with police radio, squad cars, the Rockefeller Plaza fountain, and the aquarium. No calendar date is spoken or shown. The broadcast landed in September 1966.
Comic Roots
Where the episode's people and places come from on the page.
Namor first surfaced in Marvel Comics #1 (October 1939), created by writer-artist Bill Everett, and in the never-circulated Motion Picture Funnies Weekly #1 the same year. The premise of an amnesiac Sub-Mariner loose in the city is Silver Age, though. Fantastic Four #4 (May 1962, Lee and Kirby) found him as a bearded derelict in the Bowery with no memory of himself, until the Human Torch jolted him back to life.
The flashback dramatizes the origin formalized in Fantastic Four Annual #1 (September 1963, Lee and Kirby). A surface sea captain's icebreaker depth-charges the ocean near Antarctica and wounds hidden Atlantis. The emperor's daughter is sent up to investigate, marries the captain, and returns home to bear a half-human son after her love is presumed dead. The comics name the captain Leonard McKenzie, the princess Fen, and her father Emperor Thakorr. This telling leaves all three unnamed on screen.
Recommended Reading
Where to go next if the episode left you wanting more.
Namor's first appearance and the debut of Lady Dorma; the Golden Age root of everything in this story.
The amnesiac Sub-Mariner resurfaces as a Bowery derelict; the direct model for the memory-loss hook.
The full McKenzie and Fen origin this flashback adapts.
The Snark File
Easter eggs, callbacks and technical tidbits.
Five grand
Period money: Mrs. Bean's men spring Namor from a holding cell for a cool $5,000 in bail.
John Vernon
John Vernon voices both the Sub-Mariner and Iron Man across this series
