My Summer Marvel Internship or No More Namor Please! by Nick Brown

Did you know that Namor: The Sub-Mariner suffered amnesia six times from his late 60s run to early 90s run? This included brainwashing by a magic snake mask, being zapped by an electric fish, memory wipe by regular magic, and of course being hit really hard.

I know this because two days a week, for three months in the summer of 2016, it was my entertaining job to read entire runs of old comic series cover to cover and document every single character with a name who appears for the first time. Not just relevant people either, every janitor or cab driver who told our heroes their name in one panel in those issues is meticulously logged away in an Excel document somewhere in the great Marvel databank in the sky.

Sadly, I don’t live in New York City, so I had to get up Thursday at 5:30 AM for a ninety minute bus ride into town. I usually had just enough time to grab an everything bagel with cream cheese and a black coffee from the nice street vendor near the office. This ran me about $3.50 and I can honestly tell you that was a steal. My dad always told me that New York street vendor bagels are basically just a giant bagel with a half a slab of cream cheese wedged inside and I never believed him until that day. Taking that monstrosity out of the bag to be greeted by an avalanche of crumbs on the desk was the highlight of my mornings.

One morning of failed experimentation had me trying out an actual breakfast store down the street from the Marvel offices. I found a bagel plus coffee for roughly the same price but it was about the size of a small napkin and instead of slabbing the cream cheese on for me, they gave me a little packet of the stuff and forced me to spread my own cheese like it was the middle ages.

On arrival, the actual Marvel Bullpen so often written about on this blog has clearly changed a lot. Less airsoft fights and more people trying to decide whether Vision was technically naked, and therefor did he need censoring. There were Marvel centric figurines everywhere the eye could look. The offices were littered with posters, and action figures engaging in absurd cross comic fights.

There was also a cardboard cutout of someone I’m pretty sure was Hillary Duff that watched me from the cubicle next to my desk. If anything like that ever graced the old Bullpen, my dad’s keeping shut about it. Perhaps there was a plastic Tuesday Weld head peering at my father’s desk some years ago.

Hillary Duff aside, one of the great perks of my job was that I basically got paid to read and meticulously document comic books. One of the things they don’t tell you though, is that if you do anything with comic books for 8 hours a day, you go quietly insane. This explains a lot of my dad’s old work stories. But not nearly all.

Once I managed to read a series that I was already a huge fan of, the first thirty or so issues of Louise Simonson’s wonderful Power Pack. This was especially fun since I own most of them, but Marvel allowed me to read some of the gaps in my collection.

They also had me read Tower of Shadows, which was Marvel’s very strange attempt at cashing in on the horror trends of the 70s, and fighting DC’s House of Mystery at the same time. It was a series of horror anthologies, told by the gentle mortician named Headstone P. Gravely and his slightly more horrific serial killer assistant, Digger. Usually these stories were from a short literary fiction by older authors and given comic book form by Marvel artists and editors. They very rarely had anything whatsoever to do with the outside Marvel universe, but still, my job was to catalog the characters so I did it. This unfortunately threw some slight curve balls in the form of meta continuity. So Headstone P. Gravely, did not appear in the larger universe until it was revealed much later, in the form of a written book that chronicles the blog of a Marvel character, that the Tower of Shadows was just a tv show within the Marvel universe, but even then he was never heard from outside that context. However, the character of Digger eventually become a B-list supervillain and member of Night Shift, which went on to use the actual Tower of Shadows building as a headquarters. This technically didn’t interfere with my ability to judge what character appears first and when, but it did give me a taste of how insane the Marvel universe was and is.

What did screw with my records was when Headstone brought in “special guest hosts” to the book in the form of the real comic’s editors and artists giving the introductions to their stories. Now this wouldn’t seem like an issue until you remember, as I am forced to, that people like Stan Lee and Bill Everett have been written as actual characters in the Marvel universe.

(sidebar: if you’re heart is in good shape, google Young Stan Lee and thank me later)

This forced me to do a lot of research, and add a gratuitous number of footnotes and addendums to the “first appearance” logs for these and other writers.

For added frustration, when I eventually started reading Namor, I came across the alleged first appearance of a guy named Merlin. Now, I will not bore you with all the details, but if you want a ride, take a quick look at the webpage http://www.marvunapp.com/Appendix/merlinyn.htm because there is an entire section devoted to making sure you appreciate that nobody in the history of Marvel understands, or cares, exactly what Merlin they are working with, his origin, or abilities at any given time. In fact, there is an entire subsection of that page discussing the Namor issue in question, why it’s confusing as hell, and how nobody really can be sure if it was that particular Merlin’s first appearance or not.

To quote from the article, “I don’t know” and let us leave it at that.
But since we’re talking about Namor: The Sub-Mariner, I have something of an odd relationship with him after that summer.

On the one hand, after reading his issues spanning multiple decades, it is hard not to appreciate him as a powerful, compelling anti-hero who sometimes adheres a little too much to his convictions but at the end of the day truly cares about his kingdom at sea and his friends on the ground.

On the other hand, being forced to read and document his books for sixteen hours a week, for a month and a half, has given me both a pronounced twitch in my left eye whenever anyone mentions him and more absurd trivia than can possibly be drowned with alcohol, though I have tried.

He was accosted by three separate and unrelated street cops named Joe over a thirty year period.

He’s also so well known for getting into fights with other heroes that during one mini issue Namor, an official member of the Good Guy Community by now, simply walks down the street and is aggressively attacked by several members of the Avengers and Fantastic Four. While he is suitably pissed at this, he just shrugs it off as part of life and assumes that his friends have once again decided to treat him as a villain. It’s soon revealed that they were really trying to stall him so others could arrange his birthday party on time but the fact that it worked without him realizing this says a lot about his character. Most of it is depressing.

I also know that Marvel Studios still has the rights to Namor, and despite a few odd attempts at a tv show in the 50s and 70s, just hasn’t done anything with them. If we’re able to accept Guardians of the Galaxy twice, I think we can handle Namor: The Sub-Mariner.

The optimist in me hopes they’re just giving themselves something to do after Infinity Wars.

What I’m saying is that this entire article is just my soapbox to complain about the utter lack of Namor media in a world that has two failed Fantastic Four attempts and three separate Spiderman continuities. Now I should move on to another topic before my left eye freezes like this.

At the end of each day, I’d carefully submit the character log to my supervisor and be on my merry way. I was fortunate to be able to spend the night at a family friend’s apartment before returning to work on Friday morning. I was also given roughly a forty-dollar budget for the two days so I had to spend wisely when feeding myself. After a couple strange nights experimenting with McDonalds and street Halal food, salvation came when I figured out there was a Chinese restaurant two blocks away from Marvel and from there it was a nearly straight line back to the friend’s place. For less than twenty bucks I got my standard can’t go wrong order: General Tso’s Special Combination, a large bucket of wonton soup, and a lemon iced tea Snapple. This fed me for both Thursday evening and Friday’s lunch. It was a horrifying indulgence I’m rarely allowed in my everyday life, but one I greatly appreciated.

I still say there’s nowhere on earth you can get better Chinese food than New York City. Some people have brought up China, but I’ll wait till I’ve seen theirs in person to pass final judgement.

After a grueling two-day work week and seeing the absolute minimum number of sights the Big Apple has to offer, I’m ready to head home.

The end of the day walks through and around Time Square to the Bus Station were, especially at first, my least favorite part of the trip because the layout of the station is specifically designed to confuse and alienate the Uninitiated.

My first run through had me strolling through a brisk city bog with temperature of approximately 120 degrees, give or take so I wasn’t very happy in my suit and work pants.

Soon I stood in the station, alone and confused, having been told where my bus leaves off and when, but still having no idea where to find it. Then along comes Darrell, a very charming, scruffy looking gentleman who, after showing me exactly where to go from my ticket, shook me down for a few bucks so his daughter could get a ticket home. I did not see a girl anywhere nearby but he was extremely helpful so I simply gave him my remaining wallet contents, the tidy sum of two bucks, and was on my way.

The bus rides home were always fun, partially because I got to finish my audio books and look forward to a nice cozy bed, but mostly because they were air conditioned.

And then I got to look forward to reliving it all over again next week.