Outlandos D'Namor

If somebody asked you who the biggest playboy in the Marvel Universe is, you'd probably, almost certainly answer Tony Stark. Or maybe, if you were digging a little deeper into the history of the wild wild world of Earth-616, Starfox or Hercules or even Peter Parker. Heck, even Scott Summers has dated three of the most beautiful women in the Marvel Universe: Jean Grey, Colleen Wing, and Emma Frost. And oh yeah, that time when Hank McCoy set him up with a cousin, "Beastette." But there's one guy who's got a decades-long head start on them, even though (or maybe because) he usually dresses in nothing but his underwear. Yes, he's racked up more notches on the posts of his sea bed than Aquaman and Underwater John Mayer combined: it's Namor, the Sub-Mariner...or maybe, once you start counting up his romances (to name just a few: Betty Dean, Dorma, Marinna, Carrie Alexander, Phoebe Marrs, Emma Frost, and, following that drunken night after the Bob Hope USO show, Steve Rogers), maybe we oughta call him the Love-Mariner.

But M'sieur Na'mor was not always as light on his fins with the ladies as he is today, oh no no no. (No.) Back in the day, he was about as lucky with girls as Archie Andrews, as smooth as Jughead Jones and as stuck-up as Reggie Mantle. Of course, then there was the time Principal Wethersea...wait, I've gotten confused again. It's actually Namor's mother, voted "Mom I'd Like to Fish With" of 1943, the lovely, alluring and hangin'-around-in-her-lingerie Princess Fen who lectures Namor to settle down, get married, buy a little kelp farm in the country...


Panels from Marvel Mystery Comics #12 (October 1940), final panel in this post from Marvel Mystery Comics #14 (December 1940), both by Bill Everett

Namor, curiously enough for a guy who we all know is about as arrogant in his perceived superiority to humankind as fans of Joss Whedon are, was known to lament his inferority to "pure" bred humans, back in the 1940s. Then again, in those days, Namor just happened to be continually fighting against a guy who thought the ruling class should be pure bred, so you gotta forgive Namor a moment of uncharacteristic self-doubt:



Regardless of her casual attire around her son, Fen's got a point: Namor is ready to marry and bring some heirs to the Atlantean throne. So, he swims to the surface, kills a few men on the way, and flatters and smooth-talks his way into the heart of his beloved:



Namor has, in the words of the greatest Beatle, got his eyes set on you, Lynne Harris! Yes, we know that's likely to cut into your successful career of writing bestselling African American romances, but Namor is absolutely head over wings in love with you! Eh, well, actually his mama told him he better do it, and you know what mama's boys can be like if they don't get their way. Always invading the surface world with Giganto, etc. etc.



Most prospective bridegrooms give their fiancées an expensive gift...a diamond ring, say. Or, in the case of Reed Richards' engagement to Susan Storm, a Negative-Zone-powered vacuum cleaner. Not Namor—he's not one to fall into those traditional roles of the man laying out a lot, or indeed, any money when he gets engaged. Instead, he tosses his wife-to-be in arctic waters. Want a wife? Etherize her. Not since the Punisher clocked Dazzler in the skull with the butt of a M60 and dragged her back to his "Battle-Love Lair" has there been such an abrupt elopement.



Remember, folks, unless you are an ISB reader, never introduce your fiancée to your cousin whom you will eventually marry.



Then, instead of a pesky bridal shower, the Sub-Mariner heartily recommends invasive surgery, an operation by a guy who, you may remember, is apparently very nearly a doctor. Maybe that's exactly what happened to all of Namor's brides: lost on the operating table. Dr. Sub-Dreamy, he ain't.



So: smooth operator in today's world, but even Namor the Sub-Mareener had his awkward dating days. Girls just couldn't warm to his fish-like breath, his eel-like skin, and his habit of kidnapping and surgically mutilating his crushes. As Princess Fen would always comment, "She's just not good enough for my little minnow."

Or...maybe it's just his fashion sense: