Today in Comics History, September 12: Happy birthday, Martrese Beck!

Born on this day: model Martrese Beck, who portrayed the newly-blue Namorita on this classic cover!


cover of The New Warriors (1990 series) #44 (February 1994), photograph by Paul Mezey, print by Katie Yu, make-up by Kate Wadsworth, retouching by Gabrielle Russomagno

The Marvel Age Calendar for 1993 2021: May-jor League Baseball

Bean 'im, Nita! Bean 'im!


from Marvel Age #125 (Marvel, May 1993), art by Darren Auck
Color in Namorita (hubba hubba!) You can use your pink crayon or your blue crayon...either one's canon! And this calendar is good for all this month!

Sunday Tuesday PSA: Drugs Are from Mars, Junkies Are from Venus

It's just another day in the life of Captain America and The New Warriors (remember the 1990s' longest-running title, New Warriors Team-Up?). In a deserted warehouse in Gotham New York, the heroes are battling a quartet of super-powered young criminals...powered by drugggggggs!

Two-page spread from Captain America Goes to War Against Drugs v.2 #3 (1994), script by George Caragonne, pencils by Colleen Doran, Inks by Greg Adams, colors by George Roussos, letters by Rick Parker

(Click picture to addiction-size)
Until it's revealed...wait for it...until it's revealed that the drug lord leader of the super-addicts is an alien. Thanks. Marvel Comics in Association with Drug Free America, for this grim, serious, ultra-realistic portrayal of drug distribution and addiction! What's next...we're going to see that Galactus has bulimia? Oh wait, we really don't want to see that.


Yep, an alien! Operating from an orbiting satellite 22,300 miles above the Earth, the alien druglord disciplines his crew! He's beginning to regret having hired junkies as his aids! See, that's why you should always have your resumé updated and ready to go...with a good CV and a solid work ethic, you could easily rise to the top of a galactic drug pusher ring! Well, it beats being an Alpha Primitive, at least.


Not to mention that his company's bonus structure is based on the strategies from Blake of Glengarry Glen Ross, sending the young supervillains (clockwise from upper right: Kid Robocop, Poison Ivy II: Lily, Young Juggernaut, and Shiva, Jr.) scrambling for their fix. Also, they are probably stealing office supplies, as the stock of Post-It™ notes is dangerous low.


Back at the Warrior-Cave, Cap and the New Warriors survey the stash of drugs while the Warriors explain their personalities through expository dialogue. Hey look, it's everybody's favorite Tidal Teen, Namorita, suggesting a cleverly economic way to cut out the middleman and speed up your business structure! Namorita knows a lot about business, because like last week it appears she's cut a deal to appear in every PSA comic book ever.


Meanwhile, New Warriors member Silhouette discovers that her friend Doreen (or, perhaps, Dorreen) is a junkie! (Silhouette always has all the answers...well, what's her answer to that--?) Well, it's a good thing Doreen is sitting on the cleanest public bathroom floor ever. A big thumbs up to Marvel for introducing a differently-abled hero in Silhouette (she even has a taser in her crutches). A big thumbs down for coloring this half-Cambodian hero as if she's made out of stone. (Well, maybe that's to remind us not to take her for granite.*) Double thumbs down for her Norwegian-grandmother-knitted flocked vest. Let's not even mention her actual civilian name: Silhouette Chord. It's canon, fanboys!


By the end, everybody gets to hit something (Captain America, several times!), and the alien drug lords are driven off the Earth, which raises the question of who's going to keep him from distributing deadly drugs to the teens of Skrullos, Chandilar, and Galador? Eh, no need to worry about that. As the comic asks, is this the end? It's up to you! No, actually, it isn't. That's the end.


Special bonus feature!: Search and find and circle and cross out when you get them wrong these words related to law enforcement! Such as "bribery!" And "fraud!" And..."steno!" Also, find "FCI!" Short for Federal Captain-America Investigations.


Join us next time when Namorita teaches you all about the troubles of smoking! Namely, it's really hard to keep your cigarettes lit underwater.

*I'm so very, very, very sorry.

Sunday PSA: If You Sea Something, Say Something

Because kids know and love the Sub-Mariner's kid cousin, there's no better spokesperson to remind kids to report gun violence!


Back cover of Namorita #1 (1993), published in conjunction with the Metro-Dade Police Special Response Team
Yep! Out of the vast Marvel Universe of stars, only Namorita is appropriate to star in a public service comic about the dangers of firearms!


Oh. Oh, yeah.

And this is another reason why nobody invites Namor to McKenzie family reunions.

Hey, let's look once more at Prince Namor, The Sub-Mariner! Or, if you're Ben Grimm, the Sub-Mareener. Regal and noble Namor is always a figure of power and authority, and even when he's losing his temper and slapping someone across the face with his prune-wrinkled fingers, he's always the very model of a modern marine gentleman. As much as the Sultan of the Seven Seas needs a continual course in anger management, there's never a moment when he acts like anything other than a perfect gentlefishman...



Eh, let's gloss right over that.

Other than that, there's nothing in his past that Namor is ashamed to talk about.

Except this:

So, down in the briny deep (arrrrrr!), it's just another normal day in Atlantis for regal Namor McKenzie, swimmin' through the ocean, scooping up the scallops, and poppin' 'em in his mouth. When suddenly! He spots a waterlogged corpse caught in the seaweed.





Yes, it's time for another exciting episode of

CSI: Atlantis!

But wait! She's alive! She's aliiiiiiive! And more important to Namor, she's hot!





Just like his own personal hero, Mitch Buchanan, the Sub-Mariner is always ready, and he will not let you out of his sight. In fact, he's gonna give an internal monologue while he carries your half-drowned bikini-clad body to the beach.





Even though you can't actually see where he's wearing it, Namor of course has his CPR badge, and he immediately begins administering the kiss of life (at least, that's what he always calls it when Reed walks in on him and Susan) to the helpless half-drowned girl. Hey, watch the tongue, Namor! This is around the moment Veronica always walks in on Archie and Betty, isn't it, now?





Whoa! Somebody's had a course in self-defense! Our bathing beauty clocks Namor with an uppercut that, if it were drawn by Gil Kane, would have knocked the Sub-Mariner's head clean into the next county, bouncing off the wall of the Target and rolling down the parking lot until it landed between a Dodge Durango and a Chrysler Town and Country minivan, looking puzzled and a bit peeved.





As a young boy, Subbie was often read by Princess Fen the fable of The Fox and the Grapes, although in Atlantis it's better known as the fable of the Shark and the Grapejellyfish. "Eh, I didn't wanna kiss her anyway," Namor justifies in his head, and we all know when he gets back to the Defenders he's totally gonna tell Hulk that he made out with her. Hulk, of course, will be completely puzzled by this and then ask Fish-Man to help him finish his jigsaw puzzle of Fred Flintstone at the drive-in movies.





Just to make sure she knows he didn't wanna kiss her crummy lips anyway, Namor keeps yelling at her as she swims back to the deck of the Minnow, or to Fantasy Island, or to that floating James Bond car, or maybe to Monster Island, or wherever she came from. He's still shouting at her a half-hour later when his only audience is a beach scavenger with a metal detector, Moondoggie getting in some late surfing, and a seagull.





Later, Namor faces off against one of his most deadly enemies, that supervillain we all love to hate, one of the most important archnemesisesesis in the Marvel Universe, the same man we've all got action figures of, the bad guy that Sir Derek Jacobi is slated to play in the Sub-Mariner motion picture...um...I think his name is "Walrus Man." And he seems to pretty cranky towards Namor because apparently his new contact lenses aren't very well fitted...





Ladies and gentlemen, check it out—it's Wendy Pini's Elfquest! Oh wait, no, actually it's Namor's cousin Namorita! (That's Atlantean for "Little Avenging Son," which coincidentally is also the name Namor has given to his...his puppy. His little sea-dog. What, what? What did you think I was goanna say?





Anyway, let us consider this: Namor was mashin' lips with his cousin. (inhale:) Ewwwwwwwwwwwwwwwww.

In any case, that's why Namor was later heard to say:



All images except the first and the last one are from Sub-Mariner #50 (June 1972), script, pencils, and inks by Bill Everett, letters by John Costanza. The first panel in this post is from Fantastic Four #4 (May 1962), script by Stan Lee, pencils by Jack Kirby, inks by Sol Brodsky. The final image is Photoshopped from a panel in Namor #20 (November 1991), script, pencils, inks and letters by John Byrne, colors by Mike Thomas