Sub-Mariner Comics #1
☆ Be the first to review + Add to your collection — Join freeSub-Mariner Comics #1 marks the moment that one of comics' earliest and most morally complex protagonists graduated from ensemble anthology player to solo headliner — a validation of Namor's extraordinary reader pull less than two years after his public debut in Marvel Comics #1. The issue is also a landmark in American wartime popular culture: published in March 1941, nine months before Pearl Harbor, it presented Namor battling Nazi forces against Atlantis, making it widely cited as the first comic book to feature a superhero fighting the Axis on its cover — a bold editorial statement at a time when the United States was still officially neutral. That antihero-turned-patriot pivot, with Namor redirecting his long-standing rage against surface dwellers toward Hitler's forces, established a template that Timely Comics would replicate across its entire Golden Age line. Together with the backup presence of the Angel, the issue also captures the embryonic structure of what would become standard practice for the era's 'giant' comics: a lead hero paired with a secondary feature to fill out an oversized page count.
"Deep-Sea Blitzkrieg" kicks off Sub-Mariner Comics #1 (1941) with a pulse-pounding clash beneath the waves, as Hitler’s U-boat fleet launches a surprise assault on Atlantis. Written and illustrated by Bill Everett, the story introduces Namor’s rise to leadership after the emperor is felled, leading his people in a daring defense using stealthy whale and shark ambushes, then turning icebergs into fiery fortresses. The cover by Alex Schomburg captures the moment of Namor’s capture and escape, a striking visual that echoes the issue’s high-stakes underwater war.
In "Deep-Sea Blitzkrieg," Namor rises to command Atlantis after Hitler's U-boat assault leaves the emperor incapacitated. With the underwater city under siege, Namor’s people launch a stealthy counterattack using whale and shark riders to ambush the enemy, then strike from icebergs armed with deadly firepower. After a brutal fight, Namor escapes capture—only to return to a city still healing, facing the next move in a war he’s just begun to lead.
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The series was a direct commercial response to Namor's breakout success in Marvel Mystery Comics, where he had been appearing since the publisher's very first issue in October 1939. According to multiple sources, Timely publisher Martin Goodman, creator Bill Everett, and editor Joe Simon collectively planned the solo quarterly title to capitalize on the character's popularity — making Simon, better known today as Jack Kirby's creative partner, the editorial architect of Namor's first solo run. Everett drew the interior stories through issue #4 (Winter 1941), at which point he was drafted into the armed forces; artists Al Gabriele and Carl Pfeufer handled the majority of the remaining 1940s issues in his absence, with Everett resuming contributions after his discharge. The cover was provided by Alex Schomburg, a prolific Timely cover specialist whose dynamic, detail-packed wartime illustrations were so distinctive that Stan Lee later compared his singular visual identity to Norman Rockwell's relationship with the Saturday Evening Post.
Trivia · 8 facts
- Published by Timely Comics (the 1940s predecessor of Marvel), with an on-sale date of March 1, 1941 and a cover date of Spring/April 1941; it ran as a quarterly (later more frequent) series through issue #32, ending in June 1949.
- Interior stories written and drawn by Bill Everett — the character's creator — who also co-created Daredevil with Stan Lee in the 1960s; Everett's involvement in the solo series ended with issue #4 after he was drafted into the U.S. military in early 1942.
- Cover art by Alex Schomburg, depicting Namor hoisting a German battleship and dumping its crew into the sea — widely identified as the first comic book cover to show a superhero in direct combat against Nazi forces, published while the U.S. was still a non-belligerent nation.
- Joe Simon served as editor-in-chief of the issue, per the Grand Comics Database, giving the book a notable editorial pedigree alongside its creative team.
- The 68-page issue contains multiple Sub-Mariner stories (including a prose story) plus a backup feature starring the Angel (Thomas Halloway), a detective-superhero character carried over from Marvel Mystery Comics; the cover boasted '40 Thrilling Pages Of Sub-Mariner In Action.'
- The lead story depicts Adolf Hitler ordering a U-boat assault on Atlantis, the death (or incapacitation) of Emperor Thakorr, and Namor assuming command of Atlantis's forces — using whale- and shark-disguised warships to ambush the Nazi submarines; it marks first appearances for minor Atlantean characters Lucas and Mel, and for the Nazi 'Lightning Squad.'
- Namor has been retroactively described as comics' first antihero — originally cast as a menace to humanity in Marvel Mystery Comics, he is deliberately repositioned in this series as a defender against fascism, a character evolution that reflects the wider pre-war cultural shift in American popular media.
- Material from this issue has been reprinted in Flashback #19 (1974), the Marvel Masterworks: Golden Age Sub-Mariner hardcover series (2005 and 2012), the Fantagraphics anthology Take That, Adolf!: The Fighting Comic Books of the Second World War (2017), Marvel: The First 80 Years (Titan, 2020), and the Timely's Greatest: The Golden Age Sub-Mariner by Bill Everett — The Pre-War Years Omnibus (Marvel, 2019).
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Reprinted in Flashback #19 (1974), Giant-Size Invaders #1 (1975), Marvel Masterworks: Golden Age Sub-Mariner #1 (2005), Marvel Milestones: Doom, Sub-Mariner & Red Skull #[nn] (2005), Marvel Masterworks: Golden Age Sub-Mariner #1 (2012), Marvel Masterworks: Golden Age Sub-Mariner #1 (47) (2012), Golden Age Captain America Omnibus #1 (2014), Take That, Adolf!: The Fighting Comic Books of the Second World War #[nn] (2017), Timely's Greatest: The Golden Age Sub-Mariner by Bill Everett - The Pre-War Years Omnibus #[nn] (2019), Marvel: The First 80 Years #[nn] (2020)
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