There’s really no question that Bill Everett was the most accomplished and polished cartoonist to be featured in the early issues of MARVEL MYSTERY COMICS, the initial offering from Timely Comics. In general, the quality level of many of the artists of this period was questionable at best. But Everett was already an accomplished master, and he brought his full skill set to his tales of Namor, the Sub-Mariner, making the character an early rival in popularity for the front-featured Human Torch.
Because they had initially been crafted for the unreleased black-and-white venture MOTION PICTURE FUNNIES WEEKLY (which was meant to be a premium distributed through local movie houses as a draw to attendance, but which never sold), Everett produced his first two Sub-Mariner stories using expensive crafttint paper, which allowed him to produce a number of different graytone effects. However, this same paper meant that the limited printing technology of the time had a difficult time capturing the images, and so this became an impediment to later attempts to reprint the earliest Sub-Mariner stories in decades to come.
The early Sub-Mariner wasn’t really a hero at all. He had more in common with King Kong (and in a way with Tarzan). He was a force of destruction who nonetheless had a streak of nobility to him. So while he caused carnage and terror as he destroyed the surface men who had caused disaster for his undersea people, he could also occasionally be kind in a momentary turn.
Namor discovers here that, like the popular Superman, he is bulletproof.
What a dope! Women, right?
Namor’s ability to spout water from his body like a human sprinkler system was used a few times early on and then completely forgotten.
The early Namor was also horny as heck.
So Namor just straight up kills this guy and almost drowns the girl he’s decided he wants as well. Not a great showing from the undersea Prince this time around.
Before the decision was made to retitle the series MARVEL MYSTERY COMICS for some strange reason, Everett had worked up this cover rough for the second issue. But in the end, publisher Martin Goodman rejected it in favor of a piece showcasing the Angel, who on the surface looked a lot more like the popular Superman. This rough was eventually auctioned off in 1991 and bought by then-Marvel president Terry Stewart. It remained in a safe in the Marvel offices for years until the bankruptcy, when it promptly vanished amid assorted temporary takeovers of the organization. Did somebody make off with it? Was it casually thrown away? Who can say?
The Tom Brevoort Experience 
It looks like Everett was doing story beats of monster goes on rampage, monster abducts woman, woman rescued and monster is driven off. But that part of the story didn’t work for me. Namor has human-standard intelligence. I couldn’t swallow that he didn’t know surface-dwellers drown in water, that’s too far. There’s also a Fridge Logic issue if you wonder what he does to Atlantean woman, especially given he’s a Prince. The ending doesn’t make any sense, since there’s no way the policeman, burdened with a nearly-drowned woman, could get far away from Namor. It feels like it was meant to play out like the last scene in a monster movie, where the heroes send the defeated creature back to the swamp/ocean/cave etc. Maybe the vague plot with excellent art was enough for the appeal, I can see that.
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Especially considering the amount of time his mother Princess Fen spent with his father Captain Leonard McKenzie and the crew of the S.S. Oracle ( Marvel Comics#1 ( October 1939 ) : Plus no way she didn’t know they were clueless to Atlantis and its people’s existence, unless she thought they were playing dumb ). Plus no way he could have forgot those divers of the S.S. Recovery he killed thinking they were robots. But other than that this story once more demonstrates his powers. Plus Bill Everett didn’t put one token woman in this story ( not a great number of them considering woman are a little over 50% of the population — to bad he never did so for Atlantean women ). To bad no one back then thought to write a list of Namor’s powers in a binder so Bill & future writers didn’t forget his “sprinkler system” & being bullet proof ( an a number of issues from now his Telepathic Communication with other Atlanteans — more than once ).
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What do you expect from a Scotsman like Leonard McKenzie, especially a Sailor?
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That unused Everett cover was redrawn by Dean Motter for the Namor-centric volume of the Marvel Comics Index in 1978:
https://marvel.fandom.com/wiki/Marvel_Comics_Index_Vol_1_7B
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Speaking of Bill Everett, I wonder Marvel hasn’t really do much with his lesser-known creation, the Fin? I don’t think I’ve seen him since the New Invaders series from the early 2000s.
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Everett really liked those aquatic heroes.
I’m kind of surprised he never seemed to do any work for DC.
Everett did some interesting superhero work in the early 1950s (Marvel Boy & Venus) were a valiant (but unsuccessful) attempt to reinvent superheroes.
He did a lot of imaginative covers and stories for the Atlas horror books.
Bright, talented man who had a good (but not always happy life) but who had a positive impact on fans of his work . . . and also the people he sponsored in AA.
Good life, not a bad thing.
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Page 11: I assume Everett saw the iconic cover of Action Comics #1, with Superman doing violence to a car? The entire sequence looks like a homage to me.
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TRIVIA: The unnamed rich woman whose dress caught on fire was partially named in Marvel Mystery Comics#3 as Drayson ( …the Drayson girl ) on page 1. It was bothering me where marvel.fandom.com got her name ( I checked the Official Handbooks and it occurred to me that it must be in the next issue ). Before for Namor went to the hospital to get her and he contemplated stealing from her home ( “..riches to be found in this house” – I guess he had a little pirate in him for a prince who one would think wouldn’t need to steal ).
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Trivia:( Said first here ( MMC#2 ( December 1939 )) on page 12 panel 11 that police officer says Namor “has the Strength of a hundred elephants”, which is what on the last page of Amazing Man Comics#10 ( March 1940 ) Amazing Man is said to have as he is tossing boulders away like they are basket balls and Strongman is said to have on his first page [ Crash Comics Adventures#1 ( May 1940 ) ].
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Some comics artists are great comics artists but not especially great artists.
Some great artists are fairly meh comics artists.
But Everett was one of the best comics artists — by and by right up to his passing — but also had chops as an artist.
(And ornery. See, his inks over Andru in the first Defenders story in which he made clear how he felt previously inking Andru on a Spider-Man inventory story.)
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I didn’t ever see the inventory story you mention but I got a copy of that Marvel Premiere a year or so into the Defenders run and thought it was awful. If I hadn’t seen Everett’s work in Sub-Mariner I would have assumed the worst about his talent and never looked at any classic reprints. Andru is still my Spider-Man artist and I loved his work.
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The Marvel Premier job looks awful because Everett literally traced Andru’s pencils. He had redrawn the pencils once before for that Spider-Man story and declined to work that hard again. The first job was like working off of breakdowns but being paid for just inks. The two jobs are night and day. Seeing the later job makes pretty obvious how much extra work went into the first.
The other tell about Andru’s pencils is that they look sooo different under every inker he ever had.
OTOH, Everett’s line is so great IMO that I like the Marvel Premier job.
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In the Sub-Mariner’s Marvel Comics#1 ( October 1939 ) first panel ( Splash panel ) Bill Everett wrote that he had the strength of a thousand men ( Using the original Official Handbook profile for Nova ( strength of 10 men who can lift 200 lbs = 1 ton ) then it means Namor can lift 100 tons ) and that Namor was born in 1920 making him 19 years old ( unless he was born in November or December then still 18 years old ), so is 19 years old the cut off point for mutant powers stopping growing in strength? If not shouldn’t he be stronger considering how old he now is?
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Not necessarily. He’s been through a lot over the years. It’s entirely reasonable that even with his mutant powers (especially healing factor), all those decades of wear and tear on his body have taken a cumulative toll on his strength. It’s easy to imagine a situation that while he’s still in the top tier of super-strength, he’s nowhere near as strong as he could theoretically be, if he had simply stayed home and done bodybuilding all his life as a hobby.
Note regarding stealing, he’s by no means the first young prince to want a personal “slush fund” which wouldn’t require whatever is entailed in going to the Royal Treasury.
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I should have wrote, …stop growing in strength? ( Cause now it is going to bother me all or most of the day ).
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