Remake/Remodel: Namor The Sub Mariner

[Rich Johnston]

Si Spurrier?s instructions:

We?re going to do something a bit different here. Rather than taking an idea or golden-age character and reinventing them as a Modern! Day! Super! Hero!, we?re going to take an ages-old superhero, throw away 90% of the background, and get Conceptual. This is important, pay attention:

?Namor the Sub-Mariner: the child of a human sea captain and of a princess of the mythical undersea kingdom of Atlantis. Namor possesses the super-strength and aquatic abilities of the "Homo mermanus" race, as well as the mutant ability of flight, along with other superhuman powers??

Now forget you read that. Most of it, anyway. For the purposes of this challenge, there are just 18 words we?re interested in: The child of a human sea captain and of a princess of the mythical undersea kingdom of Atlantis.

That?s your mission, my swampy loves. Make me believe that the character I?m looking at is half human, and half? other. Really and genuinely Of The Ocean. A briny being of bubbly brilliance, a nautical numpty, and similar alliterative bumsoup. Truly, a ?mer/man?. Or maid, if you like.

Forget the Crime Fighting. Forget the spandex shtick. Forget the brachycepahlic forehead and fruity ankle wings. Build me a mythical marvel.

Hardest selection to pick so far. SO MANY other great entries which would?ve been in the top 3 on any other day. Suggest all your readers check out the whole thread to see for themselves. And let me know if I got it wrong.

@BattGuano --



@Herr Hussein



@Axel Medellin



@Brian Le Golem



@Olaf_Chalk_Horse



@mthemordant



@FredG



@dirtbag_Kingdom



As always, the new thread is already up. I?m rather proud of this latest one, titled as it is THE GENRE EXPERIMENTS OF H.P.LOVECRAFT. All artists welcome:

[darkspark]

Those are all thoroughly creepy and awesome. Especially naked chick with squid for head Namor, that one is just extra wrong.

[_OM_]

...After wading through that floatsam, I'm no longer ashamed to demand a crossover between Namor and McHale's Navy.

[Dans07sti]

I like the fish in the van!

[thekeith82]

These are great, but the new one sounds like it's gonna be amazing. Looking forward to the results of that one

[Kplan]

These are all fun, and a couple are pretty awesome, but virtually none of them seem to actually capture the concept in terms of the world of superheroes (no matter how you want to define that world). Still fun!

[MWEDMER]

I'm lost. What is this about?
Is this some new feature like what CBR does where someone does a mashup based on a request? "The Line is Drawn."
I mean, I would get in on this. I have a couple of different fishy versions of the Sub Mariner.
Where is this other thread for the next one?

[thekeith82]

I'm lost. What is this about?
Is this some new feature like what CBR does where someone does a mashup based on a request? "The Line is Drawn."
I mean, I would get in on this. I have a couple of different fishy versions of the Sub Mariner.
Where is this other thread for the next one?

Once a month, on Warren Ellis's Whitechapel forums, Si Spurrier challenges people to redesign a classic character in some way. Half a dozen winners are then picked and showcased here. Link to the new challenge (basically "What If Lovecraft decided to work in genres other than horror") is the last sentence, where it says "all artists welcome"

[thekamisama]

Surprised to not see Paul Sizer's emo squiddy Submariner. It was pretty awesome.

[Terence]

None of the really fishy ones make much sense, unless, you know, Namor's father was really disturbed.