Alternate Favorite Marvel Characters #4 - Namorita

Character: Namorita (Nita Prentiss)

Creator: Bill Everett

First appearance: Sub-Mariner #50.

First encounter: New Warriors #2. This issue is mostly about an once friend, now enemy, from Night Thrasher's past showing up to throw down (the fight ultimately leaving the Warriors to wonder how far they can trust the Thrash-man, not for the first or last time). Nita gets a couple of cool moments in there, and Niceiza starts teasing the attraction between her and Nova (in that she thinks he's a meathead, but he's a hot meathead).

Definitive writer: Fabian Nicieza. He and John Byrne have written the most comics featuring her that I've read, and I prefer Nicieza's take more than Byrne's where Nita was a more deferential to her cousin (who, to be fair, was the main character of that book and is an overbearing butthead to boot).

Definitive artist: Mark Bagley. Most artists give Nita more rounded facial features, which is how Bill Everett tended to draw her (I saw someone describe his version as "elfin"). Tends to make her look younger. Bagley typically draws people more slim and angular, and that fit the Namorita in New Warriors, where she seemed older and more mature than in other books, even if only in comparison to her teammates.

Favorite moment or scene: Nita trying to fight Terrax (even a less-powerful-than-normal Terrax) solo in the first issue was pretty cool, but I'm going with something from New Warriors #7. The Warriors are faced with a couple of problems. Night Thrasher's old girlfriend Silhouette is being pursued (or so she thinks) by a strange man in a tiger/ninja outfit. Speedball's mother has gone to South America as part of a protest about cutting down the rainforest, and may be a hostage. Thrasher stays behind to help Sil, while the rest of the team travels with Robbie in their civilian identities. Which is the first time the team finds out Speedball is actually a fairly small 15-year old.

Robbie is defensive about it, for good reason. He wasn't part of Thrasher's original plan for the team (neither was Nita). Chord thinks he's basically useless, Nova would agree. The rest think he's unreliable, and now they know he's a kid, more so than the rest of them. Even if they aren't outright voicing their doubts (except Rich, who is kind of a dick), he can guess what they're thinking. Except Nita, who walks up and makes it clear she's got no concerns about him not being the biggest 15-year old around, and that his team has his back. She's frequently the tough one on the team, but that role alternates between almost everyone at some point. But that consistent compassionate attitude was kind of a pleasant surprise (wouldn't really expect it from a relative of Namor's) and a key part of her.

What I like about her: One problem a lot of teen heroes run into in these shared universes is that, no matter how many times they may save the world in their books, they get treated as second-rate when they run up against the old guard. A lot of the Teen Titans struggle with that, and the New Mutants, and the New Warriors. That's an issue I always have to reconcile, how Namorita gets portrayed in New Warriors, which is the version I'm most familiar with and like best, versus most everywhere else.

On the Warriors, Nita gets to be the team powerhouse, at least as far as muscle. Kind of the Rogue of the team in that sense. Firestar is the most powerful overall, but rarely cuts loose, for various understandable reasons like not wanting reduce people to a pile of ashes. When Nita's possessed by a guy wielding the Darkforce, Nova admits he's not strong enough to knock her out. Rage turns out to be stronger than her, but only in terms of punching (something about how his powers work). Namorita has the edge everywhere else. When Emma Frost invades their HQ with her Hellions, Nita's the one who ends up fighting that team's muscle (the terribly named "Beef"), and she pounds him into the ground, to Emma's complete lack of surprise. The guy's no Hulk, but he's strong enough to feel like trying to throw down with Colossus, so he can't be a complete waste. She'll take a swing at Terrax, or throw a railroad car at the Juggernaut. There's one issue, #28, where either she threw a submarine to the surface, or it did an emergency surface to try and get away before she ripped it apart underwater. All of which is pretty cool and impressive.

In Namor, she's more like his plucky teen sidekick. Eager to help her cousin, but with Namor always trying to keep her out of the line of fire. They split up to search for the Griffin, Namor actually already knows which direction it went and he made sure to send her the other way, because he doesn't want her trying to tangle with it. Or it's OK for him to fight Super-Skrull by himself, but he doesn't want her trying it when Kl'rt decides to turn tail. In Agents of Atlas we're told her power was 'a pale shadow' of her mother's or Namor's (which ignores the fact writers had been dialing Namor and Namora's strength levels up the previous few years, after Nita was dead and unable to benefit from that same power creep).

That's frustrating to deal with, finding a character you like and then when you try to track down their backstory or other adventures, they don't get much respect anywhere else. But you find what positives you can. Nita is determined to help her cousin whenever he's in trouble, whether he wants it or not. She may do what he says initially, but she's more than willing to go behind his back. Which is probably easier than trying to argue with Namor. Wastes less time, certainly

She's adaptable and moves around in the surface world smoothly. She's always shown as having non-superhero friends, her own place, school, interests, a full life. Namor doesn't do subtle or fitting in. When they attend a gala thing where he doesn't want people to know he's alive, Nita's the one who figures out a fake beard and how to style his hair to disguise him. Some of that ability to fit in, at least outwardly, is probably Betty Prentiss, who knew Namor back when and kind of had Nita foisted on her, although they formed a strong bond eventually (Nita took Betty's last name as hers for her surface identity, after all). And maybe some of that ability to blend in came from growing up in a kingdom where her mother was poisoned by a romantic rival and believed dead. Nita probably wasn't sure how safe her own life was, or who might have back. She would have learned to step lightly in precarious situations from that. Namor doesn't really have the patience to tread lightly. Too used to making other people jump when he enters a room.

But she isn't timid. When she's been abducted by Tiger Shark and wakes up to find Ms. Marvel (Carol Danvers variety) trying to rescue her, Nita jumps right in to help. It doesn't go well (even though fighting underwater should be as much a boon to her as her cousin or Tiger Shark, but there's that second-rate treatment again), but she's able to keep thinking and figure out a way to escape. Which is how she saves Carol's life when the serum Carol took to breathe underwater ran out near the end of the fight. When she's pulled from some earlier time and thrown into a war between Sphinxes against a much different Richard Rider than the one she knows, she rolls with it easily enough. There's an immediate problem to deal with, she can figure out the rest when there's time. She's reluctant to join Dr. Strange's Secret Defenders when he contacts her. She's already on a team, she's actually just finished stopping a yacht transporting drugs into the country. She ends up guilted into it with some bull about how "Namor always answered the call."

(Far be it from me to try arguing continuity with a Roy Thomas-written comic, but that is a total load. There is no way grumpy-ass Namor agreed to help every single time Strange makes his ghost body, singing telegram requests.)

Still, she gets between the Punisher and the extremely powerful monster loosed from some TV writer's subconscious. The punch puts her in the hospital for a day, but even Frank acknowledges it would have turned him into a bloody smear. That willingness to be all-in, even when you really don't even want to be there, is a quality I always like. You see it occasionally with the New Warriors as well, where the team may not all agree on what should be the priority, but even if she's disagreeing with them, she still has their back.

At least in the Nicieza/Bagley run, Namorita was the team member who most had her shit together, which I appreciated. I liked most everyone on the team for one reason or another, but they all had their hang-ups. Speedball was a goof with a unhappy home situation. Firestar wasn't sure she really wanted to the hero thing. Marvel Boy definitely did want to be a hero, but his home situation was worse than Speedball's. Night Thrasher was skilled and determined, but his people skills were a work in progress. Nova was the most experienced hero of them, but kind of a temperamental meathead. He might have been a little too jazzed about having his powers back, too eager to throw his weight around. Nita was on a super-team, going to college, helping her cousin run his company, getting involved in environmental causes, and she seemed in control of her life. I'm not against characters who have stuff going wrong in their lives that messes them up (see: Spider-Man, or Deadpool), but sometimes it's nice to see a character that appears to have their act together, their keeping themselves balanced.

The second issue of the series has couple of interesting points. The team's doing training exercises and while almost everyone else is pushing themselves, Nita is casually holding a weight machine over her head with one arm. Not straining at all, and she knows she's not pushing herself, but she knows what her limits are. Eventually things go haywire (Speedball and Nova are involved). The machine's about to fall on her, and Marvel Boy's attempt to hold it up fails. The smoke clears, and Nita's sitting there, completely unharmed, swapping semi-flirty banter with Nova while asking Vance if he's OK. At no point is she worried about the thing falling on her, because she knows what she can take. Later on, the team ends up fighting a street gang packing AIM weaponry. The team, Nita included, isn't sweating it, but she is the one who tries to get Nova to recognize they need to work together. Instead he tries flying in alone and gets blasted like a dope.

Confidence is a trait Atlanteans have plenty of. But Nita isn't so set on making a big show of telling everyone how great she is, unlike some Atlanteans *cough* Namor *cough*, which makes it cooler. It's not bragging, because it plays that she doesn't feel the need to brag. An easy confidence in herself and her ability to handle things.

(I'm bagging on Namor a lot when really, his ego is a lot of the fun of his character. But you have to admit that guy would be a pain in the ass to deal with regularly.)

It's the same way she doesn't have a secret identity. People know that Namorita Prentiss is Namor's cousin. The guy from Gentech in the first issue knows it as soon as she introduces herself. The Mad Thinker comments on the fact she doesn't keep her life compartmentalized (and notes it as a potential vulnerability, and he ends up being right), she's not hiding. But she also isn't making a big show of it, expecting special treatment because she's Atlantean royalty, barging in, ordering people around. It's part of who she is, but not all of her. Others can recognize it or not, respect it or not, she's not going to put herself out trying to impress them. She won't treat people like dirt just because she can, but she isn't going to let anyone else do that to her, either.

Even if she's comfortable fighting alone - when Terrax emerged in the first issue of New Warriors, she was the only one there to fight him initially and she went right to it - she recognizes she's on a team, and that's something to utilize. There's no reason to do everything yourself when you have people who will help you if you let them.

Of course, who she was exactly started to be called into question not long after that. Byrne decided to make her a modified clone of her mother, for reasons I am unclear on considering he had Namor make a big deal about how it didn't change anything about her as far as he was concerned. Then Nicieza had the rest of Atlantis find out and give her the boot because they're bigots when it comes to clones. Then her body continued to change. She turned blue, got webbed hands. Then her skin went white again at some point before New Warriors vol. 2, but she kept developing other powers, secreting toxins through her skin. Then she'd gone blue again by the time Zeb Wells and Skottie Young did the "reality TV show" version of the New Warriors (which is actually kind of fun, but did, of course, set the stage for them to be used as the "irresponsible heroes" Millar sacrifices at the beginning of Civil War, sooooooo, thanks a lot guys!).

As it turned out, despite how well she seemed to be doing on the outside, Nita has a lot of concerns about where she fits even before her genetics went completely wonky. She likes being on the surface, but she's not entirely a part of it. She's different, in a world that is not known for being kind to people who are different. She's an Atlantean, but not a full Atlantean, and with them all having blue skin and her not, she's distinctly aware of it. We don't know if she heard whispers and murmurs in the royal halls, but it wouldn't surprise me. Then she's told she has no place in it whatsoever, because she's a clone. (That changed at some point, I'm assuming Namor threatened to dismember some people. He does really care for her, which is sweet.) Like I said, she didn't make a big show of being Atlantean, but it mattered to her, and she tried to do right by that aspect of her life. She defended its culture and heritage from people who would exploit for themselves, tried to act in an honorable manner, worked towards ecological causes on the surface that would also benefit those underneath the waves, and they slammed the door in her face.

Despite all the upheaval, she always seems to find a way back to who she is. After Sea Urchin ambushed her, beat her, and humiliated her, she was ready to take his head, but ultimately she pulled back. That wasn't who she wanted to be, so even though it did go against Atlantean tradition, she turned him into the authorities, unharmed. When she turned blue she was ready to give everything up because she didn't think she belonged anywhere. With a little encouragement from Namor, she went back to her friends, who were there for her. And seemed to find her the person she was again fairly soon. I like that ability to roll with some pretty severe changes in her life, and still be herself as much as possible.

I think that's why she was a helpful influence for a lot of members of the team. She had enough confidence to disagree with Night Thrasher, but do so without getting loud and violent about it like Nova (which was rarely productive, since then the discussion turned into keeping those two apart). She could give Speedball a comforting word when he was uncertain because she'd been in the same boat. She knows what losing a mother is like, and how hard you'd try to avert it if you could. She gave Firestar and Turbo someone with a little more life experience to use as a sounding board. Not so much in terms of being older, where there wasn't a huge gap, but even compared to Firestar (who was originally under Emma Frost's control), Nita has been through some stuff. It doesn't make her Team Mom, which is often a thankless task. She's more Team Cool Older Sister, which lets her be a voice of reason or support, but still gives her more leeway to screw up.

She made some judgment calls during her stint as leader, about working with the Project: Earth people they'd already fought once. Those didn't turn out so well. They got involved in a civil war overseas, where they couldn't discern which side was the "bad" one, and may not have accomplished anything more than losing track of what they hoped to accomplish. They ran into Sea Urchin again, the criminal justice system having predictably failed miserably, and she though she almost let her anger get control of her, she held back. She trusted the wrong person, who found the Warriors' secret identities as a result, and their loved ones paid the price (that risk of not compartmentalizing her life). She decided she was doing more harm than good, and stepped down as leader, then stepped away from the team. Again, I can appreciate knowing when you need to get your head straight before you can be any use to anyone else. But once she did, and after she'd started coming to grips with all that other stuff, she came back to the team. She didn't re-assume command, but she did remain someone willing to share her views in a calm, but firm manner. A nice counterpoint to some of the hotter tempers on the team, and a nice bit of stability in a roster undergoing a lot of changes at the time.

She's strong, she's confident without being overbearing about it, she's willing to be passionate about things that are important to her, but can recognize when it's getting out of control and hurting those around her, and she's willing and able to be there for her teammates when they need a hand. Namorita always seemed like someone who would be a good friend to have.

Credits! Robbie's so worried about his mom he's not making inappropriate comments about Nita touching him in New Warriors #7, by Fabian Nicieza (writer), Mark Bagley (penciler), Larry Mahlstedt (inker), Andy Yanchus (colorist), and Rick Parker (letterer). Emma Frost learns not to waste Namorita's time with brainless meatheads in New Warriors #9, by Nicieza (writer), Bagley (penciler), Sam De LaRosa (inker), Yanchus (colorist), and Joe Rosen (letterer). I bet Nita's been waiting years to do this to Namor in Namor the Sub-Mariner #4, by John Byrne (writer/artist), Glynis Oliver (colorist), and Ken Lopez (letterer). Namorita will fight a magic werewolf barbarian king on his terms in Nova (vol. 4) #34, by Dan Abnett and Andy Lanning (writers), Mahmud A. Asrar (penciler), Scott Hanna (inker), Guru eFX (colorists), and Cory Petit (letterer). Nova will screw things up with her eventually, but not today in New Warriors #44, by Nicieza (writer), Darick Robertson (penciler), Larry Mahlstedt (inker), Joe Rosas (colorist), Chris Eliopoulos (letterer). Unfortunately, helping teammates with losing loved one is a fulltime job in New Warriors (vol. 2) #7, by Jay Faerber (writer), Jamal Igle (penciler), Walden Wong (inker), Kevin Somers (colorist), and Richard Starkings and Comicraft (letterers). You'd never know a ton of weights fell on her in New Warriors #2, by Nicieza (writer), Bagley (penciler), Al Williamson (inker), Andy Yanchus (colorist), Michael Heigler (letterer).