Issue(s): Iron Man annual #10
Cover Date: 1989
Title: "Two if by sea / Can you top this? / There are no wire hangers underwater!"
Credits:
David Michelinie / David Wohl / Fabian Nicieza - Writer
Paul Smith / John Byrne, Gene Colan, Jackson Guice, Bob Layton, Keith Pollard, & Various / Don Perlin - Penciler
Michael Gustovich / Various / Don Perlin - Inker

Review/plot:
This is the second part of Atlantis Attacks. We see Ghaur and Llyra travel to Atlantis to recruit the third major player for the bad guys, Attuma.

Meanwhile, the paths of Iron Man and the Sub-Mariner intersect. Iron Man is tracing a Maggia ship that is in turn tracing a Hydra ship. Sub-Mariner is searching the seas for Marrina's children. In doing so, he apparently stops every passing boat and asks about them. When he stops the Hydra ship, they get nervous and fire on him.

At that point the Maggia ship withdraws. Iron Man gives up on following the Maggia ship to help Namor (who doesn't really need it). And almost immediately, the Hydra abandon ship, leaving one guy behind to blow up himself and the boat.

Iron Man suggests regrouping at Tony Stark's place, and Namor agrees. After Iron Man gives Stark a private debriefing, Stark meets with Namor, revealing his paralysis. He then says that the boat that Hydra was using came from Panama, so he suggests that Iron Man and Namor go down there to investigate.

Meanwhile, coincidentally, Attuma has sent his troops to Panama. So when Iron Man and Namor get to Panama, Namor notices evidence of massive troop movements under the sea, and he goes to investigate that while Iron Man tracks down Hydra. He learns that Hydra plans on shipping highly addictive drugs through the canal to New York. Iron Man blasts the Hydra leader, i assume not killing him although that's what it looks like.

Iron Man notes that he can't call the authorities because Hydra seems to be working in cooperation with the government. I'm not sure if he meant the government of Panama (or some other country) or the United States, but this was around the time of news reports that the CIA was allowing crack to be sold in the US to help fund the Contras in Nicaragua.

When Iron Man goes to stop Hydra's boat, he bumps into Namor, who tells him about the Atlantean attack. So Iron Man asks Namor to stop the Hydra boat while Iron Man holds off the Atlanteans until the US armed forces arrive.

Iron Man gets blasted by an Atlantean Omega Rocket...

...but luckily the US airforce shows up to engage the Atlanteans.

Unluckily, Namor is caught in a second suicide bombing.

Obviously you don't buy for a minute that the Sub-Mariner could be killed by a simple boat explosion. But it is a major plot point of Atlantis Attacks that Namor is seemingly dead. What's weird is how the death is entirely incidental; it's not due to the Atlantean Attack or the actions of Ghaur or Llyra. It's just a happy coincidence for them that he's taken out by Hydra.

David Michelinie does a good job balancing his own Maggia/Hydra story with the demands of Atlantis Attacks, although it does rely on a lot of coincidences.

The second story in this annual is really just an excuse for some pin-ups. It has an odd assortment of villains, including the Space Phantom (!) sitting at a bar while the news reports on Iron Man's recent battle in Panama, and the villains all share their own experiences with Iron Man. At least one of the situations refers to a story incident that hasn't been published yet (see References).

The image above is from the story not published yet. I'm also not sure about the one below.

The final story, with the "i can't believe they got it past the CCA" title of "There are no wire hangers underwater!" has Andromeda from the Defenders confronting Attuma and revealing that she is his unwanted daughter.

After confronting him, she flees to join a contingent of Atlanteans that are unhappy with Attuma's leadership. She will be a factor in Atlantis Attacks, so it's nice to have this little prelude for her, and i'm always happy to see any of the New Defenders.

Quality Rating: B

Historical Significance Rating: 1

Chronological Placement Considerations: This is part two of Atlantis Attacks; part three takes place in Uncanny X-Men annual #13. This takes place between Iron Man #245 and #246.

References:

• Ghaur got a message from Set while he was in space, as shown in Silver Surfer annual #2.
  
• Iron Man found out that the Maggia has been increasing its activities recently in Iron Man #245.
  
• Namor has been searching for Marrina's children since Avengers #294 (no footnote).
  
• Tony Stark was shot and paralyzed in Iron Man #243 (no footnote).
  
• Regarding the second story with the villains in the bar:
  • A now full-faced Half-Face, from Tales of Suspense #92-94.
    
  • The Space Phantom, from Avengers #2.
    
  • Inoshiro Kondo prevented from torturing Ed Deal, from an inventory story eventually published in Marvel Super Heroes #15.
    
  • Irina Tarasova's attack on Iron Man with a super-submarine in Iron Man #218.
    
  • Iron Man's fight with Whiplash, Blizzard, and Beetle from Iron Man #223-224.
    
  • Iron Man's killing of the Gremlin/Titanium Man in Iron Man #229, as observed by the Crimson Dynamo.
    
  • There's also the final story with Iron Man convincing a lady not to jump off a building, but i'm not sure where it's from (and of course there are no footnotes for any of these).
• It's said that Andromeda has lately grown weary of war, with a reference to Doctor Strange #3-4.
  
• The Saga of the Serpent Crown continues the expansion of the origin of the Elder Gods from Thor annual #10, and seems to suggest that the dinosaurs died out because Set possessed them and then Demogorge the God-Eater destroyed them all.

Crossover: Atlantis Attacks

Continuity Insert? N

My Reprint: N/A

Man, Paul Smith really fell far by this time. That's not professional-level work, IMO. They must have really been trying to help a brother out by giving him jobs at this point when he had so clearly lost 'it.'

"There are no wire hangers underwater!" ? That's genuinely the name of that story? That may be the most offensive thing I've ever seen in a Marvel comic.

Note that Ghaur didn't need gear to survive underwater in the Silver Surfer Annual but at the start of this Annual, he does. In fact, it's not clear until the Fantastic Four Annual that Ghaur has lost his Celestial powers completely. I remember as a kid wondering how the heroes will stop Ghaur with his Celestial powers and being disappointed to find out that they'd vanished in the FF Annual.
Note that Tomy tells Namor "my boss Tony Stark is a pretty smart cookie" - another reason why the "Namor and the rest of the Illuminati knew Tony's ID all along" retcon makes no sense.
Oddly in this story the government seems to be in bed with Hydra but in Iron Man 246-247 the government seems to be in bed with the Maggia and encouraging them to act against Hydra.
It's odd that the backup stories in this Annual give a different account of how the dinosaurs died out than AWC 47-49, since the stories were published around the same time, although it's easy to reconcile them.

Andromeda is bonded with Genevieve Cross as seen in Dr. Strange # so Genevieve should probably get a "behind the scenes" appearance credit here.

Er... Dr Strange #3-4 (1989) I meant to say...!

Thanks Jay. Just to close the loop, as i said on another entry, i'll only tag the host bodies of the resurrected New Defenders when they actively manifest in some way.

I was going to comment that the "No wire hangers" title was probably more of a reference to an infamous scene in the movie Mommy Dearest which is about an abusive celebrity mother. But reading the summary and some of these panels makes me think they were trying for both connotations.

"and seems to suggest that the dinosaurs died out because Set possessed them and then Demogorge the God-Eater destroyed them all."

What about the paragraph in Avengers West Coast 47-49 -

"As we know from their previous appearances, Mr. Random and the Absolon group aren't really interested in the Vision at all. That was just a ruse to get the Scarlet Witch here. Why? Well, take a deep breath and get ready to take some notes. It turns out that they are controlled by micro-organisms that have been with life on Earth since the first cell split. They pick a particular species or group of species and help it evolve, and when they decide that species has reached a dead end, they abandon it and jump to something new. They claim that it's because they left the dinosaurs that they died out. And now they recognize that mutants are the future, so they want to figure out how to take over mutants."

How can these two different origins be reconciled?

The Official Handbook suggests that what happened was this- Gaea decided to make the dinosaurs die out because Set possessed them, That Which Endures sensed Gaea's decision and jumped to mammals, and then Demogorge destroyed the dinosaurs.

I don't know if That Which Endures was ever "proven" and could have just been some nutty idea implanted in people's heads by the assimilator.

If memory serves me correctly, the original story left the question open.

But that doesn't explain how Mr. Random got possessed- he was possessed before the assimilator was built.

In light of this story, it seems relevant to remind people that in December of 1989 the US actually invaded Panama to arrest its president and try him for drug trafficking.

It's hard to remember that unless you were alive at the time. And even for those of who were alive at the time, it's hard to remember.

(No offense intended towards any Panamanians for whom this might have been a milestone event. I simply comment as an American for whom this was passing history.)

Although this story came out several months BEFORE the invasion of Panama.
Come to think of it, the scripting is schizophrenic- the Hydra guy is talking to a "General Manuel"- that was probably supposed to be General Manuel Noriega, the leader of Panama. But later on, Tony says that calling in the authorities won't help because the government is probably involved. If he means the Panamian government, then why not call in the US government? Especially since Tony DOES call in the US Air Force later to deal with the Atlanteans.

Supposedly Atlantis Attacks was meant in part as a celebration of the Sub-Mariner's 60th anniversary, so naturally the story very quickly marginalizes Namor and he barely appears in it at all.

You don't have this tagged as part of Atlantis Attacks.

Thanks Morgan.