Issue(s): Marvel Comics Presents #57, Marvel Comics Presents #58, Marvel Comics Presents #59 (Sub-Mariner story only)
Cover Date: Aug-Sep 90
Title: Neptune's Eye: "Strange visitors" / "The old man in the sea" / "Sending them home"
Credits:
Bob DeNatale - Writer
Michael Collins - Penciler
Mark Farmer - Inker
Kelly Corvese - Assistant Editor
Terry Kavanagh - Editor

Review/plot:
The Sub-Mariner, despondent in his quest for Marrina's children, has been drawn to a whirlpool in the Atlantic ocean called Neptune's Eye. There he finds some people filming a movie.

They are attacked by fish men.

Namor helps out, and drives them off.

The film crew turns out to just be part of the story. Most of the humans are there as part of an expedition to study the Eye.

Despite Namor's warnings (and the death of the cameraman) the humans refuse to give up their expedition. And the movie lady, Sandra, shames Namor into helping with exploration by calling him a coward.

So he and she enter the whirlpool and he fights more fish men while she films it.

They eventually find an air pocket that turns out to be part of an underwater cavern. They bicker a bit, and then Sandra tries to put the moves on Namor. He rejects her and goes off without her. And then he's met by an old man.

The old man is practically immortal, but now he's dying. The fish men blame the humans, and that's why they're attacking the expedition, but the old man suggests it's more complicated than that.

The old man gives Namor an amulet and tells him an incantation, and asks him to use it to stop the fish men from slaughtering the humans.

Namor and Sandra head back to the expedition, which is already under attack again. By the time they get back, the humans have all retreated into their submarine. Namor uses the amulet and the incantation (as Hans notes in the comments, the incantation has a secret message: it's "women's choice abortion rights" written backwards and a little scrambled).

The fish men leave, and Namor carries the submarine back to the surface. As he's doing that, he thinks to himself that it's time for him to let go of Marrina.

The story really has little to do with the conclusion that Namor reaches, but it's still useful as a continuity insert in the sense that John Byrne's Namor run didn't really address the fact that Namor never resolved the problem of Marrina's children. Of course, this doesn't actually address that either, but if you see Namor's grief over Marrina's death as a proxy for his search for her spawn (or vice versa) it kind of works. To be clear, i'm not counting this as a continuity insert since it was only published a few months after Namor #1; i just think it almost works as a story that fills in a missing bit in Namor's character arc. It's not a very good story, by any means, but it kind of serves a purpose.

Quality Rating: C-

Historical Significance Rating: 1

Chronological Placement Considerations: The MCP place the Namor story (with a number of other Marvel Comics Presents appearances) before Namor #1.

References: N/A

Crossover: N/A

Continuity Insert? N

My Reprint: N/A