Issue(s): Marvel Super Heroes #8 (Sub-Mariner story only)
Cover Date: Jan 92 / Winter 91
Title: "Leftovers"
Credits:
Scott Lobdell - Writer
Chris Wozniak & Ken Lopez - Penciler
Jeffery Albrecht - Inker
Mike Rockwitz - Editor

Review/plot:
Namor has some of his Oracle employees working to raise the city of the Bird People. The goal is to patent the idea for floating cities and use the technology to cut down on urban sprawl.

But when he gets to the platform they are working from, he finds they've all been turned into liquid steel (well, the guy says "solid steel" but he doesn't look solid, and more guys pop up around Namor, which means they can move).

Namor investigates, and next finds a Lava Squid!

This all turns out to be the work of Diablo (who has been infused with Scott Lobdell's brand of humor).

Diablo convinces Namor that he's working for a good cause. He wants to learn how the Bird People protected themselves from the sun's rays at such a high altitude. He makes a (relatively) convincing case that he wants to learn the technique so that he can repair the ozone layer. After all, he is immortal, so any long term damage to the environment affects him more than most.

But a new Red Raven, daughter of the last one, shows up to convince Namor that Diablo is lying.

She points out that Diablo's alchemy is temporary, so any repairs to the ozone layer would have to be replenished regularly.

This is remarkably similar to Scott Lobdell's plot for Diablo in Alpha Flight #102-103, where Diablo was going to create vibranium and sell it to countries and basically force them to continually pay him to replenish it once they realized that it was temporary. The only difference is that this time it's not an extortion scheme so much as Diablo wants to be able to control the ozone hole. Which i imagine he would use for extortion purposes, so it really does amount to the same thing. Lobdell really liked the idea that Diablo's spells were temporary, in any event.

To fight Namor and Red Raven, Diablo animates the dead Bird People...

...including Red Raven's father.

Namor re-kills him, and stabs through Diablo's heart as well.

Diablo turns into smoke and floats away. Red Raven tells Namor that he should "use the vast resources at your disposal to create your own technology -- rather than picking the bones of a dead civilization".

It really amazes me how writers just won't let certain concepts die. Did we really ever need to see the "Bird People" again? Or another Red Raven, who will become just as popular as the last one (i.e. she has three more appearances). Still, i think this story might have been somewhat better if Lobdell had managed to restrain his tendencies to add bad jokes and if the artists weren't so intent reproducing the worst aspects of 1990s art.

As a palette cleanser, here is one of several Jim Starlin pin-ups that were included in this issue.

Quality Rating: C-

Historical Significance Rating: 2 - first Red Raven III

Chronological Placement Considerations: Namor is running Oracle in this story, and he doesn't have wings on his ankles (he does appear to be flying in one panel, but i think he's just propelled himself out of the water). The MCP place this between Namor #12-13, and i'm following that. There is an opening scene in which the new Red Raven is reviewing computer files of a number of Earth's super-heroes, and one of them shows Spider-Man fighting a Green Goblin, but that doesn't necessarily have to be a reference to an actual recent event.

Other stories from this issue: X-Men, Iron Man.

References:

• Namor met the previous Red Raven in Sub-Mariner #26.

Crossover: N/A

Continuity Insert? N

My Reprint: N/A

What the heck is with Diablo's face and that inverted triangle mouth? (is it just me or is Diablo being used a lot lately at this point)

To be fair, fnord, Diablo's potions being temporary have been his major limitation since his first appearance.