Issue(s): Sub-Mariner #32
Cover Date: Dec 70
Title: "Call her Llyra -- call her legend!"
Credits:
Roy Thomas - Writer
Sal Buscema - Penciler
Jim Mooney - Inker

Review/plot:
Namor decides he needs to make an alliance with the kingdom of Lemuria, instead of trying to make alliances with Attuma and the Red Raven. He heads to Lemuria expecting to find Karthon the Quester in charge, which is how he left things. But Karthon is now imprisoned and a lady named Llyra is in charge.

She's a half-human hybrid like Namor. In fact, her origin is a direct parallel, except that her mother, Miss Morris, was human and her father, Llyron, was a Lemurian.

Llyra has the power to control aquatic life.

Namor is defeated by Llyra's eels, and is captured.

Part of the reason behind Llyra's ability to control sea animals, and showing Namor getting zapped by an electric eel, is to establish that Namor no longer (or, retroactively, never) had the ability to control sea life or use their powers, as shown in earlier issues. A response in the lettercol for issue #37 will affirm that:

Namor did formerly possess certain fishlike powers for a brief time in the early 1960's (though that's just about the only time he did, since we prefer to leave such hijinks to his Derivative Competitor). However, they proved to be very short-lived and now he would indeed be shocked by a super-charged electric eel... We know that there's a slight inconsistency there - but we just couldn't bear seeing our peerless prince turn into another of the hordes of heroes who use animals to do their bidding - not when, in concept in 1939, the Sub-Mariner was one of the most original, most dynamic superheroes of all!

Moving on, it turns out that Llyra has multi-personality disorder and in her second personality she actually reverts to a human form.

When Llyra originally tells her origin, she says that she had a twin sister, but her "twin" is really her other self, Laura.

Her human mother, Rhonda Morris, winds up freeing Namor and revealing the personality split. Llyra is seemingly killed in the rematch fight.

Quality Rating: C-

Historical Significance Rating: 3

Chronological Placement Considerations: N/A

References:

• Namor met Red Raven in Sub-Mariner #26.
  
• Namor met Karthon in Sub-Mariner #13.

Crossover: N/A

Continuity Insert? N

My Reprint: N/A

Doubtful this was intended at the time, but over the decades Llyra's probably turned into Namor's arch-nemesis.