Fantastic Four #4

Marvel's oldest hero comes back

Namor the Sub-Mariner is older than Marvel's name. Writer-artist Bill Everett created him for a planned theater giveaway comic, Motion Picture Funnies Weekly, in April 1939. When that fell through, Everett used the character in Marvel Comics #1 (October 1939), the first comic book of Timely Comics, the company that became Marvel. Everett said the inspiration was Coleridge's The Rime of the Ancient Mariner, and that he found the name by writing noble-sounding names backward: Roman became Namor.

Namor began as an enemy of the United States, a freak "in the service of chaos," in the historian Les Daniels's words, whose readers reveled in his attacks on civilization. During World War II he fought the Axis, and he starred in his own Sub-Mariner comic from 1941 to 1949. Like most superheroes he faded after the war. A mid-1950s revival ran Sub-Mariner #33 to #42, April 1954 to October 1955, and was canceled a second time.

Fantastic Four #4 brought him back. It went on sale on February 8, 1962, according to the publication date in U.S. Copyright Office filings, with a May 1962 cover date, priced at 12 cents with 36 pages. It was the first issue to carry the cover slogan "The World's Greatest Comic Magazine!," which stayed on the covers into the 1990s.

A drifter in the Bowery

The story, "The Coming of the Sub-Mariner!," runs in five chapters. It opens with the team searching for the Human Torch, who has run away. Fleeing the Thing, Johnny Storm finds an amnesiac vagrant in a Bowery flophouse in Manhattan. When the Torch drops him into the sea, the man recovers his memory: he is the Sub-Mariner.

Namor returns to his undersea kingdom to find it destroyed by nuclear testing, turns on the surface world, and sends the giant sea monster Giganto to smash New York. The Thing walks into the creature carrying a bomb and blows it up, and the Torch sweeps Namor and Giganto away into the sea. The last line belongs to Namor: "I'll be back!"

The revival recast Namor as a noble antihero. Through the 1960s his stories were driven by a thirst for revenge and a search for identity, and he became more authoritative and solemn than the impetuous youth of the 1940s, speaking in neo-Shakespearean dialogue. One published guide also credits the issue with the first time Johnny Storm shouts "Flame on!"

Who made it

The credits are Stan Lee for script and Jack Kirby for pencils, both signed in the story, with Sol Brodsky inking the cover and interior, Stan Goldberg coloring and Artie Simek lettering. The issue also has a full-page Kirby pin-up of Mister Fantastic and a letters page, the Fantastic 4 Fan Page.

The pairing had roots. Everett reportedly created Namor in 1939 to play on the notion of "fire and water" after learning that Carl Burgos had created the original Human Torch, and the two fought in 1940 when Namor threatened to sink Manhattan. In 1962 the new Human Torch was the one to find him.

The issue's place in the series is set by what followed. Issue #5 introduced Doctor Doom, and issue #6 paired Doom with Namor. Namor kept returning in Fantastic Four #9 and #14, and in the first Fantastic Four Annual in 1963 he found his people and led an invasion of New York. His feud with the team became a long-running romantic triangle with Sue Storm and Reed Richards.

The copies and the prices

The entry here is a copy graded CGC 9.6. On November 24, 2019, a 9.6 with white pages sold at auction for $81,000, still the highest price for the issue in that auction's archive. One price guide describes that 9.6 as the highest-graded copy and says no copies are known in mint condition.

Lower grades are far more common and far cheaper. A 9.4 sold at auction for $28,000 on March 19, 2024. A 9.2 from the Dixie Cream Collection, assembled in the early 1960s by a young collector with money he earned selling donuts, brought $21,590 on April 14, 2026.

As of August 2026 the grading census counted 23 copies at 9.0 and 33 graded higher. No copy graded 9.8 could be verified.

Namor after 1962

The revival was a hit with readers, but distribution restrictions kept Marvel from giving Namor his own title until 1968. Instead he made guest appearances, including Daredevil #7 (April 1965), drawn by Wally Wood, and took a starring feature in Tales to Astonish beginning with #70 in August 1965. In X-Men #6 (July 1964), Professor X and Magneto each suspect he is a mutant and try to recruit him.

His own Sub-Mariner title returned in 1968. In 1969 The Avengers #71 established that he had been part of the Invaders, a team of wartime heroes with Captain America, Bucky and the original Human Torch. One later critic called him the medium's first antihero.

On screen, Tenoch Huerta Mejia played Namor in Black Panther: Wakanda Forever (2022), recast as the king of Talokan, an underwater civilization connected to the Maya.

The numbers

Print run

No figure verified; not stated by the sources used

CGC census, August 2026

23 copies at 9.0, 33 graded higher

Highest grade

9.6, per one published guide; no 9.8 verified

Pages

36; the story runs 23 pages in five chapters

Cover price

12 cents

Job number

V-643

Timeline

1. Apr 1939

   Namor first appears in the prototype giveaway Motion Picture Funnies Weekly.

2. Oct 1939

   Namor appears in Marvel Comics #1, Timely's first comic book.

3. 1941

   Namor's own Sub-Mariner comic begins; it runs to 1949.

4. Apr 1954

   A revived Sub-Mariner series begins with #33; it is canceled in October 1955.

5. Feb 8, 1962

   Fantastic Four #4 goes on sale, cover-dated May 1962, bringing Namor back.

6. Apr 10, 1962

   Fantastic Four #5 goes on sale, introducing Doctor Doom.

7. Sep 1962

   Namor returns in Fantastic Four #6, allied with Doctor Doom.

8. 1963

   Namor finds his people and leads an invasion of New York in Fantastic Four Annual #1.

9. Aug 1965

   Namor takes a starring feature in Tales to Astonish #70.

10. 1968

    Namor gets his own title again, Sub-Mariner.

11. Nov 24, 2019

    A CGC 9.6 with white pages sells at auction for $81,000, the issue's record.

12. 2022

    Tenoch Huerta Mejia plays Namor in Black Panther: Wakanda Forever.

13. Mar 19, 2024

    A CGC 9.4 sells at auction for $28,000.

14. Apr 14, 2026

    A CGC 9.2 from the Dixie Cream Collection sells at auction for $21,590.

15. Aug 2026

    Grading census shows 23 copies at 9.0 and 33 graded higher.

The world in 1962

• Jan 26, 1962

  Ranger 3 launches to study the moon; it misses by 22,000 miles.

• Feb 3, 1962

  The United States embargo against Cuba is announced.

• Feb 10, 1962

  Captured U.S. pilot Francis Gary Powers is exchanged for Soviet spy Rudolf Abel in Berlin.

• Feb 14, 1962

  Jacqueline Kennedy takes television viewers on a tour of the White House.

• Feb 20, 1962

  John Glenn becomes the first American to orbit the earth.

• Mar 2, 1962

  Wilt Chamberlain scores 100 points in a single NBA game.

Price record

A realized auction price is what a buyer actually paid on the date shown, including the buyer's premium where the sale reported it. It is the strongest kind of reference price, and it is a record of one sale of one object on one day, not a promise of what the next example will bring.

By reference price, Fantastic Four #4 is number 38 of 100 in the comics entries of the FLOAT 100. 92 of those 100 rest on a realized sale; the rest carry an asking price or a guide value, and each page says which. Rank within the FLOAT 100 itself (34 here) is editorial: how much an object defines its field, not price alone.

Did you know

• Bill Everett named Namor by spelling "Roman" backward.
• When the Fantastic Four find him, Namor is an amnesiac drifter living in a Bowery flophouse.
• Everett reportedly created Namor in 1939 as water to the original Human Torch's fire; in 1962 it was the new Human Torch who found him.
• This was the first issue to call itself "The World's Greatest Comic Magazine!"
• The Sub-Mariner's parting line in the issue is "I'll be back!"
• Namor did not get his own title again until 1968 because of distribution restrictions on Marvel.