Biography - Page 18
Namor’s period of cooperation with the Avengers and the surface world at large would soon end, however. Atlantis began to suffer a series of crises due to outside forces. The S.H.I.E.L.D. Helicarriers that crashed into the seas after the Hydra takeover were leaking radiation and other pollutants into the waters, ruining habitats and leaving children mutated and disfigured. The impact of several Celestials during the arrival of the Final Host was also disastrous. Finally, a group of Atlantean soldiers attacked a RoXXon whaling vessel, only to be killed and ignominiously strung up on the bow like a catch of fish. Namor intervened directly after this insult, recovering the bodies of his people and capturing the RoXXon employees to force them to face Atlantean justice.
Captain America and the Avengers made contact with Namor and provoked a skirmish with Atlantis, insisting the RoXXon crew be tried under international law for their actions. Namor was already starting down a darker path and barely agreed to turn the men over on the strength of his fraying friendship with Steve Rogers. When a group of Atlantean children fled the polluted waters and suffocated on a beach while surface dwellers laughed on, that was the final straw. The Sub-
Mariner found the means of drowning the RoXXon crew in their cells and officially declared himself Emperor of the Deep, at war with the surface world. The seriousness of his intentions became clear when he found Stingray and Tiger Shark fighting off the side of a cruise ship. Namor asserted his authority over the waters of the world and beat Walter Newell within an inch of his life for not taking his proclamations seriously. Tiger Shark was cowed into joining the new Defenders of the Deep, alongside Namor’s other former foes Orka, Bloodtide and Manowar, his general Andromeda and new recruits like Echidna, King Crab and the Piranhas. The Sub-Mariner began to clear his seas by forcibly removing the latest Hydrobase from the ocean, an act which drew his Defenders into direct conflict with the Avengers and the Russian Winter Guard. [Avengers (7th series) #8-10]
Prince Namor decided that Atlantis needed more allies against the surface world, and so he intended to seek out the lost colony of Vodan. Expatriates who left Atlantis generations ago for deeper waters, the Vodani had degenerated into boogeymen of Atlantean folklore, making Namor’s decision unpopular among his counselors. Nevertheless, he ventured deep into the Mindanao trench, far below where the light of the sun could ever reach. Namor eventually passed through a deep cave portal and plunged into total darkness. He was discovered after a week of traveling by King Okun and Princess Kataw of the Vodani, who were incredulous that the Atlanteans had anything to offer their people. Namor was insistent that the surface dwellers were a threat to them both, but his imperious manner of “allowing” the Vodani to return to Atlantis rankled his hosts.
Okun gave Namor a task to prove himself a worthy ally by killing the beast known as the Skrilkrak, expecting him to die in the attempt. Namor succeeded, but Okun rejected his attempts at alliance and tried to kill Namor anyway. Namor realized the Vodani were too well adapted to deep sea life, and so he changed tactics and propelled Okun towards the surface, where he would have the advantage. However, Namor had failed to realize the portal he passed through had actually transported him to another world, and the Vodani occupied a planet made entirely out of water, with nothing but the vacuum of space beyond the surface. Okun died in space but, in a strange bit of synergy, Namor was saved thanks to the original Defenders, who reunited to deal with the threat of their old foe Nebulon and a cosmic Conductor who used planets as fuel for his Train. When the Vodani’s world was threatened by this entity, Namor tried to negotiate with now-Queen Kataw to save her world in exchange for the Vodani’s alliance. Kataw refused to bow to anyone, however, and sacrificed herself to save her world rather than allow her people to fall into Namor’s debt. The Sub-Mariner departed back through the cave portal to Earth’s sea, empty-handed. [Namor/Defenders: The Best Defense]
Namor’s aggressive new policies were not only a circumstance of the times, they also reflected the unraveling of his own mind. The subconscious Tommy Machan engineered by Xavier years earlier had become toxic, a miscalculation by Xavier at giving Namor a means of “self-help.” Tommy’s death represented failure to Namor, and so each further failure he faced personally or in his rule inadvertently fed the manifestation, making it stronger. In time, Machan appeared to Namor not in his own mind, but in the real world, manifesting as an Atlantean advisor that only Namor could see or hear. Machan was a part of Namor’s mind that represented “strength,” willing to conceive and implement policies for the good of Atlantis that Namor might have otherwise tempered with mercy. The unstable Namor vacillated between seeing Machan as the representation of his lost friend or as “merely” an intense inner dialogue, and he was easily persuaded by Machan’s ideas, for after all weren’t they really Namor’s in the end?
Machan informed Namor that, years ago, he had temporarily taken over Namor during his time running Oracle, Inc. Machan exhumed the body of Genus, the mutant whom Xavier and Namor once met, and tasked a team of scientists with reserve-engineering the mutant’s power from his genetic material. In time, this created the Genus Formula that allowed Atlantean patriots to become surface-dwellers and infiltrate world businesses, militaries and political offices as long-term sleeper agents. Another example of Atlantean genetic engineering made Namor personally more powerful. The surface super-villain Hydro-Man was kidnapped by Atlantis and his power stolen to be used for Namor’s ends. In addition, Machan had also recruited Nay’s son, Roman 
Peterson, to act in his plan. Namor had been a father-figure to Roman in his childhood, and his tales of the beauty of Atlantis and the dangers of pollution by the air-breathers had molded Roman as the perfect collaborator against the surface world. In gathering allies to help further these plots, Namor had more luck with the Sea Blades than he did with the Vodani. A group of former soldiers under his grandfather who had turned to piracy, Namor cowed the Blades into submission by demonstrating his new power over water.
The Avengers and the United Nations were ready to write off Namor, but his old comrades from the Invaders kept trying to give him the benefit of the doubt. Captain America, Bucky Barnes and the Human Torch collaborated in trying to reach out to Namor and his allies to prevent Atlantis from going to war. Cap tried speaking to Namor directly in Atlantis but was rebuffed. When Jim and Cap pressed the Petersons for information, Machan began counseling Namor to eliminate the family before they revealed too much about their plans. Namor arrived at the Peterson house to force Captain America and the Human Torch from the home. The stress of the conflict overcame 
Randall Peterson’s ailing health, though, and Namor’s old war veteran friend died in his arms, fearing who Namor would listen to now. Truthfully, Commander Roman Peterson of the U.S. Navy was already situated at NSEC Bristol to implement Namor’s plans without question. [Invaders (3rd series) #1-4]
The Invaders and the Avengers jumped into action after hearing from Nay Peterson what little she knew about their plans, but it was too late. Atlantis was protected with a force field which even Iron Man and Black Panther couldn’t penetrate for the Avengers. Namor intercepted the Human Torch on his way to Bristol and, at Machan’s urgings and for the good of Atlantis, he used his trident to decapitate his oldest friend while Jim Hammond was pleading with him to stop. On Namor’s 
orders, Roman and the Atlantean sleeper agents took over the Navy base at Bristol and launched American missiles as a first strike against Atlantis. In retaliation for this “provocation,” Namor had Atlantis fire their own missiles back at America. And, while the Avengers were there to prevent Atlantis from being hit by the Navy’s missiles, the Atlantean missiles were NOT launched from Atlantis itself, and so flew undeterred. [Invaders (3rd series) #5]
The true, insidious nature of Namor and Machan’s plan became apparent as the missiles landed, releasing a chemical weapon on the coastal city of Blue Harbor near the Naval base. The Genus Formula had been coded to transform Homo sapiens into water-breathing Homo mermanus. As a 
result, hundreds of Americans were now unable to breathe on land. With his new power, Namor brought a tidal wave into the town, both saving the new water-breathers and delivering the Atlantean Army to their doorsteps. As the Naval base fell underwater, Namor traveled to NSEC Bristol and embraced the now-Atlantean Roman for his part in the mission. When they arrived at the coast side Peterson residence, though, Nay remained with Captain America and rejected her son and Namor for what they had done. [Invaders (3rd series) #6]
Atlantis was fully prepared to launch a propaganda victory after the chemical weapons hit. A pre-recorded message from Roman Peterson falsely portrayed him as an American war-hawk, where he claimed credit for committing mutiny and launching the first strike of his own volition to prevent future Atlantean attacks. With a rogue American military officer admitting to attacking first, Namor easily bent public opinion by showing their counterstrike had been non-lethal, and Atlanteans even 
helped the newly water-breathing population of Blue Harbor with humanitarian aid and accepted emigration requests to Atlantis. The undersea kingdom and their political allies like Latveria were also prepared to present themselves as victims before the United Nations, preventing real war from breaking out without America and the other nations looking like the aggressors after the incident.
Everything seemed to be going well for Namor, until he learned the Genus Formula had been deployed a second time, targeting the Russian city of Vyvenka. When Roman mentioned it, Namor was surprised to hear the drone strike had been made on his orders three days ago. The Emperor of the Deep realized Machan was co-opting his body again, as he did back during the days of Oracle. Namor quarreled with his inner voice, accused Machan of violating his vow to never to leave him in the dark about “their” plans again. To drive the point home, a soldier 
interrupted Namor’s brooding with another successful expedition he didn’t recall authorizing. Machan explained he had sent out troops to retrieve the Serpent Crown, the mystical artifact once used by Destine to cause Namor’s amnesia in the first place. Machan suggested that claiming the cursed crown for himself would be a powerful weapon and a symbolic gesture towards recovering from his past trauma. Namor hesitated but continued listening to his inner advisor and donned the Crown of Set. [Invaders (3rd series) #7]
Even after giving in to Machan’s influence, Namor still had long-term doubts about his course of action. Knowing Rogers and Hammond couldn’t see the same shades of grey he did, the Sub-Mariner reached out to Bucky Barnes for counsel. He told Barnes the extent of Machan’s influence on him over the years, reaching back to Oracle, Inc. And while he had concerns over the way Machan kept him in the dark, he recognized that Machan was still a product of his own mind. Namor, ultimately, believed in the plan and that his cause was just. Bucky tried talking Namor out of his current actions while Machan was invisibly whispering in his ear to continue. Namor began 
lashing out at Machan for trying to control him, forcing Bucky to play his trump card and reveal he had called the Invisible Woman to their meeting. Sue tried to restrain Namor with her force fields, but this “betrayal” helped focus Namor’s mind against Sue and Bucky. With Namor and Machan thinking as one again, Namor used the power of the Serpent Crown against his former allies and left them behind to continue his work. [Invaders (3rd series) #8]
Namor and Machan continued to butt heads over how to progress with their plans, however. Machan wanted to proceed to their endgame, while Namor wanted to take time to specifically single out RoXXon for punishment first. At a RoXXon deep sea drilling operation, Namor intended for his fleet to send a message by destroying the machinery and hurting RoXXon’s bottom line. So, he was surprised when his soldiers opened fire and killed RoXXon’s security and unarmed civilians alike. When Namor demanded to know on whose order this was happening, Machan coolly replied that it was his own. The Invaders arrived as Namor began to break down, battling his old comrades and his own mind at the same time. After fleeing from the battle, Namor was arguing with Machan again when Roman arrived, as Namor had apparently ordered him to do so. 
In a flash, Namor and Machan were inside Roman’s head. Using the power of the Serpent Crown, the Machan construct had become powerful enough to telepathically project himself into a new body. Now as “Roman Machan,” Roman Peterson was completely subsumed in Machan’s identity. Namor’s splinter personality could operate independently for the good of Atlantis, without Namor’s conscience holding back his plans anymore. [Invaders (3rd series) #9]
The Emperor of the Deep was unable to focus on tracking down his errant personality because RoXXon staged their own assault on Atlantis. The energy corporation saw potential profit in the Genus Formula and tried to make off with it. As it happened, Captain American and Bucky had also infiltrated Atlantis at the same time disguised as water-breathers from Blue Harbor (thanks to a reverse-engineered Genus process by the Black Panther). Namor ended up finding Rogers stealing Genus back from RoXXon and flew into a rage. In the ruckus that followed, a case of the compound burst open and the Genus fumes restored the Captain as human but also changed Namor into a full human as well. Falling off the RoXXon vessel, Steve and Namor were marooned together for days on a deserted island. Steve tried to get Namor to see reason, that he had been 
under the influence of another, but Namor refused to abdicate responsibility. He accepted Machan had been a part of his mind from the start, and the plan wasn’t one he necessarily wouldn’t have undertaken on his own. While arguing, they crossed paths with a RoXXon facility on the island, experimenting with Genus. A second exposure restored Namor to his true power and he was prepared to leave Captain America to deal with Machan, until Rogers reminded him of his oath as an Invader.
Reunited with the Invaders, Namor explained what Machan’s endgame was. The world of water which the Vodani inhabited, known as the Omega Sea, was connected to Earth via portal. Using that portal and a machine based on Hydro-Man’s power, Machan was pulling that planet of water to Earth as endless rain, flooding the land to bring the continents beneath the waves, forever. The 
slow rise gave the nations of Earth time to beg and barter with Atlantis for the Genus Formula to transform their people, adding to Atlantis’ ranks and loyalists. As the Invaders struck Machan’s outpost, he tried to assume control of Namor using the Serpent Crown, but the Sea King could not be made to harm his comrades again. Namor defeated Roman and was prepared to have him executed under Atlantean law, but Captain America stood in his way. He forced Namor to abandon dreams of personal vengeance and turn Machan over to the Invaders. Only by putting Machan before the world courts to shoulder the blame would the United Nations back off from further retribution against Namor and Atlantis itself. [Invaders (3rd series) #10-12]