Okay, so I sped-read these issues and I think I can safely say that there’s no retconning going on. It’s just a recreation of a lot of Golden Age comics that, in 1989, had not yet been reprinted as collections. It’s all well-done and it’s a nice way to read the history of this character, who had been around decades before The Fantastic Four were even an idea.
Especially fun is the re-telling of the Namor/Doom comic Super Villain Team-Up.
Mr. and Mrs. Thomas covered the controversial ( if ultimately unsuccessful ) “Super-Villain Team-Up” period of Namor’s checkered life-?? Interesting. I’ll have to dig it up, especially if it’s as much “fun” as you say. I’m sure it is- I am all about the “Super-Villain Team-Up” series of the mid-late Seventies, especially the very first issue, ( “Giant-Size Super-Villain Team-Up”#1- one of my all-time favorite Marvel Comics ) and the subsequent Steve Englehart-written issues. Englehart’s unfortunate departure from the series, along with his equally-unfortunate decision to junk Namor’s bitchin’ blue-black rebreather suit, is what plunged this previously-promising series into an irreversible death-plunge. What a shame. I guess maintaining the quality-level of that first ‘Giant-Size’ issue, “Encounter At Land’s End’, would be a bit much to expect from almost any writer. Too bad.