I need to read the first issues of the Sub-Mariner that cover the Serpent Crown for research. I think that will be issues #9, #10 & #13, or whatever the issue is where the crown is stolen by the Lemurians and lost. I can’t find them online anywhere, and buying collectors copies is prohibitively expensive. I would by a collection that includes them used, though. I just can’t figure out what that would be.
Does anyone have any info that can help me out?
Thanks in advance, comics lovers!
The serpent crown series seemed to be damned interminable, and ran an awful lot longer than you suggest,. It was virtually continuous through the first issues of the Gene Colan Sub-Mariner solo series for something like the first 25 or so (not all of the issues revolved around it exclusively, but it was in all of them). It went back even further than that, because Sub Mariner #1 picked up from the one-off issue SubMariner and Iron Man in 1968, and the damned crown is in that issue, too:
Doesn’t the Marvel Masterworks series collect the first N issues of SubMariner? They might even include the story from SubMariner/Iron Man #1. That’d be the inexpensive way of looking at al the episodes of the story, without shelling out Big Bucks for the original comics.
You might check out Marvel Unlimited too. There’s a huge catalog available there for about the monthly cost of a Netflix subscription.
Issues 2-13 - $20: http://www.amazon.com/Marvel-Masterworks-Sub-Mariner-Vol-Regular/dp/0785126880/ref=sr_1_4?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1415734012&sr=1-4&keywords=marvel+masterworks+the+submariner
Issues 14-23 - $35: http://www.amazon.com/Marvel-Masterworks-Sub-Mariner-3-Comics/dp/0785134875/ref=sr_1_fkmr1_2?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1415734074&sr=1-2-fkmr1&keywords=marvel+masterworks+the+submariner+vol+3
Scroll to the bottom of the wiki entry to see other collections
Thanks everyone. I decided to buy a copy of Marvel Masterworks, The Submariner, vol 3, which has issues 9-13, which I pray will give me the info I want. I feel a little crazy obsessed going to so much trouble for fan fiction. :roll eyes:
I have the yearly subscription to Marvel Unlimited, and it is fabulous, but these aren’t up digitally yet. Probably they’ll post them up on the site for free a week or two after I get my book in the mail. 
OK, before this thread sinks beneath the waves can anyone help with another minor question.
Back in the late 1960s or so I read one issue of the Sub-Mariner and some of the imagery has stuck with me ever since.
I forget almost all the plot but I remember there were 2 or 3 large panels showing the dry ocean floor and the sea rotting above it - lots of purples and yellows, iirc, and gaping, dripping holes appearing in the water. Some fish flopping about on the seabed. Fairly sure it was a plot by an evil villain!
Any clues what issue or story that would have been? Or have I completely mis-remembered something else!?
Has he always slept with random sea monsters? I’m only familiar with him from when the X-Men were on Utopia.