Not just a job, a comic book adventure
Posted by Phil Ewing on May 4th, 2009 filed in Uncategorized
Photo by Rob Curtis/Senior photographer
Navy Expeditionary Combat Command has a standard booth on the Sea Air Space killing show floor, where you can learn more about NECC and pick up an NECC pen for your show swag bag. But it also has what could be the coolest tchotchke of the show — a Marvel comic book in which the superheroes are Navy divers.
“Deep Down,” was commissioned by Navy Recruiting Command, said Lt. Cmdr. Susan Henson, an NECC spokeswoman, as part of a push to show kids the kinds of missions that are common for Navy divers. The book is dated 2008 but I’d never seen it before. The cover shows a diver from Mobile Diving and Salvage Unit 1, helping to rescue the crew of a downed Portuguese research submarine.
Our hero is a diver with MDSU 1 on the verge of recovering a Civil War-era wreck when he and his team are brought back unexpectedly to the surface. The Portuguese sub is down across the Atlantic, we learn, and the quiet professionals of Navy diving are the only ones who can save the day. “Deep Down” could be the first time that the salvage ship Safeguard — one of the most important and least glamorous ships in the fleet — stars in an adventure story.
The Navy used a comic book in Japan to try to ease fears about the nuclear carrier George Washington, but I’ve never seen one in English before. How does it end? This may surprise you, but the Navy saves the day.
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May 5th, 2009 at 2:53 pm
[...] I’m all about it. A plastic spray bottle of Northrop Grumman hand cleanser? Ehhh, gimme one. NECC’s comic books are all gone. Brochures, magazines, fliers. This is interesting, can you tell me more about this [...]