Plus, a lot of National's succes in launching the Silver Age was probably due to repackaging the familiar name. YOUNG MEN gave us the Human Torch (same old same old), but Flash, Green Lantern, Atom, Hawkman et al were reinvented for a new audience.

Seems like the talent behind the old (non-reinvented) characters should have produced some interest in a potential audience. Everett doing the Sub-Mariner, Romita doing Captain America, Ayers doing the Human Torch.

But I've never actually read any of these issues, so I can't compare them to the successful reinvented DC characters.

Excerpts from a John Romita interview published in AlterEgo #35 regarding the cancellation of the Human Torch and Captain America in the '50's.

Q: ...Dick Ayers told me that Stan told him that the The Human Torch was cancelled because of complaints from parental groups.

Romita: They were afraid that kids would set fire to themselves, imitating the Torch. ...

Romita: Later on, Stan told me Captain America was cancelled (in 1954) because of it's politics. Timely got a lot of mail complaining about chauvinism. The American flag was a dirty word in those days, because of the backlash of the Korean War. We had gone to war seemingly unnecessarily. It was a "police action" and people died. People were saying that America was putting the American flag over human safety, and that they weren't going to buy Captain America, because it's an excuse for people to kill other people in the world for America's sake. ...For a while, Captain America was a dirty name! That's the reason they dropped it.

I don't think it's surprising that the talent involved with YOUNG MEN and related titles didn't produce interest.  Not because they weren't doing good work...but because readers (the majority of readers, at least) following a book due to the creators is more of a modern development. 

It's sort of a shame that the 50's Namor revival didn't catch on.  I've read it described as some of Everett's best work.  And I was impressed with the few reprints I've seen. 

But then again, if Namor had taken off in the 50s...Lee and Kirby couldn't have had him return in the FF.

Imagine if that proposed Namor series (or was it a movie) had actually materialized.  Don't know anything about it, but I hear that's why Sub-Mariner managed to significantly outlast the other "returnees."

Michael, if you're so inclined, a lot of the 50s reprint stuff was reprinted in the back pages of Marvel Super-Heroes #12-20.  (#20 has a full reprint of Young Men #24.)  Or more recently, the "Golden Age of Marvel" tpb has a little of that stuff, too.  (Including YM #24, IIRC.)

Yes, there was talk of a 1950's TV series starring Richard Egan as Namor, which kept the Sub-Mariner comic afloat until talks broke down.