Sometimes hero, sometimes anti-hero, and occasionally outright villain, Namor the Sub-Mariner isn’t just one of Marvel’s most complicated characters. He’s also their first superhero. Created in 1939, Namor quickly made a strong impression thanks to his complicated back-story, dramatic eyebrows, and super-short green swim trunks.
Namor is finally joining the Marvel Cinematic Universe in Black Panther: Wakanda Forever, where he'll be played by Narcos' Tenoch Huerta. So let’s learn all about the passionate player known as the Sub-Mariner, and why he’s far more than just Marvel’s answer to Aquaman.
Who Is Namor, the Sub-Mariner?
Created by Bill Everett, the Sub-Mariner made his official debut in 1939 in Timely Comics’ Marvel Comics #1. Even though the original Human Torch also debuted in that issue, Namor the Sub-Mariner can be called the very first original Marvel character since he had appeared months earlier in Motion Picture Funnies Weekly (of which only a handful of copies were printed).
Half human and half Atlantean royalty, Namor is proud, quick-tempered, and willing to do anything to protect his kingdom. He’s been an Avenger and one of the X-Men, a founding member of the Defenders, and even fought alongside Captain America in World War II against the threat the Nazis posed to the entire world. He’s the ruler of Atlantis and fights with fervor for his people.
But Namor isn’t a natural do-gooder like Cap. His temper and arrogance make him more of an anti-hero who has no qualms about destroying anything that gets in the way of his goals. In his very first appearance, he kills two innocent deep divers simply for being in his undersea domain. While time has softened his stance on humans, Namor has kept the same hubris throughout the 80-plus years he’s been a part of the Marvel universe.
Half human and half Atlantean royalty, Namor is proud, quick-tempered, and willing to do anything to protect his kingdom.
Namor’s Origin
Namor’s first appearance introduced him as “an ultra-man of the deep [who] lives on land and in the sea, flies in the air, has the strength of a thousand men.” After a deadly first encounter with humans, the prince’s mother explains his history for the reader.
The pointy-eared prince is the son of an Atlantean princess and a human explorer named Leonard McKenzie. Their story began in 1920 in the waters of the South Pole. The captain’s expedition vessel repeatedly blasted the ice above Atlantis, which rocked the city below with explosions that claimed the lives of many Atlanteans. Princess Fen was sent to the humans above to act as a spy. She and the captain fell in love and were married, but Fen didn’t forget her mission.
While the princess did consider Captain McKenzie a good man, she never lost her distrust of humanity and blamed them for the destruction of their kingdom. She passed those beliefs on to Namor, her “Avenging Son.”
With his roots in the Golden Age of comics, his star would eventually fade until Stan Lee brought him into modern Marvel Comics in 1962’s Fantastic Four #4. The “new” Human Torch, Johnny Storm of the Fantastic Four, came upon an amnesiac Namor in New York City. Namor’s fate became intertwined with the Fantastic Four as he fell in love with Sue Storm, maintained a bitter rivalry with Reed Richards, and counted Doctor Doom as an ally.
Over the years Namor would fight both for and against the world above, all in the name of keeping his own people safe. Namor has also found more love interests over the years -- human, Atlantean, and alien. He’s teamed up with the Avengers and X-Men, and also with Doctor Doom and a supervillain group called the Cabal.
Most recently, he battled Amadeus Cho, Silk, and the Agents of Atlas in the Atlantis Attacks (2020) miniseries in retaliation for the capture of an Atlantean creature.
“Are you a hero, Namor? Or are you a monster?” Cho asked him in the first issue.
“I am a king,” Namor replied. “So I’m both.”
