Who is Namor? The Backstory Behind Marvel Studios’ New Breakout Character

Marvel Studios’ latest film, Black Panther: Wakanda Forever,  has been earning rave reviews from fans and critics alike thanks to the film’s handling of the real-life death of star Chadwick Boseman, and how it set up the future of the Black Panther franchise. However, one of the film’s hottest topics is Tenoch Huerta’s portrayal of Namor the Sub-Mariner, whose making his live action debut despite being one of Marvel’s oldest characters.

The Sub-Mariner first debuted in Marvel Comics #1 – a publication so successful that eventually publisher Timely Comics would change their name to Marvel – and along with the original android version of the Human Torch, is credited by many as being the first real Marvel character. Creator Bill Everett referred to the character as an “ultra-man of the deep who lives on land and in the sea, flies in the air, and has the strength of a thousand surface men.”

Initially Namor is presented as a half-human, half-Atlantean superman whose at odds with the U.S. government over the treatment of his people and humanities treatment of the oceans. In fact, during many of his early appearances, the Sub-Mariner acted more like a villain – or at least an anti-hero – than he does a super hero. He’s regularly seen attacking New York and causing damage, culminating the first ever comic book crossover when the Sub-Mariner’s attempt to destroy New York City with a massive tidal wave was thwarted by the Human Torch, and in-turn the two battled through New York.

Following the United States real life entry into World War II, Namor’s rough edges were dumbed down a bit as he joined with Timely’s other heroes in battling the Axis powers in the company’s comics. Following the end of the War, Namor fell out of public favor like most super hero characters, and would only appear sparingly for the next two decades.

As the 1960s ushered in the comic book revival that’s come to be known as the Silver Age, mainly spurred by Marvel’s introductions of new revolutionary characters including the Fantastic Four, Spider-Man, Iron Man, Hulk, and Daredevil, many older characters were brought back. This included Namor, who was reintroduced in Fantastic Four #4, officially becoming part of the then nascent Marvel Universe.

In the near 60 years since then, Namor has been one of Marvel’s most important comic book characters. Over that time, he’s served as both an antagonist and ally to the Fantastic Four and the Avengers, been a member of the Illuminati, and retroactively been recognized as a mutant, bringing him into X-Men stories.

However, the character’s malleability actually proved problematic when attempting to bring him to live action. As Marvel had sold off the film rights of its properties to different studios. This led to debate amongst studios as to whether Namor was part of the “Fantastic Four family” or the “X-Men family” or even the “Avengers family.” These legal hangups kept Namor sidelined from Marvel’s live action films for almost two decades, even as the medium took over Hollywood.

Things changed once Disney acquired 20th Century Fox, gaining back the film rights to virtually every Marvel character they didn’t have, including any that would include Namor. This paved the way for Huerta’s portrayal in Wakanda Forever. The character’s origin was tweaked a bit to fir the style of the film. As Marvel producer Nate Moore explained:

“In terms of publishing, Atlantis feels very Greco-Roman in terms of how it’s drawn, and Namor’s back story isn’t as interesting as you would want it to be. Ryan likes things to be anchored to the real world, so even when he was building Wakanda, it wasn’t the technical jungle from publishing, it was ‘hey, here’s a real place that’s based on African cultures’ and I think the specificity of that world is what made it work. He wanted to do the same with Atlantis from publishing.

“We were talking about which cultures it made sense to feature, and he’s a big research guy, so we were looking at that and wanted to tell the story of why they lived in the water, what would force them into the water? And Ryan is very interested in themes of colonization, like the first film, and found some Mayan pottery with glyphs on it where the people were blue. And thought that was interesting, so did his research into the history of the Mayan people from the past into today, and thought here’s an anchor point that gives Namor a specificity and the Talokan a specificity that both narratively makes sense, and visually is an incredible playground to talk about.”

Now that Namor has finally arrived in the live action Marvel Cinematic Universe, the sky is likely the limit for the character going forward.