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Target 27 of 30 · Wakanda and Talokan

Namor

IdentityConfirmed

Real nameNamor McKenzie

CodenameSub-Mariner / K'uk'ulkan

ContinentWakanda and Talokan

In DoomsdayTenoch Huerta Mejia, as Namor¹

First seenMotion Picture Funnies Weekly #1, June 1939²

Created byBill Everett²

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Level 1 // The briefDecrypted · 30 seconds

WhoNamor, king of a hidden undersea nation and one of Marvel's first characters, who flies on ankle wings and distrusts the surface world.³

AbilitiesSuperhuman strength, breathing in water and air, and flight on winged ankles.³

In DoomsdayMarvel named the role in its fourth teaser (13 January 2026), which featured Tenoch Huerta Mejia as Namor alongside Shuri, M'Baku and the Thing.¹

Last seenBlack Panther: Wakanda Forever (2022), as Namor: Beaten by Shuri, he accepts a truce but predicts Wakanda will one day need Talokan.⁸

Sources

Level 2 // Surveillance recordOn screen · 1 sightings, 1 in the MCU

Every live-action sighting of Namor, and everything Marvel has confirmed.

2022
Black Panther: Wakanda Forever MCU
Tenoch Huerta (Manuel Chavez as young Namor) Namor is introduced as the centuries-old king of Talokan, a hidden Mesoamerican nation under the sea, who kills an American team using a vibranium detector in his waters and then slips into Wakanda to demand that Ramonda and Shuri hand him the student who built it. After Nakia frees Shuri and Riri Williams from his cenote, he floods Birnin Zana, where Ramonda drowns saving Riri, and warns that Wakanda must join his war on the surface or be destroyed. Shuri, now the Black Panther, beats him on a desert beach and tears off one of his ankle wings, and he yields and agrees to a truce, later telling Namora he expects Wakanda to need Talokan one day.¹²³⁴⁵

What Marvel confirmed

The film. Avengers: Doomsday opens 18 December 2026.⁷
13 January 2026 Wakanda and the Fantastic Four. The fourth teaser featured Letitia Wright as Shuri, Winston Duke as M'Baku, Tenoch Huerta Mejia as Namor and Ebon Moss-Bachrach as the Thing.⁶

Sources

Level 3 // Deep archiveThe comics · since June 1939

Origin, the comics by era, abilities and recorded feats.

Origin

Namor was created by writer-artist Bill Everett, and his very first story was not a Timely comic at all. Everett drew an eight-page, black-and-white Sub-Mariner tale for Motion Picture Funnies Weekly #1, a promotional book that the independent studio Funnies Inc. put together as a giveaway for cinemas in the spring of 1939. The Marvel Fandom wiki lists it with a June 1939 cover date and an April 1939 release, but notes that it was never actually distributed and that few people knew it existed until 1974. The same pages were then reprinted in colour as the opening of a longer Sub-Mariner story in Marvel Comics #1 (cover-dated October 1939, on sale at the end of August), the first comic from the company then known as Timely and later as Marvel. That is why the wiki gives Motion Picture Funnies Weekly #1 as his first appearance and Marvel Comics #1 as his first Marvel/Timely appearance.

In that debut Namor is no hero. He kills two salvage divers searching a wreck, cripples their ship and carries the bodies home, where his mother, Princess Fen, explains the grudge: in 1920 a polar expedition ship, the Oracle, set off explosives in Antarctica that killed many of their people. Fen, who could pass for human, went aboard to investigate, fell in love with its commander, Leonard McKenzie, and became pregnant; when the undersea people attacked the ship anyway, the sailors nearly wiped them out. Twenty years on, Namor is starting his people's war of revenge, and he closes the story wrecking a lighthouse with his cousin Dorma. Later retellings, among them Fantastic Four Annual #1 (1963), Sub-Mariner #1 (1968) and Saga of the Sub-Mariner #1 (1988), filled in the gaps: his name means 'Avenging Son', Fen married McKenzie before a raiding party dragged her home believing him dead, and his people were only called Atlanteans, and drawn blue-skinned, from 1963.

As the child of a human and an Atlantean, Namor grew up unlike anyone else in the kingdom: flashback stories show him breathing air for as long as he likes, showing strength and toughness beyond other Atlanteans and, at about fourteen, sprouting the small ankle wings that let him fly. The wiki treats him as a hybrid who is also a mutant, and he is often billed as Marvel's first mutant, although the wiki points out that several mutants are older in story time. The MCU keeps the ankle wings, the pointed ears and a mother named Fen, but changes almost everything else. There he is born in 1571 among Mesoamerican refugees in the Yucatán who survived smallpox brought by Spanish conquerors by eating a vibranium-laced plant, he never knows his father, his kingdom is Talokan rather than an Antarctic Atlantis, and he takes the name Namor from a dying Spanish priest's insult, 'el niño sin amor'.¹²³⁴⁵⁶⁷⁸⁹

The record, by era

1939-1941
The Avenging Son The Golden Age
After his first raids Namor heads for New York, smashing property and killing police officers while chasing a socialite who has caught his eye. Officer Betty Dean is sent to lure him into a trap, but instead she watches him sink a Nazi U-boat that is attacking a British freighter, and he begins to turn on the Axis. A spell in the courts ends with a death sentence that the electric chair only recharges, and his renewed attack on the city in 1940 brings a running battle with the android Human Torch across several issues that Betty finally talks both of them out of. In his own Sub-Mariner Comics #1 he leads his people against a Nazi submarine fleet bombing their undersea home.¹²⁴¹⁰¹¹¹²¹³
Key issues: Marvel Comics #1 (1939) · Marvel Mystery Comics #8 (1940) · Marvel Mystery Comics #10 (1940) · Sub-Mariner Comics #1 (1941)
1953-1955
War hero, revival and amnesia Invader and lost prince
Stories written decades later, beginning with Giant-Size Invaders #1 (1975), place Namor in the Invaders beside Captain America, Bucky and the Human Torch, and later in the All-Winners Squad. When the character was revived in the 1950s, Young Men #24 (1953) has Betty Dean call him back to the surface to stop robots claiming to be from Venus that are sinking ships, and he spends the next couple of years fighting communist agents, alien schemers and his envious cousin Byrrah, often alongside his cousin Namora. The era ends in a tragedy told much later: the telepath Destiny uses the Helmet of Power to wipe Namor's memory, and the Sub-Mariner drifts into New York as a nameless vagrant for years.¹²¹⁴¹⁵¹⁶
Key issues: Young Men #24 (1953) · Sub-Mariner #33 (1954) · Giant-Size Invaders #1 (1975)
1962-1964
Found in a flophouse The Silver Age return
In Fantastic Four #4, Johnny Storm finds a bearded, amnesiac drifter in a Bowery flophouse, burns off his beard and drops him in the river, and the water brings Namor's memory back. Finding his home ruined by atomic testing, he declares war on the surface, sets the sea monster Giganto on New York and becomes infatuated with Sue Storm. He soon joins Doctor Doom against the Fantastic Four only to be betrayed, sides with the Hulk against the Avengers, throws the ice block holding Captain America into the sea (which leads to Cap's revival) and turns down Magneto's offer to join his Brotherhood. Fantastic Four Annual #1 reunites him with his people and Lady Dorma, but when he rescues Sue in the middle of his invasion, Warlord Krang turns Atlantis against him.¹²¹⁷¹⁸⁵¹⁹²⁰²¹
Key issues: Fantastic Four #4 (1962) · Fantastic Four #6 (1962) · Fantastic Four Annual #1 (1963) · Avengers #4 (1964) · X-Men #6 (1964)
1965-1971
Trident, memory and loss Prince of Atlantis
In his regular feature in Tales to Astonish, Namor returns home to find Krang on the throne and, freed from the dungeon by Dorma, sets out to find Neptune's Trident, the relic that proves a worthy ruler. In the crossover that launches his own series in 1968, Destiny traps him in ice and shows him the memories he lost, including how his parents met. Sub-Mariner #37 (1971) brings his darkest loss: the Lemurian princess Llyra takes Dorma's place at their wedding to seize the crown, and Dorma, the woman he had legally married, dies before he can save her, leaving Namor nearly mad with grief.¹²²²²³⁶²⁴
Key issues: Tales to Astonish #70 (1965) · Iron Man and Sub-Mariner #1 (1968) · Sub-Mariner #1 (1968) · Sub-Mariner #37 (1971)
1971-1989
A loose team and a formal one Defender and Avenger
In Marvel Feature #1 (1971) Doctor Strange recruits Namor and the Hulk to stop a doomsday machine, then suggests that the three call themselves the Defenders if they ever regroup; the loose arrangement gave Namor allies without tying him down. Over these years he is briefly reunited with his father, who is later killed on the orders of Tiger Shark and Llyra, and he marries Marrina of Alpha Flight, only to lose her when she turns evil and is killed. In Avengers #262 (1985) Captain America offers him membership and he accepts, sparking a lively rivalry with Hercules, and he is presumed dead when Attuma's forces go to war with the surface in 1989.¹²⁵²⁶
Key issues: Marvel Feature #1 (1971) · Avengers #262 (1985)
1990-1995
King in a business suit Oracle, Inc.
Namor turns up behaving erratically in the South Pacific, where marine biologists Caleb and Carrie Alexander work out that his moods swing with an imbalance between air and water in his body. He funds a takeover with sunken treasure, renames the company Oracle, Inc. and sets out to protect the oceans through corporate power, which pits him against the ruthless Marrs twins. Put on trial for his past crimes, he is found guilty but insane and released with Captain America as his probation officer. Later in the run he loses and regains his ankle wings, is stripped of his memory by Master Khan, and is killed by the sorcerer Suma-Ket before the sea god Neptune revives him to defeat Ket.¹²⁷²⁸
Key issues: Namor, the Sub-Mariner #1 (1990) · Namor, the Sub-Mariner #13 (1991)
2006-2008
Secrets, civil war and exile The Illuminati
A story set after the Kree-Skrull War reveals Namor as a founder of the Illuminati, the secret council of Iron Man, Mister Fantastic, Professor X, Doctor Strange and Black Bolt, which he insisted be kept hidden. He walks out when the others decide to fire the Hulk into space and again when Stark asks them to back superhero registration, dismissing it as a surface problem. During the Civil War his cousin Namorita is killed in the Stamford battle that sets it off, and he brings an Atlantean army to Captain America's side. Then his long-lost son Kamar tries to provoke a war with the United States, and Namor empties Atlantis, sending his people to live in hiding on land, before Kamar dies when Nitro explodes in the deserted city.¹²⁹³⁰³¹
Key issues: New Avengers: Illuminati #1 (2006) · Sub-Mariner #1 (2007) · Sub-Mariner #6 (2008)
2009-2012
Cabal, X-Man and Phoenix Dark Reign to Utopia
With few friends left, Namor sits on Norman Osborn's secret Cabal beside Doctor Doom, Emma Frost, Loki and the Hood, though he and Doom expect Osborn to fall, and he quits after refusing to execute rogue Atlanteans on Osborn's orders, ending up with the X-Men. With Magneto he builds New Atlantis, a giant pillar that holds up the sinking island of Utopia and gives his scattered people a home, and his own Namor: The First Mutant series pits him against his vampire grandfather Thakorr and drags him to Hell. In Avengers vs. X-Men he becomes one of the Phoenix Five and, defying Cyclops, raises a wall of water that devastates Wakanda and kills untold numbers before the Avengers bring him down.¹³²³³³⁴³⁵³⁶³⁷
Key issues: Secret Invasion: Dark Reign #1 (2009) · Uncanny X-Men #519 (2010) · Namor: The First Mutant #1 (2010) · Avengers vs. X-Men #5 (2012) · Avengers vs. X-Men #8 (2012)
2013-2016
The man who pulled the trigger The Incursions
Back on the Illuminati as colliding universes threaten Earth, Namor offers T'Challa peace, but Shuri rejects it and Wakanda attacks Atlantis; in reply he sends Thanos's forces to Wakanda with a lie about the Infinity Gems. When neither Mister Fantastic nor Black Panther can bring themselves to destroy an inhabited Earth, Namor does it, then quits and forms a new Cabal with Thanos, Proxima Midnight, Corvus Glaive, Terrax, Black Swan and Maximus to keep destroying other worlds. Sickened by their cruelty, he plots with the Illuminati to trap them, only to be thrown onto a doomed Earth by Black Panther and Black Bolt. He survives into Secret Wars, makes peace with T'Challa on Battleworld and is killed by God Emperor Doom, returning when Reed Richards rebuilds the multiverse.¹³⁸³⁹⁴⁰⁴¹⁴²
Key issues: New Avengers #7 (2013) · New Avengers #21 (2014) · New Avengers #23 (2014) · Secret Wars #9 (2016)
2018-2022
Defenders of the Deep War with the surface
With Atlantis wrecked, Namor declares war on the surface after a group of starving Atlantean children suffocate on a beach while humans look on, and his new Defenders of the Deep clash with the Avengers. In Invaders a phantom adviser named Machan, wearing the face of a soldier who died in his arms during the war, steers him toward the Omega Sea plan to flood the world and turn humanity into water-breathers, until his old comrade Captain America helps him break free of it. He later fights in the Phoenix's tournament for a new host and loses, his own people rise against him, and after She-Hulk saves Atlantis from a gamma bomb he lets his subjects go and joins the Avengers against the Masters of Evil.¹⁴³⁴⁴⁴⁵⁴⁶⁴⁷⁴⁸
Key issues: Avengers #9 (2018) · Invaders #1 (2019) · Invaders #12 (2020) · Avengers #44 (2021) · Avengers #50 (2022)

Capabilities

Superhuman strength

Stronger than any other Atlantean: rated Class 100 when wet and about Class 85 on land, fading the longer he stays dry.¹

Flight

Small wings on his ankles let him fly faster than military aircraft while carrying heavy loads.¹

Amphibious body

Breathes underwater through gills and on land without aid, sees through murky depths and shrugs off freezing cold.¹

Superhuman durability

Withstands high-calibre bullets, deep-sea pressure, temperature extremes and powerful energy blasts.¹

Swimming speed

Has swum at over 300 knots, about 345 mph, far beyond the 60 mph of ordinary Atlanteans.¹⁴⁹

Aquatic telepathy

Mentally talks to most sea life and can persuade it to obey; he can also give mental orders to Atlanteans.¹

Warrior king

Long life and many wars made him an expert fighter, swordsman and marksman, as well as a capable ruler and tactician.¹

Source of power

Half Atlantean (Homo mermanus): his strength, toughness and water breathing come from that heritage, at levels beyond any other Atlantean.¹

Also a mutant, often called Marvel's first; his ankle wings and flight cannot be explained by either his human or Atlantean side.¹

Recorded feats

comics Dragged Luke Cage into a river and beat him there, knocked out She-Hulk, then went toe to toe with the Thing. Uncanny X-Men Vol 2 #12 (July 2012)⁵⁰
comics Fought the Silver Surfer, took a point-blank blast and knocked him down, then won him over to stop a weather-control machine. Sub-Mariner Vol 2 #34 (February 1971)⁵¹
comics Diving in from flight, he knocked out the colossal Deviant mutate Gigantus with a single punch. Journey Into Mystery Vol 4 #649 (April 2013)⁵²
screen Flew after an escaping helicopter, grabbed its tail, spun it round and slammed it into the sea. Black Panther: Wakanda Forever (2022)⁵³
screen Leading the flood on Birnin Zana, he blocked M'Baku's club bare-handed, broke it, punched him away, then cut down Wakandan aircraft in flight. Black Panther: Wakanda Forever (2022)⁵³
screen Took a full-power Ironheart blast to the chest without visible harm. Black Panther: Wakanda Forever (2022)⁸

Notes from the archive

The Marvel Comics #1 issue page says the oldest surviving piece of Marvel original art, owned by editor Tom Brevoort, is the final page of Namor's story from that issue.⁴
The wiki gives Namor's birthday as 22 February 1921, drawn from two different publications, but notes that Sub-Mariner #36 (1954) dated it 2 February 1924 instead.¹
Tenoch Huerta learned a Mayan language and learned to swim for the role, and the MCU Wiki says he named Talokan after Tlālōcān, a paradise ruled by the Aztec rain god Tlāloc, which he knew from stories his father had told Fen.⁸⁵⁴
According to the MCU Wiki, Ryan Coogler pitched Kevin Feige an end tag for the first Black Panther (2018) that would have teased Namor with wet footprints leading to the Wakandan throne.⁸

Sources

Signal history1939 to 2026 · bars: screen · line: comics eras

193919832026 · Doomsday

Known associatesShared the screen

Namor

Black Panther1 shared

M'Baku1 shared

Stills on fileImages belong to their respective owners.

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