Namor the Sub-Mariner: Marvel’s First Biracial POC
Warnings for: Long post, racism in comics, Anti-Asian racism, racist caricatures, and war propaganda. I do not condone racism in any form. (I have asked my friend who is Japanese to read over this before posting. I do not wish to speak about such subject matters in a way that is disrespectful. Thank you for taking time to read this.)
Namor the Sub-Mariner is Marvel’s first and oldest character. I believe that Namor is also the first biracial character and the first poc coded superhero in comics. This post is my own opinion of the character and his history.
White washing characters is done very often, but that doesn’t make it right. I feel that Namor’s character is often forgotten as being biracial and a poc by many and when I see fan casts of white actors for a character who is very clearly not white I thought that I should collect my thoughts here.
How is he the first biracial character? Namor’s mother is Princess Fen of Atlantis, and his father is Captain Leonard McKenzie, a human. Namor is biracial because he was born of two races, Atlanteans and humans. True, Atlanteans are of course fictional but then comics have always had metaphors for the real world. Namor has endured many forms of racism and slurs due to him being born a ‘half breed’ and he was never fully accepted among his Atlantean people because he wasn’t ‘pure’ Atlantean. Neither was he accepted among the humans because he was only half human and so both sides mistrusted him.
Rise of the Black Panther (2018) #2:
I’ve had people ask me “Namor is white/has always looked white, how is he a poc character?” Namor is not white, has never been white and has always been coded as a poc character. Just because many artists and writers do not know Namor’s full history and do not draw him or write him as such doesn’t mean it isn’t there.
I will be pulling panels directly from his comics to prove this. In his early comics Namor’s own creator, Bill Everett, chose to write ‘he set out to war against the white man’ not humans, not surfacers, he could have used those phrases but chose that one, which in fact states that Namor does not consider himself to be white. The phrase of Namor fighting against the white race is not used only once but many times throughout the comics:
Marvel Mystery Comics (1939) #1
Later in the same comic:
Marvel Mystery Comics # 2
Marvel Mystery Comics #3
Marvel Mystery Comics #4
Also throughout the later comics Namor has been often called ‘exotic’ and there is a strong emphasis on the description of his eyes that is commonly used by people who want to describe someone who is of east-asian descent. (I feel this kind of writing is very wrong to use since it is a form of racism)
Namor being called ‘squinty’ by Hank Pym in reference to his eyes in Avengers (1963) #71:
Namor’s eyes are described as slanted in The Defenders (1972) #1
Atlanteans are not white, they do not default to a white race when out of the water and their skin changes from blue Atlantean skin to human skin color (which ranges from every different race and not just Caucasian) in order to survive out of the water with their science and magic:
Wolverine (2003) #44:
Atlanteans have been coded as an indigenous people from their first appearance where they make a point to state that they fight against the white race who has harmed their people. Also Namor speaks of his tribe several times:
Marvel Mystery Comics #3:
In later comics a group of people lead by Walter Newell (Stingray) attempt to make a colony underwater, invading Namor’s homeland by setting up their undersea dome without permission and promising them things in return for their aid. Namor will not allow them to colonize the sea and drive his people off their lands in the sea so that surface people could take over:
Tales to Astonish #95:
I do not ever think racism should ever be tolerated, and I know that comic characters were used for war propaganda during WWll but that doesn’t make it ok. In the early sub-mariner comics Namor is drafted into fighting the war. People who were of east-asian descent were also drafted or volunteered to be soldiers in WWll and Namor, like the American-Japanese soldiers, was also a fighter and translator.
Sub-Mariner Comics #8
Why I bring this up is to show how a comic character that started out as not a racist caricature later became one and was used to spread racism, then even later the fact that Namor is East-Asian coded, and is a biracial character has been ignored and forgotten by Marvel. I do not seek to blame writers and people who do not know the history of Sub-Mariner comics but I do want people to be aware that after enduring 80 years of comics the first biracial character poc character is still being white washed.
The people who say that should Namor ever be cast into a movie then he should be played by an Asian actor are right. Namor is not white and only a poc actor should play him. Him being half-atlantean and half-human is important to his character and so is Namor being a biracial poc character.
There are far too many instances of racism in the WWll Sub-mariner Comics but here is one example:
The early Sub-mariner comics that were written during WWll are full of racism and racist caricatures of the East-Asian people and even here the racism is directed both towards and from Namor. There is so much Anti-Asian propaganda in comics and we all know that during that time in WWll there were Japanese Interment camps and people who were of Japanese ancestry were sent there. There are several panels of this, and one example shows Namor donning uniforms of Japanese soldiers and being able to walk among them without being stopped. As the comics go on Namor’s features are more and more exaggerated and the cover of Sub-Mariner #6 shows even more racist drawings of Japanese soldiers.
Sub-Mariner Comics #5 has Namor dressing as a Japanese solider:
