#johnnynamor

man that intro got long. and yet, still, it was only a taste of the havoc I am about to wreak on this place

so. so. after quizzing several individuals, I have concluded that the following list is the Base Knowledge for namor the sub-mariner’s general being:

king of atlantis

wears a speedo

hits on sue

tried to sue the human race

waits for nothing

thus, to fill in some gaps, here is a brief summary of namor’s general history in comics. he started out as one of marvel’s earliest superheroes alongside captain america and the first human torch, who was a robot that was also on fire, because I love comic books. in practice this meant he was a wwii hero-type. anyway, shit happened, and by the time 1962 rolled around and the fantastic four came into play, namor had wound up as a homeless amnesiac. johnny storm remedied this situation by a) setting namor’s beard on fire and b) throwing him at the ocean. no one questioned any of this, but somehow, it worked. and then namor declared war on the human race. how’s that for an origin story. of course there were other shenanigans with him after this, atlantis drama, teaming up with doctor doom, joining the x-men, joining the illuminati, just generally heel face revolving door-ing his way around.

now. I’m about to tell the bullet point story of how I ruined everything. but before that, so you know what to picture, here is the fancast I had in mind for him. I don’t normally do fancast-type stuff myself, but the minute I started seriously thinking about rebooting namor, I knew Immediately that hideo muraoka was the dude to call. (a line of thought where I am surprisingly not alone!)

mind, this whole thing is like a barely-compliant sequel in regards to the actual fantfourstic canon. probably it is the future of an AU where everything isn’t Shit Forever. will I myself write this AU? it’s possible. god already knows I want to write fic for this fish. but just keep that vaguely-canon-plausible thing in mind while this show goes on

in any case johnny storm is off doing his own thing. if the squad is superheroes in this AU, maybe he is doing a solo mission. if the squad escaped the government and is undercover, maybe he is getting some space from the others. the circumstances are not very important. what Is important is that johnny is hanging round a small coastal town. you know the type. lowkey-tourist-trappy beachfront places. quiet and nice. the kind of place he might’ve found boring if he was still in his pre-fantfourstic-canon mindset, but post-fantfourstic, I reckon he’s learned to appreciate peacefulness more.

so, y’know, johnny’s walking around, the sun’s just set, the weather is nice, and then he sees some local mooks roughing up a homeless dude on the pier

because johnny is a) possibly a superhero and b) a Good Egg regardless, he goes to intervene. he’s supposed to be undercover, but he figures he should be able to sort this out without having to reveal his powers.

a scuffle breaks out, and johnny is seriously debating the merits of just flaming on and putting a proper end to things, but these are just normal humans who he could seriously hurt, and besides, the homeless dude’s still in the crossfire.

that last fact changes when someone in this brawl shoves wrong and sends the homeless dude toppling off the pier into the water below. johnny looks over the edge just in time to see the splash. and that’s when one of the guys he was fighting with takes the opportunity to whack johnny over the head with something, and then johnny’s falling too.

he’s out cold before he even hits the water. things are looking grim

later, johnny wakes up on the beach with a throbbing headache and the homeless dude watching him suspiciously. it actually takes him a minute to realize it’s the same person - this guy looks way more alert than the bundle of rags that was getting menaced earlier. also, he’s ditched like all of his clothes besides the boxer briefs, which is kind of weird, now that johnny thinks about it.

but johnny puts two and two together and figures out that this guy must’ve saved him when he fell

so he says thank you, because that’s what one does in these situations

and namor - because of course it’s namor - just quirks his head to the side and says something in atlantean. THAT’S RIGHT. FUCK UNIVERSAL ENGLISH. MY HOUSE NOW. WE’RE DOING THIS LANGUAGE BARRIER AND WE’RE DOING IT _RIGHT._

and that’s how johnny winds up saddled with this weird fishlike not-roommate who refuses to wear clothes and drapes himself languidly over the furniture and thinks humans are just Ridiculous

and that’s the end of that bullet point list but not the end of this post because I am completely fucking unstoppable. here is an entire backstory and multiverse theory that I virtually made up. remember, this whole adventure started because I wanted johnny to have a love interest, and what did I do? This

note: why are more superpeople cropping up on a planet that pointedly cannot produce superpeople on its own? well, reed proved that alternate dimensions exist. why would planet zero be the only one out there? and what are the odds that reed is the first individual across all these potential worlds to figure out how to travel between them? thus, my baseline: new superpowered characters can be effectively imported from other dimensions as needed.

in the comics, namor is the offspring of a human sailor and an atlantean princess. that is still basically in play, but I have fucked with it. a bunch. if the comic purist types didn’t want to kick the shit out of me before, they probably will once I’m done with this.

(please don’t kick the shit out of me, comics purist types. I am just trying to have a Fun Time)

(I have all the significance of a piece of chewed gum. don’t do this)

so namor’s dimension Might be an alternate timeline of our own earth or not. I don’t really know the rules yet. but in any case it is an ocean planet, with surfacedwelling humans being few and far between, while the undersea atlanteans rule the roost.

princess fen of the comics has metamorphosized into would-be empress fen, glorious ruler of atlantis. but since she is a young royaltype, of course she winds up going on one of those rebellious-heir journeys that all young royaltypes go on at some point. you know the ones

while she’s off on this adventure, she encounters a lone surfacedweller. now, fen understands that she can’t just stay out here forever, that eventually she has to go home and become the empress her kingdom needs. still, even knowing she can’t remain with him, she finds this man strangely intriguing, and embarks on a brief but passionate tryst. in time, she returns home to her rule and other responsibilities

some month-equivalents after her return, namor is born

now, surfacedwellers are not well thought of in general atlantean culture. under normal circumstances, an atlantean who had a dalliance with one of them would likely be shunned, and their offspring outright ostracized or driven out. but. empress fen is not a woman of normal circumstances. she is an empress. and empresses do as they like, even when “as they like” is keeping her half-human son and even naming him as her sole heir.

because against all expectations, fen cherishes her son. she genuinely, wholeheartedly loves him. she never once regretted him, and she was his staunchest defender at court from day one. namor would’ve been a pariah if not for her

as moms go, fen was a really good mom

she was not a good ruler. she was not even in the ballpark of being an okay ruler. fen was a proper divine right blood knight tyrant of an empress and her people were justly terrified of her.

(look. “unabashed supervillains who are also actually good parents” is one of my favorite tropes.)

it’s one thing to be a mom who jokingly threatens to execute people who insult your son. it’s another thing to actually have them executed

like, she was lawful neutral fading into evil. namor himself is not aware of this. fen has shielded him from the uglier aspects of her reign, and he idolized her to begin with. he honestly thinks that she’s a paragon and that atlantis itself is a utopia, and he’s built a lot of his identity on that. the truth, when he accepts it, will hurt.

so namor wants to be a good and righteous king. and, if given the chance, he might’ve been one.

he does not get the chance. this is because, as is often the case with great evil regimes, the people rise up in protest

one extremely bloody revolution later, empress fen and most of her noble entourage are dead. the heir to the throne himself has been imprisoned, and now the rebels debate what should be done with him

namor’s too dangerous to keep imprisoned forever, and there’s no way of converting him to their side. he saw them kill his mother, he’ll stop at nothing to revenge himself on them.

even exile wouldn’t stop him. of course executing namor is the logical choice, and perhaps even the correct one: it’s a formal end to his family’s regime.

but maybe one of the rebel leaders is disillusioned with all this bloodshed, or maybe they just believe that the son shouldn’t pay for the crimes of the mother. they seek an alternate solution. and they find one

there is a strange and unnerving device that has existed alongside the royal bloodline for generations. it is old enough that none of its makers are remembered, and no one knows what its original purpose was

but it takes people in and sends them to elsewhere. no one knows where “elsewhere” might be, but no one sent through ever comes back. the royal family has historically used it to dispose of political prisoners and those too dangerous to exile normally

the rebels, anxious to cover their tracks, also do what they can to blank out namor’s memories before sending him through the device. it doesn’t work all the way, but the job is done, and thus namor gets dumped somewhere inland on earth with a head full of scrambled fragments.

(when namor relates this story to johnny via what’s basically an elaborate game of pictionary, johnny sees his sketch of the device and recognizes it as the proto-quantum gate it is)

namor spends his new life wandering aimlessly, but some ancient instinct keeps him moving towards the coast

now, a normal atlantean would die long before getting there, but namor’s half-human, and thus ocean deprivation, so to speak, only weakens him considerably instead of killing him.

thus he arrives at that small, sleepy beach town. and you know what happens from there

good fucking god. this post is too long to Be. what the hell is wrong with me that this is my natural response. I’M NOT EVEN _DONE_ I STILL HAVE SO MUCH MORE TO SAY

tl;dr: a fish comes to earth and falls in love with a flame despite all that separates them