Originally Posted by
Doombot
On the topic of Namor being an anti-hero or even a straight up villain, I believe it's always been an issue of perspective. There has always been a conflict in comics between characters who are not American (or Western) and the American audience the story is being told to. I find there is a strange unwillingness on part of the creators to just tell stories from an outside perspective, as if somehow American readers will reject the story or the character because the perspective isn't American. You want to make Namor a SUPER-HERO, yet not only is he not American, but not even human. This happens with many characters, it's one of the reasons the Black Panther always has stories and adventures in the US when he's the king of secretive, isolationist, African nation for example. Another of the prickly issues with Namor vs Humans is that, for the most part, Namor is in the right. Humans, including the most heroic super-heroes, are entirely hypocritical when it comes to their behaviour and attitude towards the ocean and Atlantis. Humans bomb, dump on or poison Atlanteans, Namor decides to do something about it, and the entire super-hero community faces off with Namor telling him they will not tolerate his shit. They do this with a straight face every single time. If I were Namor I would go insane as well. The perspective issue is that Namor is a hero of ATLANTIS, he is fighting for HIS people, not of The USA or even of humanity at large. His motives stem from this view, not saving pedestrians in NYC. (although he's saved far more humans than humans have ever saved Atlanteans). Captain America, T'Challa and Tony Stark can all come directly into sovereign Atlantean waters and attack Namor directly, demanding him to stop doing X, meanwhile they give exactly zero shits when the drop an entire bloody Celestial on them, or threaten them with SHEILD fleets or constantly poison them, dump garbage or toxic waste or radioactive materials, to say nothing of devastating overfishing, trawling, long lines, and general ocean destruction.
Remember when Tony Stark had the balls to threaten Namor and all of Atlantis because they had spy cells around the world? Remember when he did this while running SHIELD and basically spying on the entire damn planet? I remember this. That's the kind of thing that would make me want to send a tidal wave at the surface too.
What do you do with a character like this? Make him a straight up villain? Or do you trust that your audience can handle a nuanced character whose views and experiences are outside of your own? I'd vote for the latter, but creators seem to not want to give readers this option. I'm not going to be upset if a hero I like does not represent me directly, I'm not even American myself and I love all the Marvel heroes fighting bad guys in NYC, etc. I think people could handle it. Humanity should be a reoccurring villain in Sub-Mariner stories. I mean, a massive part of Namor's personality stems from the fact he IS half human and the shadow that places over his life. How can he, the King of Atlantis, BE one of these dreadful surface people? They hate him, they care nothing about his people, they care nothing about the ocean, save what they can take from it, yet he IS one of them. All of this is no-brainer kind of stuff and still incredibly fascinating, yet we constantly get OH NO, CRAZY NAMOR, WE BETTER SEND IN CAP AND THE AVENGERS!