15 Radical Superheroes To Diversify The MCU

With DC’s Aquaman hitting the worldwide box office like a tsunami, it might be tempting for Marvel to hold off on any adaptation of their own badass half-human Atlantean monarch for fear of being accused of plagiarism.

The irony there is twofold, given that, first, Namor pre-dates Aquaman by two years, and second, ‘badass half-human Atlantean monarch’ literally describes the only things these characters have in common. Aquaman is conventional, more a product of the (white) human world than Atlantis: Namor is a wholly alien entity, a volatile, arrogant dragon of a man with a deep suspicion of the surface.

Namor has more in common with DC’s Black Adam - and that’s what makes him so interesting. His race and sexuality in any adaptation is defiantly up for grabs, more so than with any other Marvel character - the only thing he absolutely is not is a white dude.

A baddie as often as a goodie, usually coded as wholly 'foreign' (with that cryptoracist dogwhistle), Namor started out in 1939 as an antagonist in his “crusade against white men!” The Sub-Mariner could be cast from any ethnic pool, and there’s nothing to suppose that an adaptation of the character would have to be straight or even to identify as male.

As far as diversity goes, he’s the gift that keeps on giving.