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Where the first three teasers for Avengers: Doomsday have been about returning favorites from the start of the MCU and before, the fourth release goes no further back than 2018’s Black Panther. As the current Black Panther Shuri monologues about the duties of a king, we see not just her fellow Wakandan M’Baku but also Namor of the undersea kingdom of Talokan and, surprisingly, Benjamin J. Grimm, better known as the Thing from the Fantastic Four.
Namor and the Fantastic Four maybe relatively new to MCU viewers, the former debuting in Black Panther: Wakanda Forever and the latter in The Fantastic Four: First Steps, but the characters go back to the very first issue of Marvel Comics. Moreover, ever since Marvel’s first family encountered Namor way back in 1961’s Fantastic Four #4, the quintet has had a rocky relationship. Most infamously, Namor is constantly trying to lure the Invisible Woman Sue Storm away from Mister Fantastic Reed Richards, creating a love triangle that some fans want to see in Doomsday.
First Steps not only begins with Reed and Sue already married, but expecting their first child Franklin. So while the couple does have a spat, it never rises above a brief misunderstanding. The two are as rock solid as any duo we’ve ever seen on screen.
The Reed and Sue of the comics are a bit more complicated. They were not married when Fantastic Four #1 released in 1961 and, thanks to Stan Lee‘s poor handling of female characters, Reed often treated Sue more like a child or student than he did a partner. Moreover, the entire team was far more contentious in those early days, with Ben threatening to murder the Human Torch Johnny Storm in almost every issue. So when Namor immediately demands that she become his bride in Fantastic Four #4, it’s not entirely unbelievable that Sue would consider it, at least for a minute.
Over the years, the Fantastic Four has mellowed out (give or take the occasional story about Reed creating an off-reality black site prison) and their squabbles now play more like familial bickering, problems that they always resolve by the end of a story arc. Of course, it helps that writers who followed Lee developed Sue into a three-dimensional and capable character. In most modern Fantastic Four stories, including First Steps, Sue is not just an equal partner to Reed, but she’s often the leader of the team.
That’s not quite as true of Namor. Namor first properly appeared in Marvel Comics #1 from 1939, and his Golden Age adventures often found him destroying ships in the Navies of the Axis forces. He was haughty and violent, but no more than most Golden Age heroes, and like other heroes of the era, Namor disappeared from comics shortly after World War II. However, when Lee and Jack Kirby revived Namor in Fantastic Four #1, they kept both his arrogance and his propensity for violence. That story established Namor as an antihero, someone just as likely to attack surface dwelling heroes as he was villains, if he considered them a threat to his undersea kingdom.
Over the years, writers have added to Namor’s arrogance by making him not just powerful, but also extremely attractive. Between his physical appearance and his status as a monarch, Namor believes that he is irresistible to any woman he desires… and most of the time he’s right!
Thanks to these developments, Namor’s pursuit of Sue Richards has become a key feature of the character’s interactions with the Fantastic Four. So prevelant is the trope, in fact, that it appears in almost every alternate reality takes on the characters. In Grant Morrison and Jae Lee’s 1234, the false reality created by Doctor Doom involves Sue leaving Reed for Namor. The cover of Ultimate Fantastic Four #25 from 2005 features a sultry Sue posing next to a grinning Namor. More recently, the miniseries Fantastic Four: Life Story by Mark Russell and Sean Izaakse sees an obsessed Reed ignoring Sue so badly that she abandons him to live with Namor.
Yet, as prevalent as the love triangle is in alternate realities, it’s incredibly rare in mainline continuity. Sure, men and women will make passes at Sue (and Reed, for that matter), and, yes, Reed or Sue will sometimes entertain the idea. But it never goes past brief entertaining. For all of his charm and power and good looks, Namor never really convinces Sue to leave Reed.
Which brings us back to Avengers: Doomsday. Most often, troubles in the Richards’ marriage occur when Reed gets too obsessed with a particular problem or project, and Dr. Doom’s machinations will certainly demand his attention. But for all that actor Tenoch Huerta did right when portraying Namor in Wakanda Forever, his version of the character isn’t nearly as amorous as his comic book counterpart. Between the MCU Namor’s general seriousness and the demands of the problem at hand, it’s hard to believe that Doomsday will devote that much time to the Fantastic Love Triangle.
Which is for the better. The Fantastic Four may be late to the MCU, but they are still Marvel’s First Family and no one wants to see that family broken up.
Avengers: Doomsday arrives December 18, 2026.
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