The Fantastic Four were Marvel’s first massive comic success, and are called their First Family for good reason, being the first true superhero team. With their movie releasing later this summer and the current Doctor Doom led comic event One World Under Doom, there’s been a lot of buzz around the Fantastic Four. However, while it’s great to see so many people excited for them, it’s important to understand that with their great fame and age in the comic book sphere, there are also some things that are best left in the past. One of those things is the supposed “love triangle” between Reed Richards, Sue Storm, and Namor. And I use the term love as loosely as I can here.
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This is one aspect of Fantastic Four lore that Marvel keeps bringing back no matter how many times it is resolved. There was a time that every couple of years a writer at Marvel would dredge this back up from the bottom of the ocean to add more drama to the family. On some level this makes sense. After all, the Fantastic Four have always been a soap opera as much as they have been a superhero comic, with their popularity and success always centered around their dynamic as a family. So the idea of there being a potential tear in that family, that the loving relationship that is Sue Storm and Reed Richards could be shattered by this outside force, should be very compelling from a reader’s standpoint. Infidelity sells. However, that only works if there is a legitimate chance Sue might leave Reed for Namor because she loves him more. Which there isn’t, wasn’t, and never will be.
The Idea of Sue and Namor Has Never Been Healthy, Relationship-wise
Do you know how Namor and Sue’s first interaction went? The Sub-Mariner was attempting to destroy the surface world because atomic waste had been dumped into Atlantis, and the Invisible-Woman (then called the Invisible-Girl) stole the horn he used to call his monstrous sea creatures. Namor grabbed her, and once he saw her he immediately became infatuated. How did he express this? By giving Sue the ultimatum of becoming his bride or he would destroy the world. That sounds like the start of a healthy relationship!
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Sue of course wanted to reject him, not only because she is in love with Reed, but who would fall for the man who is literally trying to commit genocide? After the Fantastic Four beat him back, the Sub-Mariner retained his obsession with Sue, and would for the rest of the Golden Age continue to attempt to murder her family so she would choose to marry him. Did I mention that their first meeting was in Fantastic Four volume 1 #6? Namor has been obsessing over Sue Storm for longer than Doctor Doom has existed.
In all honesty, the trope of the woman’s heart being torn between the kind man she loves and the gruff, dangerous man she shouldn’t want, but does, is a very outdated and misogynistic one. And frankly, any relationship between Sue and Namor would be based solely on that trope. She’s never once loved Namor, and while she has admitted that she is attracted to him, even way back in the original issue 27, after Namor kidnapped her once again, she said she would only ever love Reed and never love him. And yet he still kept trying to “win” her.
The Idea of Sue and Namor Is Overdone and Hurting Both Characters
It’s been done so many times that prior to his theatrical debut in Black Panther: Wakanda Forever, perhaps the best known aspect of Namor was his obsession with Sue, alongside the false narrative that Sue will occasionally cheat with him. She never has, by the way. Namor is a very interesting character, being Marvel’s first mutant and a phenomenal antagonist to many of the best heroes in the game, and this continued obsession with Sue not only is damaging to her, but ruining his character too.
And the fact that this entire thing is founded on scraps of misogynistic nothing makes it even worse. Sue would never leave Reed, especially not for Namor. This has become its own recurring plot point, such as their interactions in the hit game Marvel Rivals showcasing how Sue and Reed not only love each other deeply, they also really do not care for Namor. This is even more present in the comics. Such as in Fantastic Four #551-553, where a future version of Doctor Doom brought two robotic replicas of Black Panther and Namor to the Baxter Building and tried to convince the team that Reed would turn evil. What made Reed realize the truth is that future Sue supposedly left him for Namor, which was so insane that with utter confidence he blasted the head off the robot because there was no possible way Sue would leave him for the Sub-Mariner.
Sue Storm has never and will never love Namor, and Marvel needs to stop pretending like there was anything legitimate there. The Fantastic Four is a family built on love, trust, and respect. There are rocky times for them, sure, and there’ve been big fights, but Namor has never earned any of those three qualities from Sue the way Reed has, so there’s just no way she would ever be with him. It’s about time Marvel closes the book on this one.
