New Avengers: Illuminati Special revealed Namor as part of this clandestine policy group, although hostile in his opinions. He was violently opposed to the group's decision to send the Hulk into outer-space exile and in fact left the group over the issue. He was later asked back to consider the Superhero Registration Act, which he also opposed. His cousin Namorita was killed in the explosion by the supervillain Nitro, which led to the Act. For vengeance for his cousin's death, Namor activated sleeper agents of the Atlantean royal guard to search for Nitro. In Civil War: frontline, Atlantean ambassadors sent by Namor are attacked by Norman Osborn at a press conference, one of whom is shot in the shoulder.
Though not an official Civil War tie-in, in the Agents of Atlas series, Namorita's cousin, Namora, is revealed to be alive and joins the group. How this will affect Namor, Atlantis, or if she becomes involved with the Civil War is unknown at his time.
POWERS
Because of his unusual genetic heritage, Namor is unique among both ordinary humans and Atlanteans; he is sometimes referred to as "Marvel's first mutant," because, while the majority of his observed superhuman powers come from the fact that he's a hybrid of Human and Atlantean DNA, his ability to fly can't be explained by either side. (Atlanteans are an off-shoot of "baseline" humanity.)
Bill Everett, in his first Sub-Mariner story, described the character as "an ultra-man of the deep [who] lives on land and in the sea, flies in the air, [and] has the strength of a thousand [surface] men". No other powers were mentioned. When the series was revived in 1954, Namor lost his ankle wings and with them the power of flight; they, and his full strength, were restored in Sub-Mariner #38 (Feb. 1955), in which Everett additionally wrote a flashback story, "Wings on His Feet", detailing their appearance on Namor at age 14. This story was twice reprinted during the Silver Age of Comic Books, in Marvel Super-Heroes #17 (Nov. 1968), and in the book Comix by Les Daniels.
After he was revived yet again in the 1960s by Stan Lee and Jack Kirby, Namor demonstrated powers that had not been shown in earlier stories. In The Fantastic Four #9 (Dec. 1962), he states, "I have the powers of all the creatures who live beneath the sea! I can charge the very air with electricity — using the power of the electric eel!" In the same issue, "the radar sense of the cave fish from the lowest depths of the sea" enables him to sense the presence of Sue Storm when she is invisible. He uses "the power to surround himself with electricity in the manner of an electric eel" again in Strange Tales #107 (April 1963), and #125 (Oct. 1964); in the former he as well manifests the power to inflate his body like a puffer fish. These extra powers were ignored, however, when Marvel gave Namor his own feature beginning in Tales To Astonish #70 (Aug. 1965).
An editorial note in Marvel Tales #9 (July 1967), which reprinted the story from Strange Tales #107, stated flatly that "nautical Namor has since lost his power to imitate the characteristics of fish...."
In all his incarnations, Namor possesses superhuman strength and is the strongest Atlantean ever known. The exact level of his strength is dependent upon his physical contact with water, in which he needn't be submerged. His strength diminishes slowly the longer he is out of contact with water, though an extended period on land does not result in his death, as it would for a typical Atlantean. Namor also possesses superhuman stamina and resistance to injury due to his hybrid nature.
Some stories have mentioned that Namor has gills for breathing underwater[1], and artists such as Salvador LaRocca have drawn him with gill slits on either side of his neck.[2] An alternate explanation for his ability to breathe underwater is that, unlike other Atlanteans, who have gills, Namor breathes with his lungs, which contain special alveoli that extract oxygen from water, allowing him to breathe underwater. His body requires regular carefully timed oxygen treatments in either air or water, or his blood and brain chemistry will undergo a shift causing violent rage and destructive behavior.
Namor also possesses wings on his ankles (often wrongly described as "vestigial wings"). They are depicted as giving him the aerodynamic ability to fly, as implausible as this may appear, and his flight is directly related to the presence of the wings, as evidenced by his loss of flying ability on occasions when they have been lost or badly damaged. He could not fly as a child, and the power only manifested itself when the wings developed in adolescence. Rarely, these ankle-wings have been referred to as fins but they are always illustrated as wings.
Another ability unknown in the Golden Age and rarely displayed is his telepathic rapport with many forms of marine life.
Namor has greater longevity than a normal human being. He is well over 80 years old as he was born in 1920 in Marvel timeline, but has the appearance of a male in his prime. His identity as a pre-WWII super-hero is well-established, making him less subject to the sliding timescale of the Marvel universe.
