Namor the Sub-Mariner is finally coming to the MCU in Black Panther: Wakanda Forever, played by Tenoch Huerta, who has confirmed the character will stay true to his comic book roots as a mutant.

In the comics, Namor is the King of Atlantis (reimagined as the Aztec-inspired Talocan for the MCU), who is half-human and half-Atlantean. However, his biology gets a little more complex, because on his human side he is also carrying the mutant gene.

With the mutants slowly but steadily starting to emerge in the MCU, fans have been hoping Namor’s comic book history would be honored by his live-action counterpart. Now, Huerta has confirmed that is the case.

Marvel’s Mutants Are Coming

Empire Magazine’s new look at Black Panther: Wakanda Forever included an interview with Tenoch Huerta in which he confirmed Namor would be a mutant in the MCU movie.

Due to the film rights to the X-Men having been held by Fox until recently, mutants had been off-limits for the MCU. Following Disney’s acquisition of Fox’s movie studios, the film rights to the X-Men and the mutants have been returned to Marvel Studios.

The article also included a new look at Tenoch Huerta’s Namor:

Mutants have gradually been creeping into the MCU. Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness featured a variant version of Patrick Stewart’s Professor X, though this particular mutant wasn’t native to the MCU’s main universe. Ms. Marvel introduced the first mutant from the MCU’s 616 universe in the form of Iman Vellani’s Kamala Khan.

Now Namor is set to become the first mutant from the MCU’s main universe to appear on the big screen. Namor is the first character introduced in Marvel comics to be revealed to be a mutant, so his introduction as one of the MCU’s earliest mutants feels particularly fitting.