Namor the Sub-Mariner is a pretty cool comic book character.
The first real anti-hero in comics, he's fought alongside Captain America, has a wealth
of exotic powers, and rocks a form-fitting speedo.
Diehard fans have clamored for a Namor movie for years.
And with complex rights issues surrounding the character reportedly resolved, it would
seem like the time is finally right.
But so far there's been no sign of Marvel's oldest superhero.
Here's a look at why Marvel won't give Namor a movie.
Too many worlds
The Marvel Cinematic Universe has explored other dimensions, distant worlds, and even
the realms of the gods.
Yet in all of those travels, and through all the world-threatening catastrophes we've seen
on screen, the only sign of Namor's underwater kingdom of Atlantis was a brief Easter egg
on a map.
And that might be for good reason.
Once Marvel introduces a race of superhuman merfolk led by a benevolent monarch, fans
are going to start wondering just why they aren't, you know... doing anything.
Think about your buddy who always asks "why don't the Avengers just show up" every time
you see a solo Marvel movie.
With Namor in the picture, everyone's going to ask why his army of fish people don't swim
in and save the day.
And seriously: it'll stop being funny after the second time.
Impossible backstory
Namor has a really cool origin — and it pretty much doesn't make any sense in the
Marvel Cinematic Universe.
The Prince of Atlantis has supposedly been around since World War II, fighting alongside
Cap and the Invaders.
But we know from Captain America: The First Avenger that no fish folk were anywhere to
be seen.
And explaining why Namor hasn't even shown up at any point in the last 75 years of MCU
continuity would be even trickier than Marvel's efforts to thread the Winter Soldier into
historical events.
With SHIELD and Hydra both aggressively tracking superhuman threats, you'd think someone would
have noticed Namor and Atlantis at some point.
Explaining why they haven't appeared on anyone's radar to this point makes Namor's story that
much more difficult to tell.
Worst Kryptonite ever
In many ways, our superheroes are measured by their weaknesses, like the all-powerful
Superman being taken out by Kryptonite.
Or imps from the fifth-dimension!
But while Kryptonite and wacky imps are in relatively short supply, Namor has a much
more common weakness: air.
Yes, that's right.
You see, Namor gets his powers from water, so the longer he's out of water, the weaker
and weaker he gets.
"The sea!
I must reach the sea!"
If that's not enough, he's also weakened when he comes in contact with polluted water, which
means he's pretty much doomed in today's world.
When your hero needs to wear a Camelbak in order to keep from dying, chances are he's
going to have a really short career.
Similarity to Aquaman
Speaking of aquatic superheroes who gain their powers from water, one of the primary reasons
we'll never see a Namor movie is that DC is beating Marvel to the punch by releasing a
movie about Aquaman first.
"Arthur Curry.
I hear you can talk to fish?"
They're essentially the same character — superstrong kings of Atlantis who can communicate with
marine life — the only differences being that Aquaman is a nerd and Namor is a stud.
It's ironic that, even though Aquaman is much better known, he's actually a total ripoff
of Namor, who first appeared in comics pages two years earlier.
Still, that's not going to matter much to film audiences.
To them, Namor's going to seem like the copycatfish, and that's a big blow to his film future.
The mutant problem
While Marvel Chief Creative Officer Joe Quesada stated in the summer of 2016 that Marvel has
regained the film rights to Namor, it's still complicated by other rights issues.
You might have heard that stories set in the Marvel Cinematic Universe can't mention mutants
— because the rights to mutants live at 20th Century Fox with the X-Men.
That's why the Avengers version of Quicksilver was a "miracle" created by HYDRA.
And this is a problem for Namor, because Marvel Comics has long marketed him as "the world's
first mutant," explaining his super-strength and flight as genetic mutations.
Combined with the other issues surrounding his backstory, it seems like any version of
Namor we might see on screen would essentially have to be an entirely different character.
The terrorism thing
Remember when we called Namor an anti-hero?
Well, he also sometimes just veers straight into the realm of flat-out villainy.
In many of his earliest stories, he vented his rage on arrogant surface dwellers by randomly
trashing their cities.
Later, when he thought Atlantis had been destroyed by nuclear testing, he vowed to destroy all
of humanity, attempting to level New York using a giant walking whale monster even after
he learned his people were actually totally fine.
One time he even destroyed Black Panther's home country of Wakanda, just for funsies.
Namor's moral ambiguity is hardwired into the character's appeal, but superhero cinema
and Marvel movies in particular don't leave much room for this kind of nuance.
Without it, though, Namor is just another guy, albeit a guy in a scaly thong.
Which is fine for Magic Mike 3, but maybe not so great for Avengers 3.
He makes for a better foil
Historically, Namor has been a great character for others to play off of, but not all that
interesting on his own.
He's a cool rival for the affections of the Invisible Woman, an intriguing ally for the
X-Men, a complex villain for the Avengers, and a great foil for the original Human Torch.
But his solo adventures have been kind of lackluster, with his last comic book series
running just 11 issues before it was cancelled.
It's possible Marvel could find a way to use Namor as a member of a team like the Avengers,
or as a villain for one of their TV shows or something.
But as the lead in a solo feature film?
If history is our guide, that seems unlikely.
The MCU that could have been
Regardless of the impossibility of his own movie, it's fun to imagine what Namor might
have brought to the Marvel Cinematic Universe.
It would be cool to see Namor shouting "Imperius Rex!" while repelling the next round of alien
invaders, or punching Thanos in his stupid purple face.
Alas, the Namor movie is less likely to happen than a gritty cinematic reboot of Howard the
Duck.
In the finest Marvel Comics tradition, his fans are simply left to imagine "what if?"
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