- Is Marvel teasing a Sub-Mariner movie?
Here's everything you need to know about Namor.
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Explainious Rex.
Welcome to "Explainiac."
I'm Dan Casey
and today we're gonna try to explain
everything you need to know about Namor, the Sub-Mariner.
This wet, wily and wrathful King of the Seven Seas
is poised to make a splash in the post-Endgame
Marvel Cinematic Universe
and it's all thanks to a blink and you'll miss it moment
in "Avengers: Endgame."
Now, if you haven't seen "Avengers: Endgame" yet,
what's wrong with you?
I'm kidding, but we'll be getting into all manner
of Endgame spoilers so either proceed at your own risk
or make like Ebony Maw and jump ship.
Remember in "Avengers: Endgame,"
how Black Widow and Okoye
have a seemingly innocuous chat
about earthquakes on the bottom of the ocean
happening off the coast of Africa?
You might not.
It was wedged between Scarlett Johansson's
struggle bus of a peanut butter and jelly sandwich
and Captain America's post-grief counseling debrief
but that little detail has major ramifications
for the future of the Marvel Cinematic Universe.
While Okoye recommends
they ignore said underwater earthquakes
because they're likely due to shifting tectonic plates,
this feels like Kevin Feige and company
are teasing the location of Atlantis in the MCU,
which is ruled over by none other than Namor himself.
It's the second time the MCU has referenced the Sub-Mariner
and his undersea kingdom.
The first time was in "Iron Man 2"
during a meeting between Iron Man and Nick Fury.
In the background of the shot,
there's a S.H.I.E.L.D. map highlighting
various points of interest
situated between South America and Africa,
we see an area of the ocean
which is smack dab in the region
where comic book lore has established Atlantis
is located in the Marvel Universe.
So is Marvel just artificially extending
the already expansive run time of "Avengers: Endgame"
with a wink and a nod to comic book fans
or are they planting the seeds
for a future film in the MCU?
Well, considering that "Aquaman" made $1 billion,
that's billion with a B at the box office,
I'm gonna go ahead and guess it's the latter.
We'll get into the how and the why of it all in a little bit
but first, let's take a deep dive
where everything's better down where it's wetter
in history.
What did you think I was gonna say?
Created in 1939 by writer artist, Bill Everett,
the Sub-Mariner is Marvel's oldest superhero,
appearing in "Motion Picture Funnies Weekly"
which never actually made it to store shelves.
Thankfully, Namor, as he came to be called,
survived and debuted in October 1939's
Marvel Comics Number 1 for Timely Comics,
the company that would later become the Marvel Comics
we all know and love today.
Inspired by Samuel Taylor Coleridge's poem,
"The Rhyme of the Ancient Mariner"
and quite literally spelling Roman backwards,
Namor is the ill-tempered, tempestuous
and profoundly arrogant King of Atlantis.
Born Namor McKenzie and shown here in Timely Comics,
Marvel Comics Number 1,
he's the half-human half Atlantian son of American sailor,
Leonard McKenzie and Fen,
a blue-skinned Princess of Atlantis.
Leonard and his crew run an expedition to find
a mythical artifact in the Antarctic,
and nearly destroy Atlantis in the process
by setting explosive charges to break up ice flows.
According to the original Marvel comic,
we know that Fen, the daughter of the Atlantian Emperor,
Thakorr, was sent to investigate
and instead found love in a hopeless place with Leonard.
The two quickly married but their bliss
was to be short lived
when Leonard and his crew were brutally murdered
a few weeks later by Atlantian soldiers
who thought he was holding Fen hostage.
Ha ha. Yikes.
Smash cut to nine months later
in the undersea kingdom of Atlantis
where Fen gives birth to Namor,
a Prince of Atlantis with a host of incredible powers,
like super strength, the ability to breathe under water,
super human speed, durability, stamina
and little wings on the side of his feet
that let him fly?
Oh yeah and, in case you were wondering,
yes.
He can telepathically communicate with fish.
Weirdly, he never got dunked on for this
the same way that Aquaman did
but maybe that's because making fun of a dude
in a Speedo with little wings on his feet
is already like, just kinda feels like punching down,
like you're just like smacking a baby,
like a, like a wet baby with wings.
You know what I'm talking about.
Like many teens, Namor grew up angry
and maintained a deep seeded hostility
towards surface dwellers
whom he blamed for the near destruction of his home.
When scuba divers ventured too close to Atlantis,
Namor reacted totally normally,
by launching a series
of devastating attacks on New York City,
which prompted the original android Human Torch
to try and take him out.
As it turns out, those divers were Nazis,
or Twitter users,
which lead Namor to team up with Captain America,
Bucky, the Human Torch, his side-kick, Toro,
and the British Secret Service,
to defend Winston Churchill from those ding dang Nazis.
Together these unlikely heroes
banded together to fight the Axis powers
as a new super team dubbed The Invaders.
Following his stint punching Nazis
in their big dumb faces,
Namor crossed paths with a man named Destiny,
A.K.A. Paul Destine, or Destin-e.
Maybe he's Italian.
I don't know.
When you're here, you're family.
He was the man who commissioned Namor's father
to venture to Antarctica in the first place
way back in Namor's comic book origins.
Now, using the mysterious artifact they were looking for,
dubbed the Helmet of Power,
and later revealed to be Set's Serpent Crown,
Destiny attacked Atlantis by unleashing
a series of powerful earthquakes
which greatly damaged it and wiped Namor's memories somehow,
leading to our favorite dude with the rude 'tude
to live on the streets of New York City.
Namor remained in his dire state
until Johnny Storm, the Human Torch that you know and love,
discovered Namor using his super strength at a flop house.
Johnny gave Namor a shave and a haircut,
then dunked him in the Hudson River to clean him up,
which, surprise, surprise,
restored Namor's memories.
(sighs) Comics are so dumb but I love them.
Namor tried to return to Atlantis
and discovered the ruins of an outpost
that had been destroyed while he lost his memories.
Being the smooth brained, brilliant guy that he is,
Namor assumed his people had just been annihilated,
swore vengeance on the surface world
then unleashed a sea monster named Giganto
to destroy us landlubbers.
The Fantastic Four managed to defeat Namor,
who proceeded to pull the weirdest flex but okay of all time
by proposing to Sue Storm, the Invisible Woman,
and offering to make her the Queen of Atlantis.
This prolonged horniness and complete disregard
for Sue's marriage to Reed Richards would go on for decades
and sometimes Sue was even on board for it
but usually not.
Also on Namor's highlight reel?
Fighting the Avengers alongside The Hulk,
discovering Captain America's frozen body
being worshiped by an Inuit tribe,
then hurling it into the ocean
and fighting against the X-Men alongside Magneto
before telling him to take his brotherhood of evil mutants
and shove it.
He isn't all bad though.
Namor has frequently fought
alongside earth's mightiest heroes over the years
and he was even briefly a member of The Avengers.
He was also a founding member of The Defenders,
which originally consisted of Namor, Hulk and Dr. Strange
who corralled these titans of ego,
to fight a hoard of demons.
Generally, Namor prefers to be a lone wolf though,
joining groups for brief stints before stalking off
in a huff to go and chill with some salmon
or whatever the hell he does in his spare time.
I guess kinda just like flex in front of the mirror.
He is pretty ripped.
In more modern stories,
Namor exists in a true moral gray area,
oscillating between fighting the forces of evil
with Marvel's other superheroes
and performing some truly heinous acts
in the name of self-interest, ego
and putting the interests of Atlantis above all others.
As a member of the Illuminati.
(growls)
Sorry, that's for my
Lizard people homies.
As a member of the Illuminati,
the shadowy organization of heroes
like Reed Richards, Professor X, T'Challa,
Doctor Strange, Black Bolt and Tony Stark,
Namor helped make important decisions
about stopping planet-wide catastrophes.
He was the only person against
jettisoning The Hulk into space
which came in handy during the World War Hulk arc
because he was the only one the not-so-jolly green giant
spared from gladiatorial combat.
He also safeguarded the Time Stone
after the Illuminati recovered
the Infinity Stones at one point.
Hmm, cool stone.
Namor's also been associated with an even more
shadowy organization called The Cabal.
Following the destruction of Atlantis,
Namor joined forces with Loki, Emma Frost, Dr. Doom,
The Hood and Norman Osborn
to seize control of the planet
during the Dark Reign storyline
but Namor had struck a secret deal with Emma Frost
to join the Dark X-Men and liberate all of the mutants
that Norman Osborn and his dark Avengers had captured.
When the X-Men relocated to the island sanctuary of Utopia,
Namor constructed New Atlantis beneath it,
creating this lasting bond
between Marvel's first mutant, Namor,
and the Children of the Atom.
That's right.
Namor's a mutant.
Did I mention that earlier?
I probably should have.
During the Avengers versus X-Men story arc,
he was briefly imbued with the powers of the Phoenix Force
and proceeded to invade Wakanda,
destroying the city with a massive tidal wave
and drowning thousands and thousands of innocent people.
It was a heinous act for which Black Panther
promised he would one day murder Namor.
And while Black Panther wasn't ultimately the one
to murder Namor, Wakanda did get their revenge,
by invading Atlantis and slaughtering its people
in a brutal example of Hammurabi's Code.
But Namor showed exactly what he's capable of
when Marvel's Multiverse was collapsing in on itself.
Having tried and failed to use the Infinity Gauntlet
to stop these multiversal incursions,
The Illuminati was left with a choice.
Use an anti-matter bomb to destroy one Universe
in order to save theirs.
The Illuminati ultimately couldn't pull the trigger,
so Namor re-formed the Cabal,
this time with Thanos and the members of the Black Order
and then he began systematically destroying other earths
that were on a collision course with theirs.
This all culminated in the destruction
of the Marvel Multiverse as we know it,
in a sprawling event called Secret Wars,
but that's honestly a story
for another episode of "Explainiac."
So you might be asking yourself,
Dan, how does all of this tie into
the Marvel Cinematic Universe?
The current theory is that Namor
will make his triumphant first appearance
in the MCU as a villain,
specifically as the villain of Black Panther 2.
As I mentioned previously,
Namor and T'Challa have a complicated history.
At times, they fight alongside each other
and at other times, they're just straight up
destroying their frenemies homeland.
Now, seeing the destruction of Wakanda
at the hands of another highly advanced
and isolationist civilization,
could make for some seriously high drama
and one of the biggest challenges
that Black Panther has faced to date
and yes, that includes literally dying.
Remember that?
Dusty.
Now perhaps Atlantis has always been a part
of the Marvel Cinematic Universe
and we just haven't explored it yet.
Perhaps Namor at the Atlantians believe
those earthquakes in Endgame were caused by Wakanda.
Perhaps the gamma radiation
from snapping the Infinity Gauntlet so many times
created our first mutant in Namor
or perhaps I'm just overthinking
what was almost definitely a throw away line.
No way.
It's definitely happening 'cause I need this
or else this was all for nothing.
I have a lot riding on this.
"Dr. Strange" director, Scott Derrickson,
added fuel to the speculatory fire
with a now deleted tweet
that showed an image of Dr. Strange and Namor
coupled with the phrase, are you experienced?
A reference to the Jimi Hendrix song
that includes the lyrics, quote,
"If you can just get your mind together
"then come on across to me.
"We'll hold hands and then we'll watch the sunrise
"from the bottom of the sea."
So, a magical undersea romance you say?
Sign me all the way up.
Now, how likely is this to happen?
Well, the answer right now is not very.
"Avengers: Endgame" screenwriters,
Christopher Markus and Stephen McFeely,
told The Hollywood Reporter that Okoye's offhanded comment
wasn't actually an Easter Egg.
"I wish we were that smart," Markus said.
Honestly, buddy, so do I.
On top of that, the nature of Namor's film rights
are murkier than the waters in which he lives.
Since 1997, Hollywood's been trying to crack the code
on how to make a Sub-Mariner movie
and the results are a labyrinth of contracts,
distribution rights, producing options
and just all manner of legalese
that would prevent Namor from simply appearing in the MCU.
In 2018, Marvel Studios chief, Kevin Feige,
explained to IGN that Namor could appear in the MCU
but it's a matter of, quote, "if and when,"
owing perhaps in part
to the complicated nature of the film rights.
But hey, if they can find a way
to bring Spider-Man into the MCU,
then who's to say that our favorite arrogant,
wing-footed sea mutant couldn't also make an appearance.
But what do you think?
Where do you think Namor
should make his entrance into the MCU?
Who should play him?
Let me know in the comments below
and give me a thumbs up while you're there.
Thank you so much for watching.
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