When Narcos: Mexico breakout actor Tenoch Huerta was announced as playing a villain of Ryan Coogler’s Black Panther: Wakanda Forever, everyone jumped on the idea he would be playing the MCU incarnation of Prince Namor McKenzie, aka, The Sub-Mariner. One of Marvel’s first superheroes and mutants that predates the popular Stan Lee era.
Now, Huerta’s role as Namor has been confirmed thanks to the official promo artwork that circulated on Twitter (via @MCU_Facility) over the weekend. It shows Namor in mesoamerican Indigenous garb along with another image with Namor wearing a headdress that seems to be honoring Tepeyollotl, the Aztec jaguar god that might share superhero similarities to Wakanda’s own feline god Bast.
A welcomed update on the character’s origin. His original heroics saw him mostly destroying America’s WWII enemies including very racist depictions of the Japanese forces but would eventually be an important cog in the Fantastic Four comic books and the greater Marvel Comics universe. Namor has played both anti-hero, and villain at varying points of the comics and almost went to all-out nuclear war with Wakanda in the pages of The Defenders. So, having him join the Black Panther sequel was something many of us wanted to see going back to 2018.
Not only that, the artwork also featured the Atlantis villain Attuma, who is expected to be an antagonist. How exactly Atlantis will be featured in the film remains to be seen but will hopefully be extremely different from the Aquaman films.
Universal Pictures for the longest time held the solo film rights and even once attempted a feature film with Jonathan Mostow (Terminator 3: Rise of The Machines), but it never went in front of cameras. However, it looks like Marvel Studios figured out how to include him in the Marvel Cinematic Universe but we don’t know if he’ll end up getting his own solo series or film down the road. It wouldn’t be hard to imagine that Namor could factor in future things like the Fantastic Four reboot, Doctor Strange 3, Captain America 4 (via a McGuggin like the Serpent Crown), or even a big crossover event like Secret Wars as a supporting character.
We’ll likely see some first-look images or even teaser footage at San Diego Comic-Con later this month as the Black Panther sequel is heading to theaters on November 11 and promotion for the film will likely begin as soon as Thor: Love & Thunder is released into the wild later this week.
The next big Marvel Studios release to grace the big screen will be Chloe Zhao’s Eternals, which will see the MCU version of the team. We already know that the film incarnation will be different than their comic book counterparts and a new detail might help link them to a similar group of god-like aliens.
Marvel’s Nate Moore recently revealed to Comic Book another slight tweak to the Eternals origin, stating the group of immortals are from an alien planet called Olympia.
“In the past we see the Eternals, who, in our version of the mythology, are immortal aliens from a planet called Olympia. [They’ve] been asked by the Celestials to come to Earth to rid the Earth of creatures called the Deviants. The Deviants are these parasitic aliens who go from planet to planet, and as they kill the apex predators on a given planet, they sort of take the characteristics of those predators and wipe out intelligent life. Well, the Eternals are heroes, so they’ve come to earth to eradicate the Deviants and allow humanity to thrive.”
In the comics, Olympia aka High Olympus was set on Earth in Greece.
Interestingly enough, The Olympians (Marvel’s cosmic version of the Greek pantheon of gods) will be officially introduced in Thor: Love & Thunder after Australian actor Russell Crowe revealed he’d be playing the MCU version of Zeus in the sequel.
I don’t exactly see why Marvel wouldn’t have Zeus and The Olympians also being from this planet of Olympia as a streamlined way to be less confusing to audiences by making the groups essentially interchangeable. This might also be why Zuras (Thena’s father) isn’t in the film, both Zeus and Zuras have similar character designs in the comics.
Zeus, of course, is the father of demigod Hercules Panhellenios aka The Prince of Power, who just happened to be on The Avengers roster around the same time as Gemma Chan’s Sersi and Kit Harington’s Dane Whitman aka Black Knight.
Adding a bit of fuel is that director Chloe Zhao told Empire Magazine that the Eternals are “akin to stories of Greek and Roman gods, who live very human lives with human traits, rivalries, jealousies and frailties.”
It’s hard not to notice this information only further distancing themselves from Thanos and Titan. In the trailer, Ajax (played by Selma Hayek) explained that The Mad Titan wasn’t a Deviant, which prevented them to interfere with his dastardly plan to kill half the universe (addition of Olympia could suggest he’s not an Eternal either). This line was also likely out of convenience because Marvel wasn’t even thinking about bringing Jack Kirby’s obscure creations, The Eternals, into the MCU until Chloe Zhao pitched them on the idea.
However, nothing stops them from making Titans like Starfox part of the Eternals/Olympian group.
The MCU version of Deviants could also have a larger connection to Lemurians and world of Namor/Atlantis, if Lemuria and Atlantis both were sunk during The Great Cataclysm (potentially shown in Eternals). This might explain why we see Deviants coming out of the ocean in the trailer footage and possibly where they’ve been hiding out for 5,000 years until the events of the film.
I guess we’ll have to wait and see when Eternals releases on November 5.
Yesterday, fans discovered the possibility of Namor (Prince of Atlantis) villain Gargantos being involved in a fight sequence in Sam Raimi’s Doctor Strange In The Multiverse of Madness. It felt like a big hint that Namor is coming to the Marvel Cinematic Universe or even the Doctor Strange sequel after Scott Derrickson had teased on Twitter before deleting the post and exiting the film leading to rewrites from Michael Waldron (Loki).
Despite believable rumors of Namor (alongside other characters) showing up in Ryan Coogler’s Black Panther: Wakanda Forever (Atlantis and Wakanda having battled each other before), neither the trades nor Marvel Studios have confirmed this exciting potential. Given that Angela Bassett told Entertainment Tonight there have been at least five versions of the script means that things could have been tweaked/changed over the last year or two.
“There have been about five incarnations of the script and I hear another one’s coming,” Bassett said of the script development of Black Panther: Wakanda Forever.
While the Darkhold (book of dark magic) is being introduced in WandaVision and should play a large role in Doctor Strange 2, we could be seeing more dangerous items falling into the wrong hands.
The addition of Gargantos may mean another dangerous McGuffin could be coming to the MCU as well. As the comic that featured Gargantos included the former ruler of Atlantis, Naga of Lumeria. The Lumerians are sort of antagonists to the Atlanteans, and their leader Naga wears an object of interest of Marvel Comics, the Serpent Crown. Interestingly enough, Captain America: The Winter Soldier gave them a brief nod with the SHIELD ship in the opening sequence being called The Lumerian Star (seemingly a HYDRA operation).
The Serpent Crown has connections to various villains such as Mephisto (Marvel’s cosmic version of the Devil), Ophelia Sarkissian aka Viper, The Serpent Society (once led by Sarkissian), and the aforementioned Naga of Lumeria.
In the comics, Scarlet Witch, Doctor Strange, Spider-Man, and the Thing teamed up to fight against Quasar, who was possessed by the Serpent Crown.
The Serpent Society connection is a big standout here. Mainly, because it was the fake title (Captain America: Serpent Society) used before Kevin Feige announced that they would be making Captain America: Civil War and announced the casting of Chadwick Boseman as T’Challa/Black Panther. There had been reports that The Falcon & The Winter Soldier head writer Malcolm Spellman and Dalan Musson had been assigned to write Captain America 4, assumed to star Anthony Mackie. So, setting up the Serpent Society as a threat or giving clues to the Serpent Crown beforehand would be a good way to go.
The Serpent Society has a connection to Lumeria, which makes the Lumerian Star tease in Captain America: The Winter Soldier even more interesting given that it was controlled by HYDRA. Viper, also goes by the codename Madame Hydra. They could easily become the successors to HYDRA and make for foes for Sam Wilson’s new Captain America or even the Thunderbolts.
I wouldn’t be that shocked if Val (was an incarnation of Madame Hydra in the comics) or Sharon Carter’s Power Broker are part of this MCU incarnation of The Serpent Society, given that Viper once controlled the island nation of Madripoor, which seemingly we’ll be revisiting in the future possibly in Shang-Chi & The Legend of The Ten Rings.
Roxxon’s Hugh Jones (who appeared in Agents of SHIELD) attempted to use the Serpent Crown to gain control of the U.S. government in the comics, it’s possible the MCU could reboot that character as they have with the Darkhold in WandaVision. The Loki series, that gave us a true introduction to The Multiverse, featured Roxxon’s Walmart proxy Roxxcart.
I guess we’ll have to wait on March 25, 2022 to known for sure if Namor, Atlantis, and The Serpent Crown are coming.
Ever since Marvel Studios got rights to mutants and the X-Men we’ve all be heavily anticipating when that could happen it is starting to feel like we’re getting extremely close to at least an introduction to mutants in the Marvel Cinematic Universe very soon.
Kevin Feige has previously stated that Elizabeth Olsen’s Wanda Maximoff will “truly become the Scarlet Witch” in her solo series WandaVision and the recent trailer has seemingly confirmed certain elements we all assumed would be explored in the show after the cosmic orgainzation S.W.O.R.D. will be introduced which is directly from the pages of the X-Men comics with folks like Dr. Hank McCoy aka Beast among the team.
In the comics, Wanda and her brother Quicksilver are the children of X-Men villain Magneto an origin element that has never been used in the MCU incarnations as the studio had shared use with 20th Century Fox at the time of Avengers: Age of Ultron but weren’t allowed to reference mutants or X-Men. Their powers were explained by HYDRA’s human experiments with Loki’s staff to create metahumans.
Mutants are normally born with a mutant gene that leads to their superpowers.
It’s been assumed for a long time that series would be a version of House of M storyline, where Wanda creates a new reality, this would explain why a very dead Vision can father twins (Speed and Wiccan) and why we don’t see them outside of this suburban neighborhood.
There was seemingly a direct nod to the comic run in the new trailer with a shot of a wine bottle called Maison du Mepris (House of Contempt), which could be seen as House of M nod from certain perspectives.
I’m also thinking the wine bottle is a nod to the 1963 French New Wave film from director Jean-Luc Godard titled Le Mépris aka Contempt.
LE MEPRIS – A philistine in the art film business, Jeremy Prokosch (Jack Palance) is a producer unhappy with the work of his director. Prokosch has hired Fritz Lang (as himself) to direct an adaptation of The Odyssey, but when it seems that the legendary filmmaker is making a picture destined to bomb at the box office, he brings in a screenwriter (Michel Piccoli) to energize the script. The professional intersects with the personal when a rift develops between the writer and his wife (Brigitte Bardot).
The reference might have a double meaning and indicate a future rift between Wanda/Vision with the “House of Contempt” becoming the one they’re stuck in leading to friction. It’s also worth noting we still don’t have any indication that the series will introduce any mutants and if Monica Rambeau lands her powers in the series we don’t know if she’ll have mutant status.
Then again, Wanda could manifest mutant properties in people across the globe these are comic book stories after all.
There are likely more casting and character surprises on the way.
Kathryn Hahn is rumored to be playing legit witch Agatha Harkness, but Marvel has yet to make this official. If she is indeed playing Harkness as the witch costume would suggest, this could connect the character to large events in the Marvel universe’s past including the sinking of the Kingdom of Atlantis. This event is referred to in the comics as The Great Cataclysm and has direct ties to the Eternals. One version has a Celestial and the Deviants causing it. Another one in the Ultimate Universe suggests that Agatha had something to do with the fate of Atlantis.
I wouldn’t be shocked if S.W.O.R.D. is involved because Mephisto has a part to play with what is going on with Wanda and Vision, a cosmic entity that happens to be Marvel’s version of the devil and could be pulling the strings as he likes to torture various heroes. However, I’m not entirely sure why S.W.O.R.D. is doing there unless they believe that whatever is happen is somehow alien related and it very well could be.
Chloe Zhoa’s Eternals seems like another perfect oppurtunity to give audiences a new version of the mutants via the mutant gene that inserted into humanity via Celesitials, who are a third offshoot of Eternals and Deviants. It is established in the comics Harkness has been on Earth for a long time and was kicking around during The Great Cataclysm, 20,000 years in the past and would have likely had run ins with Eternals and Celesitials given her age/powers in the comics.
Harkness given her age making her either mutant or an eternal herself wouldn’t be shocking. I don’t think it would take much of a leap to connect her to Kit Harington’s Dane Whitman aka Black Knight either given his connection sorcery and witchcraft.
An Atlantis connection via WandaVision or Eternals could help usher in mutants in another way beyond Scarlet Witch’s powers and The Multiverse.
It’s been established that Namor McKenzie aka The Sub-Mariner is the first mutant concerning Marvel’s publication history as he predates the X-Men as one of the very first legacy superheroes with mutant abilities and there was even a run in 2011 titled Namor: The First Mutant. That same year he joined the X-Men during events like Avengers vs X-Men and was recently seen in X-Men Red.
While they made sure to separate his mutant abilities like flying from his Atlantean power-set, there is a chance that Marvel alters that for the MCU version. In the 1960s, Professor Xavier and Magneto tried to recruit him into their various mutant factions and only recently has joined their ranks.
Namor is an extremely important crossover character with connections to the Fantastic Four, The Illuminati, and Agents of Atlas led by Randall Park’s Jimmy Woo with his cousin Namora on the team. He also teamed up with Hulk, Doctor Strange, Valkyrie, and others on the original version of The Defenders.
There had been some teases from director Scott Derrickson on Twitter that Namor could be part of his sequel Doctor Strange In The Multiverse of Madness, but that element hinted to may not have survived the development process or the final version that Sam Raimi makes. Then again, Harkness in WandaVision and Eternals both covering Atlantis could help establish Namor beforehand.
Simu Liu’s Shang-Chi is part of the Agents of Atlas which could be another entry point to introduce Atlantis, Namor, and Namora into the MCU. There are already unconfirmed rumors that Shang-Chi & The Legend of The Ten Rings will include a mutant character.
It’s still pretty damn neat we’re getting the mutants in the Marvel Cinematic Universe even if we have to wait a couple more years before the main X-Men team gets a proper reboot. However, it’s still not cut-and-dry when we’ll start seeing recognizable mutant characters but I’m eager to find out.
Deadline is reporting that Jurassic World director Colin Trevorrow is already putting together another film at Universal Pictures after he completes Jurassic World: Dominion (expected to resume production next month at Pinewood Studios UK), which will seemingly stick to genre film making.
The project titled Atlantis is a thriller that will focus on the mythical lost society that has advanced technology. It’s story was development by Colin and Bridge of Spies screenwriter Matt Charman with a script penned by Dante Harper.
Atlantis is set on a lost continent in the Indian Ocean between Africa, India and Oceania. It is a multicultural civilization with its own advanced technology.
Atlantis has been done a lot in pop-culture and most recently was explored in James Wan’s DC Comics film Aquaman. There is expectation that the Marvel Cinematic Universe will also tackle their own version of Atlantis with the character Namor The Sub-Mariner.
Colin had been originally hired to write and direct the final installment of the new Star Wars trilogy before he exited over creative differences and his version Duel of The Fates didn’t make the rounds online until after the release of Star Wars: The Rise of Skywalker.
Dante’s credits include the original Edge of Tomorrow script, worked on Ridley Scott’s Alien: Covenant, and most recently he tackled Gareth Edwards’ Rogue One follow-up Forever.
Trevorrow’s Metronome Film Co. will produce.
Jurassic World: Dominion was originally set to be released on June 11th, 2021 but delays might bump the sequel to a later date.
THE RONIN 