When the Black Panther 2 trailer was finally unveiled at San Diego Comic-Con, a lot of new characters were teased to appear in the MCU sequel. One of those was Namor the Sub-Mariner, who will be played by Tenoch Huerta. The character has a long history in the Marvel comics universe — being created by Bill Everett in 1939 — but new Black Panther 2 merchandise suggests that they will be making a couple of major changes to set the Marvel movies iternation apart from its comic book counterpart.
In the Marvel comics, Namor is the ruler of Atlantis. However, eagle-eyed fans noticed that Namor’s ceremonial outfit in the trailer is more comparable to Mayan or Aztec mythology than it is to Atlantian mythology. This led to rumours that, in the Marvel movie, at least, Namor wouldn’t actually rule Atlantis at all.
This theory in turn appears to be confirmed by official Black Panther 2 merch, which is available to pre-order from the Hasbro website. As part of the Marvel Legends action figure series, a figure of Namor is listed on the site.
The figure is accompanied by a description that reads, “The ruler of Talocan, an ancient civilisation hidden in the depths of the ocean, Namor will stop at nothing to protect his people.”
According to ScreenRant, the name of this underwater kingdom, Talocan, is derived from the Aztec legend of Tlālōcān. Like Asgard, Tlālōcān is a kingdom ruled over by a God — in this case, Tlālōc, the God of rain. Taking this into account with his Aztec-inspired outfit, it looks like Namor is meant to stand in for Tlālōc, which means that Marvel needn’t risk competing with the DCEU’s own ruler of Atantis, Aquaman.
Personally, I hope The Boys supe The Deep ends up making a cameo appearance. Black Panther 2 will arrive in theatres on November 2022.