As I stated before I have not read everything with T’challa and his comics but Namor has been both ally and enemy to Doom and Magneto and both joins and fights often in the same issue and on both occasions he fought with them over their methods: with Magneto; Namor stood against him when he saw his mistreatment of Wanda and Pietro because Namor is not only a King but a protector and a gentleman and he would stand against those who use their powers to harm those who are weaker than them. In this all Magneto did was speak to Wanda in a way Namor didn’t approve of. As for Doom, he and Namor have a very famous super-villain team ups that show him and Victor allying then fighting all the time. Even in the comic where T’challa and Ororo go to visit Namor and he tells them he had been in Wakanda years before he warns them of Doom.Priest had the two mingle when he had T'challa holding court with Doom, Namor, and Magneto (each rulers of their nations). It was obvious they all respected one another...but they looked at each other as potential future adversaries...but royalty had them be respectful (remember BP would eventually fall out with Doom as well).
So Namor showing respect to the others only lasts as long as he thinks they deserve it and he often sees others as his enemy rather than as his friend first.
Something that often irks me is how everyone at Marvel seem to think that Namor, a 96 year old descendant of Neptune trained from a birth to be a Ruler not just over the city and people but the armies of Atlantis and the oceans. Namor isn’t dumb in the sense that he cannot command armies or isn’t a master strategist, he just isn’t lab science smart that other characters like Reed are. Also Namor is far better in his own environment; marine biology, Atlantean tech, languages, and war experience he has so much of.That's the point...they AREN'T but (and I'll admit it's used to show how smart T'challa is) so T'challa uses strategy to gain the advantage. In a one on one fight Namor would win. Namor could/tear through a great deal of Marvel characters. And Namor knows that T'challa knows this...so they can't go at each other personally...but they could take shots at each other in other ways.
T’challa is smart I agree, and as you said Namor is a match for anyone in a straight fight. T’challa uses his strengths in a fight same as Namor.
But the question here is that Atlantis and Wakanda (not the two rulers) have never been on fair grounds due to how much Marvel writers weaken Atlantis and Atlanteans; as I said before how could Shuri’s army sneak up on people who live, fight, and breath in water? Then if Atlanteans come up on land they are at a disadvantage because that is not their element. So whether in water or on land the battle scales were always tipped in Wakanda’s favor and that is why I say Namor and T’challa have never been on equal grounds with fights between their countries.
As I stated earlier Namor often if not always fights those who are rulers and kings like Doom before having a ‘cease of hostilities’ to work with them or they have a respect for each other later that is tempered by the knowledge that they will never be close friends. This isn’t new with Namor’s character, the difference only being that T’challa being more on the side of good than evil. (I very vaguely recall that run of comics but I think it was in the early 2000’s? Long before AVX) Misunderstanding fights are always happening with Namor and even all the characters of Marvel before team ups as well. Also Doom is a world power as well so the level of the fight is the same.The went at it in Enemy of the State during Priest's run. They also tussled when some Atlantians (Deviants I think) sought asylum in Wakanda. Those events set the stage (of kingly respect yet preemptive and simmering hostility) that later writers inflamed. I'd like to think that if Priest would have kept at Panther their conflict would be much more engaging than the soap opera it turned into. It would have been akin to two world superpowers flexing and the rest of the world trying to keep them at bay from each other.
"No one should ever question where my allegiance lies." - Namor of Atlantis
Exactly...later writers blew up a civil "cold war" into a tit for tat between the two with citizens of each country paying the price. I hated the AvX storyline because it split Storm and Panther. BUT it did show (time and time again) that even as enemies they are kings and they can try to follow the greater good and work together even as Namor antagonizes Panther and T'challa has to deal with unhappy ancestors who want him to kill Namor. It does show the strength of each of them...and their weakness. Basically since Namor couldn't pester Reed as much...someone had the "bright idea" to make T'challa Namor's new toy.
Namor hasn’t pestered Reed so much in the last decade or so anyways, he wouldn’t care about T’challa being his ‘toy’ because Namor doesn’t play with his enemies, his snarky asshole attitude is directed to just about everyone, one notable person is Tony Stark, I have seen Namor fight and do stuff to annoy Tony a lot, even once raising a wall of water then asking to be taken into government custody but not by Tony, by a small team just to make Tony look incompetent in not securing him as a prisoner. Namor asks that Susan of the Fantastic Four be the one who deals with him, he often does this because out of all the Fantastic Four and Surface Dwellers he respects Susan a lot and with Captain America dead at the time he didn’t have anyone else to request.
Once more, I am ever so happy that Marvel has decided (for now) to stop the Reed/Sue/Namor triangle because it is something that is only there because Namor is the antagonist, trying to tempt Susan away from reed and the four. Reed is meant to be the hero in the fantastic four and what better to pit him against than a man who is his opposite? Brain vs Brawn in the fight for Susan’s affections? Marvel did this for decades, and knowing full well that Susan would never end up with Namor at any point.No Namor normally wouldn't send a 3rd party BUT he took a move out of T'challa's book. He's playing the long game. Is that something Namor usually doesn't do? Sure. He's all IMPERIUS REX!! But it's a nice move. And T'challa knew he did it...and Namor admitted as much. They aren't enemies....but they don't like each other...but no one is the "good guy" because they've both done jacked up stuff to each other however they HAVE to work together. I mean would you rather Namor endlessy taunt Reed about wanting Sue Richard? At least in T'challa we have this potential world shattering tussle on the horizon. BUT they are both kings first and superheroes second. That's why they act like they do...especially with each other. I'd argue if it wasn't for advisers/councils/etc. they'd probably leave each other alone. If they weren't both heroes they probably fight and be done with it. But they can't because of internal and external responsibilities.
I do not think that Namor and Sue would ever be a good couple even if they did end up together, and they work so much better as friends.
As I said before, Namor would never send anyone in his place and the writing of his character was to me ooc. Namor does have different stateries, not saying that he wouldn’t play a long game but this did not seem like a long game to me, Namor would know that this would be one hard hit and not something to crumble the nation of Wakanda slowly over time. Namor was willing to end things and did reach out for peace, yet Shuri did not accept because she knew that if she didn’t attack Namor she would lose face with her people. Unlike what I have read with Wakandan politics Namor is more of a single ruler who frequently does things that do make him lose face with his people all the time, each time he stops an attack on the surface he is judged but he does it anyways. His word is law once spoken and very few people can influence him and at this point in the comics those who could have: Vasthi and Dorma, are in limbo/dead.
I agree so hard, the less I have to think about that, the better. lolThat SS angle....the less said the better. Thankfully that book didn't last to long
The reason why I say it is on unequal ground is that Namor and his people are refugees, they do not own land, have any say about what happens in Wakanda, he is literally at the mercy and good will of Wakanda’s King, and T’challa could have done as his ancestors had done and turned people away and he would have had the right and support of his people. It does not strike me as any kind of smart to ever give Namor any land or rights in Wakanda such as to vote on matters, etc. The marriage was political in the sense that it does give them a reason to not ever fight in the future for someday T’challa would have killed Namor or tried to and he states this, not that Namor would kill him.But remember in that story T'challa also admits its good that one of Namor's kids and his married because it kept them from killing each other. It never states Atlantis can't defend itself or has Namor on unequal footing. If that was the case there would be no reason for such a marriage (which was political for Namor and T'challa) but love on the part of the married couple. That's what kings did, marry their kids to help ensure a peace that would be impossible otherwise...and it wasn't done with a kingdom that was weaker. The marriage shows how on even footing they are. A Wakandan invasion of Atlantis would be disastrous for Wakanda. An Atlantean invasion of Wakanda would be the same for the Atlanteans (which is why Namor had the Black Order do it instead of his people).
Another thing that I found to be off was the term of ‘black Atlanteans’ like they would be seen as something people feared but there have been black Atlanteans before, in a wolverine comic there is one shown. Atlanteans are a race of blue skinned people but white is not their default skin tone when they come out of the water, but rather they do have different ethnicities of the surface world, otherwise they would not have been able to blend into every country of the world at the end of the 2007 sub-mariner run.
The thing about Priest stating that T’challa was not a hero but a king and pushing that narrative would have been something stand out for the Black Panther comics, but Namor (as the first comic book royalty) has been written this way since the beginning, he never states he is a hero, or a villain, he states he is a Prince of Atlantis, and that men know him as The Sub-Mariner, (then later changed to King of Atlantis) a lot throughout his comics.They aren't enemies in the X-men vs Magneto sense. They are KINGS who see a potential threat in the other because they are looking seven moves ahead. They don't like each other...but they royally respect each other. That was a Priest plot point showing that BP isn't a superhero...he's a KING. Same as Namor, Doom, Black Bolt, and Magneto (at the time). These guy operate above good and evil. And neither one is totally good/evil in this. Namor is not the enemy for T'challa to defeat. He's not in his rogues gallery. He's another king in a nation that could really give Wakanda an L. IF he was in a BP movie (that way I see it) he wouldn't be the villian. He'd be the 3rd party. In the end he and T'challa would be on the same side. But BP would be the best place to have Namor pop up. He'd be another unknown might nation...
I hope all of this makes sense.
Namor is the first anti-hero so he was never about good or evil, he was always about his code and what he thought was right, to me T’challa is more good, he isn’t the anti-hero Namor is, and both of them do not operate above the laws of good and evil, they simply do their thing, unwilling to let people tell them not to.
I personally feel if Namor was introduced in a Black Panther movie he would not be a third party, he would be an villain, and even if they do the ‘he was our enemy but now we are allies because he was tricked/there is another enemy that is worse than Namor/we decided that fighting was only killing our nations thing’ it wouldn’t matter to the greater audience because they would only see Namor as Black Panther’s villain and that is what Marvel would push. I didn't like how Wakanda which is one of the few positively shown African nations was destroyed like that in the comics.
If Namor is ever to have a movie debut, he would need one of his own, or an Invaders movie to really have his time for character growth. This is all just my opinion of course and others are totally allowed to have differing ones.
"No one should ever question where my allegiance lies." - Namor of Atlantis
If Marvel plans to use Namor, they should do an Atlantis Attacks based movie to introduce him as a conflicted king.
Aquaman might have screwed up any potential for a Namor solo, but they could make him an Avengers frenemy and eventual outright ally and use him for a major global conflict.
I may even steal plot elements from See Wakanda and Die and use that as a way to introduce Atlantis into a Secret Invasion storyline, basically make it See Atlantis and Die (sort like how Thor: Ragnarok is basically Planet Hulk, but instead Thor is Hulk and Hulk is Silver Surfer).
Basically make Namor an Avengers-level character rather than a foil to a solo hero.
If Captain Marvel is the new "Thor", make Namor the new "Hulk".
Last edited by KOSLOX; 12-28-2018 at 08:10 AM.
Pull List:
Marvel Comics: Venom, X-Men, Black Panther, Captain America, Eternals, Warhammer 40000.
DC Comics: The Last God
Image: Decorum
Also, I'd retcon it so that Namor was *actual* friends with T'challa's Grandfather. I've said many times that I'd make him a *secret* Invader along with John Aman, and would have them help out in some northern Africa operations.
One of the reasons Namor would only have grudging acknowledgement of T'challa is because he respected his Grandfather and sees T'challa as a just a boy trying to fill in a role he doesn't believe he is suited for.
I think it would add some context and complexity to their relationship. Sort of like how Steve Rogers likes T'challa because he too was friends with Azzuri, Namor would be the flip side to that*.
(*Think: I knew Jack Kennedy, and Senator you're no Jack Kennedy).
Last edited by KOSLOX; 12-28-2018 at 08:18 AM.
Pull List:
Marvel Comics: Venom, X-Men, Black Panther, Captain America, Eternals, Warhammer 40000.
DC Comics: The Last God
Image: Decorum
A Namor fan and friend went to see the Aquaman movie and told me about it and now I just feel very pissed at how much was taken from Namor? I mean if Namor ever got a movie they would have to change it a ton because people will think he is a Aquaman ripoff and that sucks! I want to share this pic but if you want me to take it down then I will, it doesn't really have any spoilers but it just got me so mad because it just screams Namor to me.
aquamomoa.jpg
"No one should ever question where my allegiance lies." - Namor of Atlantis
"No one should ever question where my allegiance lies." - Namor of Atlantis
I snorted loudly when I saw that in the movie, and I'm sure everyone wondered why.
Yes, now you can understand why I said there will never be a Namor movie, because the Aquaman movie stole too much from Namor. One of the central elements of Namor's character is his status as the outsider, the 'half-breed' prince, who is not accepted with either parent's world. And even Orm, has important elements we've normally seen first and mostly in Namor -- including that slicked back hair style. LOL!
This article from CBR points out exactly what Aquaman appropriated from Namor, and how important it is, and even mentions this wasn't original to Aquaman, yet never mentions that this is a key factor of Namor's character.
https://www.cbr.com/aquaman-first-bi...uperhero-film/
This article talks about Orm the Environmentalist.
https://www.cbr.com/aquamans-king-or...-dceu-villain/
Oh, and then there's emphasis on the Mom. Princess Fen would be proud.
LOL! I don't think we want to see drunk Namor. O_O
I thought the same thing.
Namor the Sub-Mariner, Marvel's oldest character, will have been published for 85 years in 2024. So where's my GOOD Namor anniversary ongoing, Marvel?
Yep, I know that Orm in the comics had dark hair but they changed that for the movies too.
pffft, they really did that, they just took things that were the backbone of Namor's story since the beginning and just gave it all the aquamomoa, (i like the actor but i dont like how this all played out) Namor could have also had a very good arc with his mother, since I recall there was an issue that says she had always been ashamed of him for being born a half breed.
I just feel it is a waste because Namor has such a compelling and interesting story and now we might not ever get to see that on screen.
Thanks for the links and I think I will pass on seeing this in theaters, I may just rent it when it comes out.
"No one should ever question where my allegiance lies." - Namor of Atlantis
I think they'll likely introduce Namor in a new FF film, gauge reactions and then do a Namor solo.
Have him already established in FF and then no need for an origin movie.
As for villains, I'd have Attuma team up with some corporation on the surface world(Roxxon, Brand, etc).