This week, audiences will finally get to visit Wakanda again, as well as celebrate the legacy of the late great Chadwick Boseman with Black Panther: Wakanda Forever. The movie will not only shine a spotlight on more of the fictional country, but it will also bring to screen, for the first time, one of the earliest comic book superheroes since the phenomenon of Superman first took the world by storm. Namor made his debut in 1939 in the Marvel universe, at the time, known as Timely Comics.
Namor, the Submariner, originally comes from the mythical city of Atlantis, being the mutant son of a human sea captain and an Atlantean Princess. For Black Panther: Wakanda Forever, his origin is changed from Atlantis to Talokan. Director Ryan Coogler tells Inverse that he aimed to give audiences a new experience with his new background. Coogler explains,
There have been a lot of representations and creative depictions of Atlantis based off of Plato’s Atlantis, the Greco-Roman concept of a city sunk into the sea. That idea exists in a lot of different ways. We wanted our film to exist alongside those movies and be different. It was really out of respect to the audience, not wanting to give them something similar to other things that have come before it. If you Google lost cities or lost continents, this idea of things sinking into the ocean and disappearing, or even people that live in the water, you’ll see that idea represented in myths all over the planet. So that encouraged us to try to find a way to do it differently.”
In 2018, the DCEU released a solo film of their own submarine superhero, Aquaman. In that film, the titular character is similarly born of a human fisherman and a princess of the Greek mythological city of Atlantis. It seems like Coogler wanted to avoid comparisons and resemblances to that character, especially since the sequel will be coming soon. There will already be comparisons made to another underwater-themed movie, Avatar: The Way of Water, with James Cameron presenting his own world-building of a planet’s oceans.
Black Panther: Wakanda Forever will be hitting theaters this November 11.