Atlanteans could be THE AVENGERS Villains

They look alot like Frost Giants to me. But I can see the Atlantean hypothesis as well. But for them to be Atlanteans then that means that Namor could quite possibly be in cahoots with Loki.

they're definitely NOT frost giants. Loki just killed their leader and almost their entire race.. why would they ever follow him?

What's interesting to me is the ship that they get off of. To me, it looked like a tail. Or a ship that's designed to look like a creatures body. I dunno, maybe they jumped off of Leviathan.

this brings up y namor would help loki... what would loki have to over the atlanteans??

But they must be from a different place than Earth. If the army is terrestrial than Loki's journey would be useless and that's a big part of his plan.

The top image is of Nick Fury vs a SHIELD guard, it's already been confirmed that's not an alien. If you look to the right of the monitor, Fury's pushing the guard's rifle out of the way, and if you look really closely, the 'dreadlocks' are actually the guard's bullet proof vest. It seems in that scene Loki has either brainwashed/possessed/whatever Nick Fury or the guard.

However, based on the image of the alien thing in the air, I'm almost certain that's not a Frost Giant. Apart from the obvious reasons (Loki being Jotunheim's Public Enemy Number 1 for a start), the design looks different, and the Frost Giant's didnt need any technology like breathing masks on Earth during the beginning of Thor (the big Viking battle prologue thing).

I'd say the Atlanteans are a good bet. They're capable of flight if I'm not mistaken, and to get that high off the ground the mystery alien people must be flying or something, plus the blue skin fits. While the Atlanteans of the comics can breath above water and have regular looking hands and feet, perhaps some minor artistic license has been taken to make them more aquatic, and thus distance them from humanity, so perhaps they now need masks to breath above water, anti-scuba gear if you will. The webbed hands and feet obviously make sense. Plus, when the mo-cap men were spotted on set, didn't a lot of them have weapons described as pretty much space-harpoons? Again, another aquatic/nautical thing. Also, perhaps some of these changes have been made to distance the characters from the Na'vi in Avatar. You have to admit, based on the comic image above, the blue skin, white markings, and dreadlocks could be mistaken by a casual (i.e. non-comic reading) audience.

Then if you look at it from the Studio point of view. We all know a Namor film has been in development hell for a long time, and that Marvel have said in the past that they want to get the ball rolling on more of their characters, such as Namor, Dr Strange, and Black Panther. What better way to get the ball rolling on Namor than to have his species be a large part of the Avengers film? Since Namor has been both a hero and villain, it fits for his species to be villainous in this film.

I'd also like to point out that Loki's new costume is said to have various trinkets from his travels since Thor, when he was gathering an army (not sure who said it, but I know it was said). I wouldn't expect for Loki's army to just consist of Atlanteans. It's extremely likely for the army to consist of multiple alien/Nine Realms/etc species.
@Gerrit that means his travels were not useless at all. He's gathering multiple species from various places in the universe, so he has a more diverse set of skills at his disposal. If you then plan on invading a planet, you want to make sure that the most powerful species from that planet (Atlanteans), who probably have very bitter feelings against the more populous species (humans) are on your side. Considering it's Loki who's gathering them, he probably told them a great big lie about how he sympathises with them, and how he wants to help them to help him conquer the Earth and that he'll let them live there peacefully, and completely freely.

It's even possible that the Atlanteans could be aliens. They've never had a concrete origin in the comics, so perhaps they're aliens who've lived on Earth for a very long time.

Oh yeah, as for why Namor would help Loki @HavokTurbo, am I right in thinking that Namor hasn't always been the ruler of Atlantis, and that he's occasionally been an outcast to them for being half Atlantean, half Human? Or am I thinking of Aquaman?