As heartbreaking as it may be that Chadwick Boseman isn't here to reprise the role of T'Challa in Black Panther: Wakanda Forever, Marvel Studios is giving fans plenty of reasons to be excited about the upcoming sequel. Among them is the MCU debut of Namor the Submariner, with Tenoch Huerta set to put a fresh spin on the King of Atlantis.
Making Namor the movie's antagonist lines up with the comic books where he has a far from cordial relationship with Black Panther. It's a real shame we won't get to explore that dynamic here, but the Atlantean taking aim at Wakanda still spells big trouble for the country's heroes.
Talking to Empire Online, Marvel Studios President Kevin Feige revealed that Black Panther director Ryan Coogler wanted to end that movie by teasing Namor's planned invasion of Wakanda.
"Ryan had a pitch for a tag at the end of Black Panther," he explains. "The camera would push through the palace in Wakanda, and then we’d see wet footprints leading up to the throne."
That would have been awesome, but given when Black Panther was released, it wouldn't have worked. T'Challa went straight from his first solo movie into Avengers: Infinity War and he was then among those blipped out of existence by Thanos. From there, he vanished for five years, meaning this tease would have been left unresolved for far too long.
Still, it shows that Coogler has had longtime plans for Namor, and we're intrigued to see where his story goes beyond this movie. Will Marvel Studios use the anti-hero as a one-and-done villain or could he be a major player in this shared world? That may boil down to how fans respond to the Atlantean when he takes the fight to Wakanda later this year.
Black Panther: Wakanda Forever arrives in theaters on November 11.
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