Historically speaking, DC Comics' popular legacy characters were published before Marvel's in the comic books. Some examples include Superman, which was published in 1938, several years before Iron Man was published in 1963; Batman hit shelves in 1939 before Moon Knight's 1975 debut, and the list goes on...
With Namor being one of the few Marvel Comics characters to have appeared first, the fact that he is only just now making his Marvel Cinematic Universe debut as part of Ryan Coogler's Black Panther: Wakanda Forever is a bit surprising.
Namor, who is also known as the Sub-Mariner, made his comic book debut in 1939, while DC's Aquaman appeared two years later in 1941. Of course, this is not the case when it comes to the movies as DC was able to beat Marvel to the punch when it came to the world of aquatic superhero films when it released Aquaman in 2018 with Jason Momoa in the starring role. In addition, Aquaman is still one of DC's most successful movies according to Box Office Mojo, with the film generating more than one billion dollars worldwide, and its sequel set to land in theaters next year.
With both characters sharing many things in common, how did Ryan Coogler differentiate Namor from DC's Aquaman? Coogler just happned to open up dring a recent interview with Uproxx on this very topic. Coogler shared that he and the crew of Black Panther: Wakanda Forever went to great measures to guarantee that there would be no confusion between Namor, who has been hailed as the original comic book antihero, and his DC rival.
"I do think that having Aquaman out in the world, in film language, and being successful in the marketplace, I think it was a great bit of indirect guidance for us to lean into the things that made Namor different from Aquaman. Just out of respect to the audience because a lot of people saw that movie. A lot of people love that movie. It was our task to, obviously, put our heads down and blinders on and make our movie, but also have a sense of awareness of what the marketplace might want to respond to, and might be interested in."
The director then went on to add: "I think giving people something different, if you can give somebody something good, that’s also unique, I think it’s always better. We wanted to lean into the things that make those two characters different from each other because they have a lot of other similarities in publishing."
During the interview, Coogler also opened up about some of the things that they decided to highlight from the comics to ensure that the charactder wasn't seen simply as Marvel's version of Aquaman.
For us, it was like, Yo, you got to wear the green trunks. He’s got to have his winged ankles. He’s got to be relatively arrogant. He has to be long-lived. He’s got to be a child of two worlds, not really fitting into either one. He has to be very confident and very dangerous. In the comics, Namor can always back up what he’s saying.
Have you seen Black Panther: Wakanda Forever? Did Coogler and crew succeed in their attempt to make Namor his own iconic character? Sound off in the comments area below!