A New Black Panther: Wakanda Forever Featurette Gives Us Our Best Look Yet At Namor

We're getting close to the release of "Black Panther: Wakanda Forever," and with it, the big screen debut of Namor. The underwater superhero first premiered back in 1939 in "Marvel Comics" #1, making him even older than another damp comics character, Aquaman. Today, Marvel Entertainment has released a new featurette about the formidable figure. Though Namor dwells in Atlantis in the pages of comic books, his domain here is Talocan, a fictional underwater kingdom created for the film. 

The character is played by Tenoch Huerta Mejía, who learned the Mayan language for the role. He also learned how to swim just for this, which is a wild thought. In the film, Namor is an anti-hero, though we have yet to see exactly what that entails. We do know from the trailers that he'll be going up against Wakanda's Queen Ramonda (Angela Bassett) and a country who has lost its king and hero, T'Challa (the late Chadwick Boseman). 

In the featurette, we get to know a bit more about Namor, as well as hear from Huerta Mejía about what it means to play him. 

Namor says that his people believe that "only the most broken people can be great leaders." As he says it, we see a shot of him as a child in front of a burning building, heavily implying that he is broken as well. We'll have to wait and see what that means for the leadership of both nations, but as this film deals with grief, that idea certainly speaks to the theme. 

In the featurette, Ryan Coogler, director and co-writer of "Black Panther: Wakanda Forever," explains that "introducing Namor was really an opportunity to introduce another sovereign ruler of a group of people." This guy has a throne made from the giant jaws of a sea creature and some pretty powerful warriors at his side. He's clearly going to pose a threat to the people of Wakanda, and whoever ends up taking on the mantle of Black Panther from T'Challa. 

Namor's people are his main concern, we learn. As Huerta Mejía says in the featurette, "Namor loves his people and he's going to protect them, because to be a ruler, you have to serve the people."

This is important to the actor as someone from Mesoamerica, saying, "Finally, I could find a more powerful representation of my culture, with dignity and respect." 

(Fun fact: In the film, it's pronounced "Nah-mour," not "Nay-mour.")

"Black Panther: Wakanda Forever" will hit theaters on November 11, 2022.