Avengers 4 and Phase Four are a bit of an enigma concerning Marvel’s plans.
One character we hope to see introduced is Namor The Sub-Mariner.
Marvel’s Kevin Feige had previously mentioned to IGN that the rights to Namor are complicated (due to Universal), but it seems to be that they might have figured something out.
“Yes, but it’s slightly more complicated than that. Let’s put it this way – there are entanglements that make it less easy.”
“There are older contracts that still involve other parties that mean we need to work things out before we move forward on it. As opposed to an Iron Man or any of the Avengers or any of the other Marvel characters where we could just put them in.”
Avengers: Infinity War and Avengers 4 screenwriters mentioned to THR that they’d love to write Namor in future films.
“Namor. He is kind of a jerk and has a chip on his shoulder and he is a king and lives underwater. The degree of difficulty is so high, though. Cause it could be a great movie or it could be truly terrible.”
Here’s a rundown of the connections and Easter Eggs in the films which collected together gives the impression they’ve been hinting towards Namor since Phase One.
IRON MAN 2
Oracle is a real company which has been seen frequently in the films, but Namor’s company also shares the name. Also, there is a big nod to Atlantis on Nick Fury’s meta-human map which had also teased Wakanda. If Wakanda has been hidden for all this time, why not Atlantis too?
CAPTAIN AMERICA: THE FIRST AVENGER
Concept art teased a man-made Atlantis.
CAPTAIN AMERICA: THE WINTER SOLDIER
The SHIELD ship Lemurian Star is a nod to villain race of the Lemurians, who are directly connected to Namor comics.
THOR: RAGNAROK
One of the guards spotted in the trailer is using a trident and has some similarities to an Atlantean.
ANT-MAN AND THE WASP
The inclusion of Jimmy Woo played by Randall Park could be another big tease, as Woo worked with Namor’s cousin and fellow legacy hero Namora on the team Agents of Atlas.
CAPTAIN MARVEL
It was confirmed by Kevin Feige that Captain Marvel would see the Skrulls as the main villains with the Kree-Skrull War being used as well, we spotted Kree soldiers in the concept art.
“And we’ve never seen the Skrulls, how come? Well we really wanted, we thought it would be fun to, there’s an entire section of our comics that deals with the Kree-Skrull War and we haven’t tapped into that at all. And we thought that would be an amazing huge portion of mythology to belong to Captain Marvel.”
Namor has tangled with both alien races and as a member of the Illuminati, a group that also includes Stark, T’Challa, and Strange who tackle cosmic threats. The group formed in the wake of Kree-Skrull War.
The secret group the Illuminati are eventually revealed to have visited the Kree and Skrull Empires and advised the aliens that involving Earth in their wars would not be tolerated.
Kevin Feige hinted to ScreenRant that we could be seeing the Illuminati in these next two Avengers films, most assume the Kree-Skrull War or Secret Invasion will play a role in Avengers 4.
“Well, what’s fun about the Illuminati is that there are certain characters interacting with other certain characters, so I don’t know about that particular storyline, but certainly some of those characters you will see on screen in the next Avengers.”
AVENGERS 4
Casting calls for Japanese roles (Yakuza) in Avengers 4 suggest the film will be heading to Tokyo, Japan. Which just happens to be a coastal city that would make sense for Namor to make his land-bound home and base of operations for his company Oracle. Ant-Man and the Wasp might also be heading to Japan as well via a casting call for Asian looking school kids the same age as Cassie.
There had also been rumblings of a Namor project shooting in Hawaii. Oahu doubled Okinawa in Karate Kid II and South Pacific campaign of WWII in Windtalkers.
One incarnation of the character is Namor Miyamoto, a half Japanese human and half Atlantean version. Many people have suggested he should be played by an Asian actor which has led some interest from Donnie Yen and Brian Tee.
The interior of the Oracle sphere in Iron Man 2 just happened to be a Japanese garden. Hmmm..
It’s just speculation on our part but it’s hard to ignore that Namor would make a great Avengers addition and deserves a Phase Four solo project.