When Disney acquired the rights to Marvel, fans were left wondering about certain characters whose film rights were still owned by other movie studios. Marvel has slowly reobtained some of those characters — or made deals to “share” the character like their deal with Sony and Spider-Man — and today marks another classic character that might be back at the House of Ideas.
According to Marvel’s Chief Creative Officer Joe Quesada, Namor the Sub-Mariner has broken free from his chains over at Universal and his film rights have reverted back to Marvel. To be fair, Quesada has made this statement in the past, but considering that there has been no progress or even scuttlebutt surrounding a Universal version of Namor, it’s more likely that Quesada is correct this time around.
Namor is an important character in Marvel’s history, debuting alongside the original android version of the Human Torch in Marvel Comics #1. He’s also the first mutant in Marvel’s publication history, but seeing as how Fox owns the right to the term “mutant” when it comes to describing superpowered individuals, it will be interesting to see how the eventual cinematic version of Namor gets around that little legal snag.
It makes sense for Marvel to start devising how to inject Namor into the Marvel Cinematic Universe since DC has already got an Aquaman film lining up. Namor is much more of an anti-hero when compared to Arthur Curry, and his demeanor could very much be in line with Black Panther‘s in Captain America: Civil War. It’d even be greater if Marvel played him as an invader from the seas but made it clear that he’s not a villain in the classical sense. Blurring the lines between heroes and villains makes for some of the most compelling stories and Namor lends himself to such morally gray tales.
Marvel’s got a fairly full slate on their hands so don’t expect any Namor news to pop up soon, but it’s a good bet that he’ll be introduced in another larger film before getting his own solo endeavor. It’s great to hear that Marvel is slowly but surely finding ways to unite all of their properties, and we fans will surely benefit from this unification. Excelsior!
