For every major DC character, there’s a Marvel counterpart and vice versa. When it comes to aquatic heroes, the former has Aquaman, and the latter has Namor the Sub-Mariner.
With James Wan’s “Aquaman” film starring Jason Momoa having become a smash hit that earned over a billion at the box-office worldwide, it’s understandable that Marvel wanted to differentiate itself from its rival when they finally chose to bring Namor to the screen.
The result is less a gruff bad boy reluctant to take the throne of a gilded undersea kingdom and more a fiercely protective and worshipped leader of a dark underwater oasis with a look heavily influenced by Mesoamerican culture.
The result seems to have worked with Tenoch Huerta, who plays the character, cited as one of the best elements of the film in several reviews.
Speaking with Uproxx recently, the film’s director Ryan Coogler discussed how they went about introducing Namor and how the success of “Aquaman” paved the way for Marvel to take a chance with Namor:
“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.
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.”
The Marvel DC rivalry has been quite friendly online in recent weeks, with Dwayne Johnson praising the film’s success and for dethroning his DC film “Black Adam” from the box-office top spot this weekend.
