It's exactly what I feared. This isn't Namor, it's an OC. It's White Tiger by way of trashing Atlantis and Namor. As an OC it could've been cool, sure. But this is a moronic decision made just to counter the more "classic" Aquaman version of Atlantis, made even worse by subpar casting. What is this design? What is that hair? What is that sorry excuse for a "beard"? This isn't Namor, this is literally an Aztec-inspired OC played by a homely guy from down the street, with nothing that makes him "Namor". Even the wings make no sense considering Namor had them because of the Hermes motif. And now "Namor" gets his powers from a literal god. A jaguar god at that, when the Aztec god of rain is entirely different, all so that they can have a literal god catfight between Wakanda and MesoAmerican Wakanda. Hell, how does "Namor" even work as a name when it has no linguistic connection to the Aztec bit? It's literally just branding, nothing more. It's all so corporate and soulless.
According to the leaks that keep coming, there's even a flashback where MesoAmerican Wakan-I mean "Namor's Nation" battles the Conquistadors. So, let me get this straight. An entire continent, the Eternals and a race of super-powered underwater people backed by literal gods, couldn't take on... 200 Spaniards? I guess baseline Meds in the MCU have higher power stats. Maybe Zeus ****** everyone's mum and they're all demigods...
"Aaaaand... flick!"
Whatever. Honestly, at this point, I don't care. I genuinely have stopped caring. I'm tired of poor adaptations, I'm tired of awful MCU designs, and I dislike the flicks themselves too much to keep being invested in any of these beyond some childhood nostalgia. As long as I get my Vaders, my Dooms and Stranges, a Spock here, a Lantern there and so on, I'll be satisfied. Even my Illuminati display I've cut down to 6 figures, one for each Gem as intended. The original team was Stark, Reed, Xavier, Strange, Bolt and Namor. Namor's now out and I'll be replacing him with Captain Britain, who, let's be honest, makes more sense and he's a tie-in with the Hickman era in my mind. And I like Brian more than Namor; honestly I liked the latter more because of aesthetics than anything else, as base Namor was more often than not an annoying little ****... Wow, I'm making strides. Frost & Namor used to be some of my favourites and in recent years I find myself disliking them more and more. Next thing you know I'll be reading Superman...
All that said, in a way it's freeing. If I can cut out someone like Namor that simply, then I really am less of a completionist than I thought. My new rule is that unless the figure is 80% soft goods, there's a headsculpt, and the actor/actress is handsome/beautiful, I'm not even thinking about buying it. I'm not paying 300€ for no-names with pudgy faces and the pleather messes that are MCU "designs".
Miller would genuinely be a much better comic accurate Namor. Handsome with refined features, built, over 6ft and naturally crazy. Damn, now I find myself wishing for EzraMor...
The only thing that I'm interested in from this dumpster fire is seeing if the Doom rumors are true, which I expect they are. I doubt they'll have the two POC EthnoNations fight and not part in ammicable terms, with the real culprit being a Euro to make some colonial allegory or whatever (current Black Panther comics literally have a villain called "The Colonialist"). I don't care, I just hope it gives me a proper DoomWar adaptation next so that I can see Doom wrecking entire nations. The rumor is that this lady is playing Lucia Von Bardas:
Bendis' OC IronGirl discovers some Vibranium and she's part of her University faculty or something, war between MesoAmerican Wakanda and Wakanda breaks out over Vibranium, blablablabla, Doom's revealed to be behind it in the post credits. That's the current rumour at least, but it sounds plausible enough. Honestly, I never bought Doom and Namor as friends, and Stark is dead, so I'm hoping we'll at least get his bromance with Strange. It was always his best and most realistic friendship.
The MCU sure knows how to utterly waste brilliant actors and then make due with Z-Listers. What they did with Ronan, a very interesting and classic Marvel character played by a brilliant actor like Pace, was downright criminal. I get that someone such as Bale would want a one-and-done nothing role for the paycheck, but Mikkelsen and Law being throwaway mooks when Kang is played by a goofy Z-Lister infuriates me to no end. I hate this casting choice like I have hated nothing else. Even AztecMor bothers me less. At least I'll just swap a head on top of the doll, since he's clothed from the neck down, and call it a day. If they waste someone like Fassbender and McAvoy in the future too I'll be beyond mad.
I'm hoping Mads at least will return in DS3 as Dormammu's avatar or something to that effect, since they're bringing in Clea. Maybe Eva Green as Umar too. I'd buy those figures in an instant.
Keanu's been in talks with Marvel for ages now, so I think he'll ultimately grab a role he likes. Surfer would work the best, but I'm willing to see what they cook up. He wanted GR IIRC, but the popular rumor these days is that it's Norman Reedus who got it. However they can have both Johnny and Danny, with one more "grungy" and the other more horror inspired like in the Zadkiel era. I could see Reedus as Johnny, and Keanu as a JonCon-esque tortured type Danny with the blue flames and everything. They could bring in Robbie too, but unless he's got the anime skull I'm not interested.
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