Namor's Atlantis Rumored to Appear in The Eternals

When it comes to characters that have long been rumored to be making their way to the Marvel Cinematic Universe, Namor is one whose name frequently comes up. The Atlantean, who has over the years gone back and forth between being a hero and an antagonist, is one that fans have hoped would make his way to the big screen and while many believe the Sub-Mariner will make his grand MCU debut in Black Panther 2, a new rumor (via MCU Cosmic) suggests that the groundwork for Namor's arrival will come much sooner than that -- specifically in the upcoming The Eternals.

With The Eternals being a film that Marvel Studios head Kevin Feige described last year as being about the beginnings of the Marvel Universe, spanning thousands of years, it's one that could create an opportunity to show the sinking of Atlantis -- specifically an event called the "Great Cataclysm" -- which would establish Namor's world's origin.

In comics, the fictional Atlantis (which is based on the Atlantis of myth) was a small continent inhabited by humans until, around 21,000 years ago, Atlantean King Kamuu opened the magma pits that heated the domed capital city of Atlantis during an attack by the Lemurians, prompting the continent to sink -- the Great Cataclysm. Eventually, Homo mermanus nomads settle the remains of Atlantis, giving rise to the undersea kingdom Namor hails from.

If The Eternals does show, even in passing, the sinking of Atlantis, it would make for a subtle way to establish Namor through the history of his people. It actually wouldn't be a huge stretch for that to happen in the MCU, either, as various concepts and elements were introduced well before they took center stage in later films -- the super soldier program Thunderbolt Ross hopes to recreate in The Incredible Hulk, for example. As it stands, some believe that the MCU has already referenced Atlantis in a very low key way in Avengers: Endgame when Okoye spoke about an earthquake that took place underwater off the coast of Africa -- an earthquake that Okoye says that would be handled by leaving it alone. If that were to be a sly Namor reference, it would be one that could connect even further back to a potential Easter Egg in Iron Man 2 that may have hinted at both Black Panther and Namor well before debut.

Even for all of that, The Eternals revealing the sinking of Atlantis is just a rumor at this point. What we do know for certain is that work on The Eternals continues despite the coronavirus pandemic. Filming on The Eternals was completed before the pandemic ground most other film productions to a halt and now VFX work on the film continues, albeit in a work-from-home capacity with Scanline VFX Studios, one of the VFX houses working on the film.

"As of Monday, all 650 of Scanline's crew across Los Angeles, Vancouver, Montreal, London, Munich, Stuttgart and Seoul studios are working successfully from home, transforming Scanline into a completely remote visual effects studio for the time being," Scanline president Stephen Trojansky said in a statement. "From now on, not a single employee needs to set foot into a physical office location, making us independent of local government restrictions and lockdowns while providing a safe and healthy working environment for all crew."

Do you think that The Eternals will set the stage for Namor's MCU debut? Let us know in the comments below.