The following contains spoilers for Black Panther: Wakanda Forever, now playing in theaters.

Fans of Namor in the comics get to see the character in live action for the first time in Black Panther: Wakanda Forever. Yet, instead of the King of Atlantis, Namor's home is named Talokan, and this was a fantastic call both for the story and to differentiate him from Jason Momoa's Aquaman.

The change to Namor's home of origin was made clear before the release of the film. Actor Tenoch Huerta, who received an "introducing" credit in Wakanda Forever, said it's because Atlantis is a Greek myth. The idea of an underwater society of human-like people is not unique to Greek mythology. Also, DC got to "Atlantis" first with Aquaman. While Namor predates that character in the comics, it isn't like Marvel Studios to accept second place in anything, at least to DC. Given the cultural sensitivities director Ryan Coogler brought to the fictional African nation of Wakanda, it makes sense Namor's people are representative of another underrepresented group in modern pop culture. And, giving him a Mesoamerican origin allowed for that fantastic "N'amor" pun. Talokan is the celebration of culture, put in a fictional context, that only a juggernaut like Marvel Studios could pull off.

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Atlantis Is Overused, So Wakanda Forever Charted a New Course with Talokan

The idea of Atlantis caught on because it is a truly fascinating idea. The modern world will likely never know the number of great human societies that have risen and fallen through history. So, the idea that one of them adapted from life on land to life undersea is captivating. What makes this perfect for the Marvel Cinematic Universe is tying the city of Talokan to vibranium as well. Its near-magic powers are the perfect hand-wave explanation for how Namor's people came to be. It also helps feed into both cultures' ideas that they were "chosen by the gods" to be the custodians of this marvelous, dangerous substance.

Talokan is more than just a name change. The underwater scenes in Wakanda Forever are done with an impressive eye for detail and majesty. What Wakanda did for Afrofuturism in pop culture, Talokan can do for Mesoamerican futurism, especially if Talokan also enters the world stage. The joy of these comic book stories is that they can tell stories in the Jungian mythic tradition. So, it only makes sense to pull things from real Mesoamerican culture, just as Coogler and company did with Wakanda. Things like the name K'ulk'ulkan and the Talokan salute directly reflect the real-world culture that inspired Talokan, something that Atlantis could never give to the story.

Using Atlantis or "Lemuria" would be comics-accurate but would still feel derivative coming from Marvel, especially after Aquaman. So, like with Black Panther before it, the studio turned to Ryan Coogler to deliver something fresh and groundbreaking, which is what Talokan is.

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Black Panther Storytellers' Decision to Abandon Atlantis Goes Beyond the Story

A close-up of Namora in Black Panther: Wakanda Forever

Giving Namor a rich cultural history was great for Wakanda Forever's story, but it goes beyond giving the new Black Panther someone to fight. Huerta's time on the press tour has vacillated between delightfully overwhelmed and respectful of the cultural challenge he faced. Colonialism is part of the subtextual layer of the film's story, and in the real world it caused an immeasurable loss in the lives and culture of indigenous peoples across the globe. For the Mesoamerican people, their culture, from art to architecture to its people, refused to be erased. Talokan is a daydream against rational sense that some time capsule of that lost society still exists.

Along with that "what if?" question that always lingers around Marvel stories, Talokan and its people will have a lasting effect. The Talokan salute has cultural history and could reach the level of ubiquity as the Wakandan version. Seeing the cultural diaspora represented carries them forward into the new age. Not only will kids whose parents never saw themselves represented in pop culture have these characters, but everyone else does, too. Instead of making these examples of non-Western culture feel alien or strange, Black Panther: Wakanda Forever just makes them cool. Even a subtle shift in how those kids see themselves, and how the world sees those kids, is pretty good for comic book movies.

Today's pop culture is flush with Marvel Cinematic Universe characters and iconography. The inclusion of cultures represented in Wakanda Forever and other films like Eternals and Shang-Chi and the Legend of the Ten Rings weave these discrete elements into its fabric. This way, the whole MCU picture will truly resemble the real-world global mosaic.

Black Panther: Wakanda Forever is currently in theaters.