While Avengers: Endgame clocks in at just over three hours, there isn’t a lot of fluff and I know that everything that passes inspection and makes it to the screen is there for a reason. That includes two lines that could have been passed as throwaways but probably aren’t. The two lines in question could tease the future arrival of some major Marvel heroes: Namor and Captain Britain.
So let’s start with the first one because it comes earlier in the film, when Black Widow is chatting with other far-off heroes War Machine, Captain Marvel, Nebula, Rocket, and Okoye. It’s the Wakandan warrior who reports of earthquakes deep beneath the ocean off the coast of Africa, which Natasha then asks how they’re going to handle it. Okoye’s snarky response is basically “We handle it by not handling it”, which could mean anything. Maybe she means because it’s a naturally occurring thing and, well, shit happens. Or, she could be alluding to the presence of the undersea kingdom of Atlantis, home to Namor the Submariner.
Wakanda and the aquatic denizens of Atlantis have clashed in the pages of Marvel Comics before, as the rulers of both technologically-advanced kingdoms are headstrong and defiant. But on the big screen it’s something we’ve never seen before because Namor’s rights are still, to the best of my knowledge, tied up with Universal. However, that hasn’t stopped Marvel from working out a deal with Paramount to use the Hulk multiple times. It hasn’t stopped them from working out a deal with Sony for Spider-Man. There’s every reason to believe a deal with Universal can be ironed out at some point, especially since they haven’t done anything with the character.
The second one is much harder to catch, but it takes place during Captain America and Tony Stark’s journey to the 1970s to acquire the Tesseract and some extra Pym Particles. Cap chances into the office of his former love Peggy Carter, and through the glass she can be seen engaged in an intense conversation about an agent Braddock who is late checking in.
While I doubt Peggy is directly referencing Brian Braddock aka the U.K. superhero Captain Britain, it’s clearly meant to get us thinking that way. Braddock is part of the Captain Britain Corps, a team made up of Captain Britains from different alternate realities. Think of them as the Green Lantern Corps from across the pond. Given the time period it’s possible Peggy was referring to Brian’s father, James Braddock, who was retconned into a past member of the Corps. There have been Captain Britain rumors swirling as recently as last year with Guy Ritchie possibly attached. I hope this doesn’t lend credence to that.
In both cases I’m reminded of the blink-and-you-miss-it first mention of Wakanda in Iron Man 2. The rest is history, right? I can see Marvel sewing the seeds of future Namor and Captain Britain appearances in their biggest movie ever.
And if you don’t think there’s anything to this, I point you in the direction of the Happy Sad Confused podcast (via ThePlaylist) where the Russo brothers do some big time deflection when asked about it. In regards to the possible Namor tease, Joe Russo simply says “Maybe. It could just be an earthquake.”
Sure it is. And I’m really 3-D Man.
When asked about Braddock, Joe Russo laughed and said “Well, yeah…I think…maybe. Maybe it’s just a guy named Braddock.”
It could be a long time before we see either Namor or Captain Britain, but Marvel wouldn’t tease them without some payoff in mind. What do you think? Is Marvel setting something up here or are fans reading too much into this?
