Chicanonautica: Marvel Meets Maya

by Ernest Hogan

When I posted a picture of a South American merman-like creature from an anthropology book, Prehistoric Man in the New World on Facebook, Ed Hall told me I needed to see Black Panther: Wakana Forever. I was confused. 

Then I saw a photo of Tenoch Huerta who played Namor in Mayanoid regalia. Hmm . . . 

I waited until Disney+ streamed it. I enjoy the MCU movies but have mixed feelings about them. Back in the 20th century, Marvel was one of the underdogs of pop culture, and wasn’t as corporate, and closer to folk art. Now the entity is more environment than anti-environment, as Marshall McLuhan would put it. For me, it feels weird for these comics to have become the center of our emerging global civilization. 

Also, the tendency to make Atlantis Mayan by latter-day mystics bothers me. Nobody offers any solid evidence of an Atlantis/Maya connection. Though amusing–Augustus Le Plongeon’s Queen Moo and the Egyptian Sphinx is fun, but he provides no conclusive evidence. I file this stuff with hollow earth and ancient astronaut crapola.

There’s a meme going around with Plato saying, “Atlantis was a metaphor . . .”

Fortunately, the film’s conceptualization crew had the good taste not to even use the A-word. This Namor lives in Tlalocan— a lost colony of Maya mutated by a vibranium meteor for underwater living. It actually works—they did some research and the Mayan decor is gorgeous. 

There is, however, a problem.

Tlalocan is Nahuatl, meaning “the place of Tlaloc” the Aztec rain god. That’s Aztec, not Maya. A different culture and language. This is like mistaking French for German.  A Mayan equivalent would have been Chactenango, Chac being the Mayan name for the rain god, tenango meaning place.

I also feel uneasy about DisneyMarvel’s attempts to appeal to the worldwide “Latin” (not just Chicano) audience. If you hadn’t noticed there’s been a whole lota corporate takeover of pop culture this century. I miss the days when our superheroes and mythologies weren’t corporate intellectual property.

For a long time, before the other streaming services, DisneyMarvel has been releasing its movies globally, in all kinds of languages. I guess they don’t have any preColumbian culture scholars working for them. Their reaching out to black and “Latin” audiences is a search for wider audiences and bigger profits, not the empowerment of “minorities.” 

I suppose they could do damage control by having Namor, who’s supposed to be centuries old, fighting the Aztecs as well as the Spanish, forming alliances, learning languages . . .

And also, Africa and Latin America both have folk/superhero traditions of their own . . . 

Other than that, it’s not a bad flick. The special effects are spectacular, as expected these days. It follows the epic/operatic formula of the genre, building up to a long, climactic battle where you can get up and go to the bathroom without missing any plot development, and after it all, reassurance that the sacred franchise will continue for your worshiping pleasure.

I’m already forgetting the parts that didn’t irritate me. 

Environment versus anti-environment, as Prof. McLuhan said. 

Someday soon, selected parts of our superhero mythos will be reedited into the holy book of the future, like the King James Bible.

Meanwhile, I recommend watching Santo Contra Blue Demon en Atlántida and Mistero en Las Bermudas for a little variation on this theme.

Ernest Hogan will be teaching a class, Papí Sci-Fi’s Ancient Chicano Sci-Fi Wisdom at the Palabras del Pueblo Writing Workshop, for all you Latinoid writers who dare to let loose your rasquache imaginations.