Is Marvel afraid of Namor’s bulge in Black Panther: Wakanda Forever?

For a moment, think about the terrible situation of the penis-having superhero actor.

It’s a tall order, playing pretend while having to embody impossible physical ideals and You can also see it hereWear elaborate costumes that approximate the outfits drawn on the screen without regard to physics. What’s more, these costumes are not built for real life, but for the screen. Sometimes, this makes being a real human being an inconvenience — dicks can get in the way of what a superhero movie is trying to accomplish. The mission of Marvel Cinematic Universe is to make its heroes look as normal and as sexually free as possible. This is sometimes difficult.

This thought came up in the weeks following the release Wakanda for Ever: Black Panther. Crew members shared behind-the-scenes footage on social media, and fans spotted one particular, noticeable difference from the film’s finished footage: Actor Tenoch Huerta, who plays the aquatic antihero Namor in the film, seems to have had his costume’s bulge reduced.

Before we continue, it’s worth noting that “costume” is a generous term. In the comic books, Namor’s most iconic outfit is a green Speedo made of scales of some sort, paired with his bad attitude. For Namor’s Marvel Cinematic Universe debut, the outfit was made a bit more elaborate. The Speedo was swapped for form-fitting swim shorts, and it was supplemented with lots of jewelry that doesn’t ReallyWhile it can be worn as a shirt, it is also suitable for use as a breastplate. It’s simple math. Put someone with penis on a swimsuit in the water and you can see the potential for illuminating results.

Bulge is a regular concern in superhero costume design, as form-fitting costumes that are meant to highlight — or enhance — idealized bodies leave little to the imagination, and even help it along, by design. But cultural ideas about “appropriateness” must also be observed, and Disney is arguably the most rigid in its quest to be the most “family-friendly” megacorporation in entertainment. This usually means working hard to deny that sex exists or that anyone is capable of it.

As many social media users have noticed, this leads to the very funny assumption that someone somewhere is working in a Marvel/Disney office editing every single bit of footage that may contain a hint of penis. (A Disney publicist did not respond to Polygon’s request for comment.)

It is hilarious when seen from this angle. There are people who have no shame! The context isn’t prurient, and making a big deal over something is a great way to call attention to it.

However, there are several other plausible explanations — Disney being squeamish about dicks is just the most entertaining one to contemplate. It’s also possible, for example, that simple capitalism is at play here, as footage deemed “inoffensive” has the longest reach across varying cultural and social mores across the globe. It’s also possible that Huerta himself didn’t want his member to be indirectly served up on the silver screen in one of the biggest films of the year.

We are here to sympathize with you. The comic book heroes can be great characters, but they are also very sexless. Because of the box office dominance, real people have to be constrained into figures that reflect their ideals and muscles. But this is merely a first step, as the person wearing the clothes is just another fabric for digital tailors to sculpt, trim, and tuck as deemed necessary, until there’s little difference between the character seen on screen and the impossible one that was born on the page.