You've probably already answered this but do you have any personal headcanons on atlantean biology?
Honestly Anon I haven’t spoken about Atlantean biology a whole ton, I did once talk about my theories about how the gills/lungs might work: here.
Headcanons about Atlantean Biology, long post because I can never shut up.
- Atlantean eyes are extremely sensitive to light and can see in the darkest ocean depths, when they come up to the surface world everything is far too bright since they are used to seeing in minimal light. I honestly think that it should be standard that Atlanteans where sunglasses or goggles to protect their eyes from the unfiltered through the ocean sunlight.
"So this is the surface world... it is very... bright." - Lord Vashti in Namor the Sub-Mariner (1990) #34
- WHY THE HELL DOES MARVEL SOMETIMES GIVE THEM ONLY WATER FACE MASKS???
They don’t use their lungs to breathe water, they use their gills, so they should have water helmets that cover their necks.
Or water devices over their gills like in The Torch (2009) #4
- All Atlanteans are tall bastards. Namor is the tallest, but Attuma is taller. I want it to be shown more because like you know how in deep ocean really big sea creatures thrive? That but for Atlanteans, so they should all be much taller than humans at all times.
Marvel Adventures Fantastic Four #24
- Atlanteans can eat fish raw, their body can process it and so when Namor first found out humans had to cook their food to eat it or that they couldn’t eat lots of fish without succumbing to mercury poisoning he was so shocked.
- As we know Atlanteans age slower and heal faster within the water, so they would always have this just wet look when they are on land because they are constantly misting their skin with a water fan so they don’t dry out.
- In regards to reproduction, there’s been lots of jokes about eggs and Namor doing what male fish do and releasing his sperm to fertilize the eggs, and that he’s oblivious to human reproduction but I find that largely wrong because Atlanteans are like mammals so they don’t have eggs that grow outside of the body.
- True Namor calls himself an amphibian a lot of the time but Atlantean reproduction is like humans except that Atlanteans have to carry their babies for longer, like instead of 9 months its a longer period. I think this was put out by other Namor fans to explain why there was a two year gap between Fen meeting Leo and then giving birth to Namor.
- Atlanteans do not have a lot of kids, they could spend years or decades between before having another kid, due to their biology or a female Atlantean only has a certain time frame like once every six months or something, where she could conceive a child, that’s why most Atlanteans have small families.
- Not all Atlanteans are exactly the same, depending on which region of the oceans they mainly live in they have slightly different mutations, like if an Atlantean tribe lived in a place where fast currents were the norm they would have developed stuff like webbed hands and feet to help them swim better. Trench Tribe Atlanteans like Attuma where only the strongest survive because food is scare and harder to hunt. Atlanteans in warmer waters are different from colder arctic Atlanteans etc. These regional differences also play into their differences in cultures and traditions. I find it very boring to have all Atlanteans and sea people every where to be exactly the same when the humans in the world certainly aren’t.
- Atlantean’s blood is blue do to lack of hemes which gives blood that red color, instead they have more copper in their blood which gives it a blue color. Copper and Oxygen makes blood blue, Iron and Oxygen makes blood red, so all Atlanteans have a deficiency in Iron which they make up with by eating lots of kelp and other underwater greens. The first time Namor bleed red because he is half human it freaked out a lot of Atlanteans. I HC this was yet another thing that Atlanteans pointed out to Tha-Korr to show that because Namor doesn’t literally have blue blood he was less worthy of the throne than full blooded Atlanteans.
- We already know that Atlanteans don’t get cold so its hard for them to tell that the weather might be something that could kill a human, but they are super sensitive to heat.
- THIS POST about seals is so freaking interesting and I want to incorporate it into Atlantean biology, in that they can somehow sense the turbulence in the water and the shape of that can show them how big the other object is. Atlanteans learn how to swim in different styles if they ever want to hope to fool others into thinking they aren’t an Atlantean but more like a large fish or shark. This would come in handy for Atlanteans who are spies and need to sneak up on others. Namor can sense the bioelectrical currents in water so this would be similar to that.
- Also I think Marvel needs to bring back the slight telepathy that all Atlanteans had seemed to possess at one point since it would make sense for them to be able to connect to each other in their minds. Like they can’t read each other’s mind but if they focus their thoughts/emotions to another Atlantean then they would be able to feel/understand it.
