3. The Talokan Caves

in the memorabilia room, you see Namor painting. One of the first things we made was the mural, also done by Brandon, that establishes the story of Talokan, which is the calabash tree that looks like snakes. Each little thing is about his ascension to king from the time he was born, and we used the Mayan mythology of the Hero Twins for that. But instead of standing on a mountain, he’s standing on a shark, Chaac, the god of rain. For a while, we were calling it Namor’s man cave, but it really is where he goes to remember home and that piece of him that lived on land. One of the murals when you walk in the door to the cave looks like a man is coming out of a serpent to tell you about your future. When people enter, they’re supposed to stop and look at the hieroglyphs and the person and

enter the home with respect.

That whole thing was built and had a tank; the ceiling was actually hung so we could motor it up and down because some of the stalagmites would come four feet off the ground. We talked about really embracing the idea of the darkness in the ocean while coming up with ideas of how to light it. We wanted to realistically put them about

12,000 feet down.

That then steered us to the biology that exists that deep. How do we utilize that for this world and include a little bit of the fantastical because there’s vibranium? The blue light that you see is from glowworms, and we made bowls of bioluminescence, set around the cave. It was breathtaking.

A connected includes a cave refuge system for Namor decorated with murals in the Mesoamerican style and a sort of waiting room where the Talokanil hold captives. The Talokan society developed after the Maya entered the ocean in the 16th century and is centered in the Puerto Rico Trench.