Before the superhero movie boom that has lasted for over a decade, Marvel sold the rights to many of its characters and comics all over Hollywood in a desperate attempt to pull itself out of bankruptcy. Today, Marvel is thriving like they never have before, but those decisions still haunt them to this day. That's why Sony makes 'Spider-Man' movies and why Fox keeps pumping out 'X-Men' adventures.

And it turns out that the character of Namor is so wrapped up in red tape that it's impossible to see when or if he could make it to he big screen from anyone.

Namor, AKA, the Sub-Mariner, AKA, the Marvel universe's answer to Aquaman, was making the movie news rounds recently when it was rumored that Legendary and Universal were planning to bring him to the screen. But then we heard nothing. And then IGN sat down with Marvel Studios president Kevin Feige and asked him if Legendary could make the movie. His response: "No." So Marvel Studios has the rights to the character now? Uh, not quite:

Yes, but it’s slightly more complicated than that. Let’s put it this way – there are entanglements that make it less easy. There are older contracts that still involve other parties that mean we need to work things out before we move forward on it. As opposed to an Iron Man or any of the Avengers or any of the other Marvel characters where we could just put them in.

Although he's not the most well known character amongst normal people, Namor has been a key player in the Marvel universe for decades, acting as a sympathetic villain and ill-tempered hero in equal measure. In short, he's pretty great and the fact that he's stuck in legal limbo is pretty disappointing.

Still, it's hard to be too disappointed when equally great-but-obscure characters like Star-Lord and Rocket Raccoon are getting their own big screen adventure in 'Guardians of the Galaxy.' Anyway, with Disney's army of lawyers and Scrooge McDuck-style bank account, we imagine Marvel Studios could pry this character back into their possession if they really wanted to. We shall wait and see.

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