Arlong vs. Namor (Netflix's One Piece vs. Marvel Cinematic Universe) | B&B BATTLE BLOGS!
"What the sea wants, the sea takes" - Old maritime proverb
Arlong, the fish-man captain of the Arlong Pirates and terror of the East Blue.
Namor, the mutant merman king of Talokan, and the enemy of Wakanda.
The ocean is a beautiful place, one that we don’t know everything about, and have barely scratched the surface of its beauty. What secrets and walks of life come from the waters of our home? From the murky depths of the ocean, these two fighters live on to fight for their people, to protect them from oppression, or to become the very oppressors themselves. Between these two aquatic leaders fighting for their people, only one can rise to the top. Who will that be? It’s time to find out on a Death Battle Blog!
Before we begin…
The material that we’re covering is pretty simple. We’re going to be talking about live action One Piece for Arlong, as that’s… all it has, and we’re going to be talking about the MCU for Namor. Namor has only been in one movie, so it’s not like we have that much ground to cover.
Real quick I’m just going to cover a question someone might be thinking: Why am I using the live action versions? This fight works just as well with their original source material, right? Probably! But live action One Piece is my only experience with One Piece so far and I have not read any of Namor’s comics up to this point. Because of that, and because these are both live action adaptations (and we love our connections here), I figured it would just be best to use the versions that I actually know. Besides, Manga Arlong vs. Comics Namor is… way more obvious of a matchup. This adds a bit more fun and debate to a matchup I kinda like.
Special thanks to:
VsBattlesWiki (For some calculations used within the blog)
U/Mr_Bell_Man for their Respect Thread on Arlong
U/PeculiarPangolinMan for their Respect Thread on Namor
The teams behind Netflix’s One Piece and the MCU’s Wakanda Forever (For making an incredible adaptation and also a pretty good movie)
Without further ado, let’s just get into it!
Backstory
Arlong
“Our righteous rage will burn through Coco Village to the ends of the East Blue, and as we move to the Grand Line and beyond, we will teach each and every human their rightful place, beneath us.”
There’s a terror that’s haunting the East Blue, a portion of the world infested by pirates of all shapes, sizes, and powers. Even among these pirates, these powerful and menacing figures that go from town to town, raiding and pillaging all they can, there’s a man who can strike fear even in their hearts. He is not a normal man, though, and though he’s recognized for his power, he has not eaten the fruit of the devil. He is feared due to his raw strength, his cunning and his intellect. He is capable of taking over an entire island, and keeping the navy off his back by bribing them with the money he has taken from his conquests. His name is Arlong the Saw.
Arlong is a fish-man pirate, leader of the creatively named Arlong Pirates, who has been circling around the East Blue since the golden age of piracy had begun; ever since Gol D. Roger stood up on that execution platform and claimed that his treasure was still out there, that it was all in one piece, and that all they had to do was find it. Since then, Arlong and his crew of fish-men have been sailing around the East Blue, preying on whoever and whatever they come across to fill their coffers and to make a name for themselves. While a pirate’s main goal will always be looking for the mythical One Piece, however, Arlong has another goal up his sleeve.
Fish-Men were not always treated the best, you see. This is something that Arlong has always known, and has always brought up during his talk with humans. They were used as servants, treated as lesser than humans for an unknown amount of time, and as Arlong grew older, his hatred for the humans and their supremacist ways only grew. As he got older, his goal became clear to him; he was going to take over the oceans for Fish-Man kind, and raise his people up against the humans, subjugating them like they did to the Fish-Men for centuries. Arlong’s goal was one of supremacy, and becoming a pirate was just the easiest way he could think to do it.
His hatred grew and grew, and culminated when he and his crew would take over a small village in the Conomi Islands by the name of Coco Village. After ransacking the place and killing several of its civilians, Arlong had made his intention clear; the village was his to control, his to ransom, and he could destroy it if they ever tried to fight against him. As he reveled in his conquest, he was approached by the child of a woman he killed, a girl by the name of Nami. She presented him with a map, and asked to join his crew. Impressed by her skills, he not only took her on as mapmaker and navigator, but also gave her a deal; collect one hundred million berry, and he will give her Coco Village. Thus, the Fish-Man supremacist had a human under his ranks.
It was Nami’s constant scheming and Arlong’s quest for a map to the Grand Line that would get him involved with an up and coming pirate; Monkey D. Luffy. Their first encounter turned, quickly, into a fight, as pirates are oft to do, and with the reveal that Nami, who had been sailing alongside Luffy, had been working for Arlong the entire time. Taking Luffy’s navigator and leaving him wounded, Arlong would return to his base on Conomi Island; Arlong Park.
Here, Nami would reveal to him that she managed to collect the berry needed to buy Coco Village back from him. Before she could give him the money, though, he instructed a marine captain to follow her to her stash of berry, steal it all, and give it to him instead, all to keep Nami as her navigator while never truly going back on his work. Nami would break down crying, thinking all hope was lost, until Luffy came back.
With renewed vigor, Luffy and his crew, alongside Nami, would take the fight to Arlong Park and bring down the pirate once and for all! It was a hard fought battle, and everyone needed to pull their weight, but with one final attack from Luffy, he would bring Arlong down, with his entire base coming down with him, burying him in the rubble.With Arlong out of the picture, Nami free, and the path to the Grand Line secured, Luffy and his Straw Hat Pirates could continue to look for the One Piece.
Though Arlong would be arrested, he still carried with him a terrifying reputation. A man with the biggest bounty in all of East Blue (until Luffy pissed off the marine), he’s a man feared for his ruthlessness, his cunning, and his ambition. Sailors on the East Blue beware, because you never know when another Fish-Man pirate will come in, taking inspiration from the Saw, or they might just see a familiar face sailing the waters once more.
After all, the revolution doesn’t die, it can only be delayed.
Namor
“In one week's time, I will return with my entire army, and you will join us against the surface world, or I will wash Wakanda from the face of the Earth! Bury your dead. Mourn your losses.”
It is the age of discovery, and the Americas are being set upon by travelers from a distant continent. Their treasures are being plundered, diseases have spread throughout the continents, and the blood of the people there has been spilled, staining it red in the name of conquest and European self interest. It’s a terrifying time, and in this setting, a new group of people will be born to escape this growing threat. A small Mesoamerican tribe prays to their god for a way to escape the bloodshed and disease, having lost too many people already.
Their shaman would receive a vision, a way to escape from the torment brought along by the Europeans. Finding a fruit that grew in vibranium enriched soil, they would cook this plant into a thick, blue soup. One that when consumed, would change them. Their skin would turn blue, they would become stronger, and their ability to take oxygen in from the air would be taken away, in exchange for underwater breathing. They would no longer be humans as we knew them, but something more akin to mermaids. There was one woman, however, who drank the concoction while pregnant, and the effects it had on her baby were unprecedented.
The baby would be born, healthy and able to survive, but he wasn’t like this. His skin was not blue, and he did not need to breathe water like the others of his kind. He had ears pointed up at the heavens and wings on his feet. He was a mutant, and his name was Ch’ah Toh Almehen. As promised by their shaman, his birth would mark him as king of this now underwater tribe of people, the Talokan. He would rule with benevolence, and due to his mutant physiology letting him live longer, he would rule since that day, into the modern age. To his people, he was not Ch’ah, but K’uk’ulkan, the winged serpent god.
While Ch’ah could not age, the people around him weren’t so lucky. His mother would grow sicker, weaker by the day, until eventually passing away. Before she died, she gave her son, their king, one last request; bury her in her homeland. Her true home. Ch’ah would be a fool not to oblige. As he went to the surface with his fellow Talokanil, they would see the results of European colonization. Where his mother once lived, a plantation now stood, where the settlers would force the natives to do their bidding and grow their crops. Ch’ah could not stand by idly, and as the slave owners moved to attack him, he and his fellow Talokanil slaughtered them all.
A priest at the plantation, with his dying breath, cursed Ch’ah, calling him El Niño sin Amor, a child without love. As Ch’ah killed this man, he would adopt this moniker given to him, and change it into his new name, the name the surface will know him as when the time comes; Namor. The king saw firsthand what the surface world had to offer, the atrocities they could commit against one another, and he wanted no part in it. Talokan would be an isolationist country, hiding itself from the world at large, and prospering under his rule.
This peace cannot last, however. Conflicts with the nation of Wakanda led to the United States government being on a search for vibranium. A search that would take them right to Talokan’s doorstep. The people there would fend off the government for the time being, but Namor knew he needed more help. The Wakandans were, in his eyes, the ones who started this, so it would be their obligation to help him. Through a series of tense words and misunderstanding, it would eventually go into all out war, where Namor would kill the queen of Wakanda, making the princess Shuri the new leader of the small but powerful nation.
In one final battle, where Namor vowed to wipe Wakanda off the map, he would come into conflict with Shuri, the new Black Panther. The two would fight, and Shuri would lead him into a trap to dehydrate him, to rob him of his strength. Despite this, the king would still put up a fight. The brawl would lead to both rulers almost dying at each other’s hand, but before Shuri dealt the killing blow, she gave him an offer of peace, to allow both nations to live without war once again. Namor had little option, and he yielded to the Wakandan queen.
Though defeated in this war, Namor never gives up on his goals to protect his people. With a shaky alliance with Wakanda, he knew that eventually, with the world as chaotic as it is, Wakanda would go to battle yet again, and when they do, they will call upon Talokan. Namor did not give up, and is merely waiting for his opportunity to further his goals yet again, and let Talokan rise above its aggressors.
Though he’s called a child without love, it’s clear that the one thing he loves above all else, is his people.
Skill/Experience
Arlong
For Arlong, we actually have more to work off of than you’d think for a character who only shows up in a few episodes of one season (at least, so far. Who knows if he shows up later somehow).
Based on the flashbacks that we’ve seen, Arlong has at least been a pirate since Nami was a little girl. This is at least ten years of criminal behavior, and it could be longer depending on how the Netflix version of One Piece handles Nami’s age. This means that, for most of the Golden Age of Piracy, Arlong was there pillaging like any pirate would. It’s safe to assume that he would have gotten into a lot of fights as well, as pirates and brawling go together like chocolate and peanut butter. We know that he has been up to a lot, as well, because he has the highest bounty that we saw from any non-straw hat in the East Blue arc, only being shown up by Luffy but that was due to some strenuous circumstances.
When in a fight himself, Arlong is shown to be able to tussle with fairly confident fighters. He can take on Luffy who, while not particularly skilled, has taken on other strong and well learned pirate up to this point, like Alvida and Buggy. Similarly, Arlong’s henchmen could go toe to toe with skilled fighters like Sanji and Roronoa Zoro. It’s fair to assume that, if Arlong would have fought these people, he’d be capable of holding his own as well. Unfortunately, given the limited screen time in the source material, we have mostly conjecture to work off of, but what we can assume based off what we know about Arlong and his crew is impressive for someone of his little screentime.
Namor
Unfortunately with Namor we are also going to have to do a bit of conjecture here. The Talokanil people have been on their own for hundreds of years, but despite that, they also have very competent military forces. Strong enough and skilled enough to take on the warriors of Wakanda, a nation that has had its own struggles and wars to fight, so it’s not like Wakanda itself is full of pushovers. We can probably give the same praise to Talokan as well. Namor is likely just as skilled as his commanding officers, Namora and Attuma, who can contend with Okoye and other fighters similar to the Black Panther. Yeah the MCU has a lot of scaling arguments…
The only issue is that Talokan has been purposefully isolationist for a long time, so they likely haven’t gotten into as many fights as you’d expect. They keep themselves hidden and try to shy away from war. That being said, it didn’t stop Namor from going toe to toe with the Black Panther, Shuri, at the end of Wakanda Forever, and almost winning the fight on top of that, even in a depowered state. The things he has done on screen are impressive, no doubt, especially for a (so far), one off character, but we just don’t know the actual peak of his skills or experience, and Talokan’s policy as a country means we need to be a little conservative on how we gauge him.
Weapons/Equipment
Arlong
Kiribachi
Arlong does not have a lot of weapons, tending to rely solely on his Fish-Man strength from what we’ve seen in the show. That being said, he does have this absolutely sick weapon named Kiribachi, a weapon with six blades on it that resembles the teeth of a shark, or maybe one half of a sawtooth shark’s… horn? Whatever that’s called. This beast of a weapon is massive, and likely heavy too. Considering it was Arlong’s go-to when he wanted to kill a guy, he was probably pretty skilled with it.
…unfortunately, the guy he was trying to kill with it was Monkey D. Luffy, who grabbed it and immediately broke it, making Arlong resort to using his fists. So we don’t really know a lot about this weapon, but it looks sick as hell.
Pistol
The Fish-Man packs heat! Not a lot to say about this, as the pistol seems to be your average black powder pistol that you’d expect from One Piece’s time period. It’s likely a single shot, likely not very accurate compared to modern firearms. You love to see it.
Namor
Vibranium Spear
The Talokanil use one very specific weapon when fighting, and these are the spears that they use throughout the movie. Decorated in jades and golds, these spears are topped off with a vibranium head, capable of clashing with other Vibranium and, more importantly, melting through other metals like they’re butter. Other Vibranium tools and weapons are also incredibly durable, such as Cap’s shield, which was able to block attacks from MCU heavy hitters such as Thanos. That being said, it’s debatable whether or not the spear is as durable as the shield, but we do know that it’s powerful, and in the hands of someone like Namor, it can be used to carve up aircraft like Thanksgiving turkey. Like other vibranium tools, the spear is also capable of releasing large shockwaves, which can be helpful in a fight
Hydrobombs
These inventions, unique to the Talokanil, are explosives with high volumes of water inside them, acting similarly to grenades. Once they explode, the water inside them is shot out at extremely high pressures. Just one Hydrobomb can flip a speeding car over, and several bombs, as proven by Namor, can break through the vibranium laced window of the Citadel, where Wakanda keeps their high ranking officials. They are not the most deadly, but they also aren’t a weapon to be taken likely, and a prime example of the Talokanil intelligence.
Abilities
Arlong
Fish-Man Physiology
(What’s better than this? Fish-Guys being Fish-Dudes)
Arlong is, if you couldn’t tell by now, a Fish-Man, and being a Fish-Man comes with some perks that the humans just don’t get access to, because they’re lame. Due to his physiology, Arlong is able to breathe underwater, and presumably has some pretty good swimming talent. Fish-Men are also, apparently, pretty durable, with one of Arlong’s troops even mentioning that his skin is bulletproof and he can't catch fire, and it’s fair to say Arlong likely shares the same properties. He also seems to come with a built in regeneration factor, being able to grow back teeth Luffy broke in a very gross fashion. Besides this, and natural weaponry in the form of sharp teeth and maybe that nose of his, that’s all he has from his biology.
Fish-Man Karate
So according to my sources (my girlfriend), Arlong does know fish-man karate, as it’s apparently the thing that let him hit Luffy with a huge splash of water. It does mean that Arlong is probably pretty decent in hand to hand in some form, going off his second hand Kuroobi, who could content with Sanji and Zoro at the same time, fending them off with his fish-man karate.
Namor
Talokanil Mutant physiology
Born from a Talokanil woman, but still part human, Namor is a mutant through and through, and with it comes some strange abilities and perks, and it’s not just the weird elf ears he’s got. Namor’s wings on his ankles allow him to fly through the air, even faster than some military aircraft or helicopters. Talokanil also come with an inherent healing factor, being able to regenerate from blows that should have killed them, doing so in a matter of seconds. Namor should be capable of just as much, and he has been shown to recover from burns along his back, and can regenerate his wings being torn off, even in a dehydrated state. Talokanil are capable of scaling smooth surfaces and walls. Namor himself is also capable of breathing through his skin, a trait unique to him.
Talokanil really shine when it comes to their weirder, esoteric abilities. Resisting the cold and pressure of the ocean is nice and all, but where they really shine is their siren song. You see, Talokanil are capable of producing a type of siren song that hypnotizes people, which can only be broken by a loud noise like a gunshot. This was used to lead surface dwellers to their deaths by making them jump into the water. Namor has never used this ability himself, but given he is a Talokanil, it’s likely that he is able to.
Feats
Arlong
Overall
Has run a feared pirate crew for over ten years
Able to bribe and manipulate marines to get away with his crime
Conquered Coco Village and terrorized the Conomi Islands
Had the biggest bounty in all of the East Blue until Luffy overthrew him
Kept Nami bound to him for most of her life before Luffy freed her.
Strength
Throws a whole ass house, just because he can
Throws Luffy across the room which causes the wall of Arlong Park to crack
Speed
Durability
Namor
Overall
Became the one true king of Talokan
Snuck through Wakanda’s defenses alongside his army
A worthy opponent who can fight evenly with the Black Panther
Is the one external threat, beside Thanos, that can force Wakanda into war
Kept his nation a secret from the world for hundreds of years
Strength
Cuts off the wings of an aircraft before throwing it into another vehicle
Sends Shuri flying with a shoulder check and pins her against a rock
This feat, as well as the two before it, were performed while he was weakened by dehydration.
M'Baku claims Namor is as strong as the Hulk (See Before the Verdict)
Speed
Durability
Hit by M'Baku with enough force to shatter his weapon, and he’s unharmed
Survives the explosion of the ship he and Shuri were on (.838 tons)
This feat, and every feat afterward, occurs while Namor is weakened from dehydration
Hit with a shockwave powerful enough to destroy a large rock (.186 tons)
Hit by fire from a jet engine, or something like that, and while this knocks him down he recovers shortly after the fight
Scaling
Arlong
Other Pirates
Being a pirate captain himself, and a feared one at that, Arlong should be comparable to most pirates in the East Blue, including other captains. In One Piece, the bounties are sort of used as a power level, and with Arlong being the highest, that means he should be stronger than anyone we’ve seen in the East Blue arc up until this point. This is further backed up considering that, when he got himself alone with Buggy, Buggy was basically powerless to defend himself or even get a word in edgewise with the Fish-Man around. We’ll look, briefly, at some things other pirates have done.
Kuro can catch Usopp's slingshot attack without the use of his Stealth Foot
Using Stealth Foot, Kuro can appear behind others instantly and generally blitz others, but given this is his special technique, odds are Arlong’s incapable of reproducing the same speed as Stealth Foot.
Buggy can laugh off Luffy's punches with no trouble
Buggy is capable of pushing Zoro and a large glass tank with just a single foot
Arlong’s own pirate, Kuroobi, can one shot Buggy, and can fight off Sanji and Zoro at the same time, even blocking Zoro’s swords with his bare arms.
Luffy
I mean, this is pretty obvious scaling, right? During his first encounter with Arlong. Luffy was kind of getting completely destroyed out there, and straight up lost the fight. While Luffy was far more competent in his second fight with Arlong, the Fish-Man was still able to tussle with him, and he ultimately ended up surviving that powerful strike that tore down Arlong Park. Let’s go over what Luffy can do real quick.
With Nami's help, pulls a giant safe from the ground (5.16 metric tons)
Breaks Arlong's sword with just his hands (96.7 metric tons)
Namor
Talokanil
Namor is their king, he should scale to anything they’re capable of. I don’t really have too many feats for them as they mainly compare to Wakandan soldiers or Okoye (who will have her own separate sections), but they’re worth mentioning as even when shot, a Talokanil soldier could pull off a helicopter door
Okoye
A lot of the higher tier Talokanil are capable of fighting against Okoye, and it’s worth mentioning what she’s capable of, as Namor should just cleanly upscale from her. Okoye is weaker than the Black Panther, and the Black Panther was the only one who could fight Namor.
Sent flying by Killmonger's shockwave, but ultimately lives
Shuri and T’Challa
Probably the best scaling that Namor is going to get. While this would just be Shuri, she uses the same power source as T’Challa when he became the Black Panther, so it’s fair to say that they are likely even in strength. We will be considering feats from T’Challa when we cover this section, because of that.
Shuri punches a mannequin across the room, breaking a rock wall
His claws can cut through metal and scratch Cap's shield
Tilts a whole car and honestly I think he did this mainly for style points
Without his suit, T'Challa takes a punch from Bucky
MCU Street Tiers
This one is a bit more confusing because we really need to define what the MCU street tiers are. For the purpose of this blog, we’ll be considering characters like Cap and Black Panther inherently above certain characters like Hawkeye and Black Widow, as they are generally portrayed to be lower when it comes to the verse’s power level. This means we’ll be covering anyone below or equal to Black Panther’s level in this section, as this should help get a better idea of what Namor is capable of.
Captain America can block gunfire (90 m/s)
Gamora can hold a giant ass gun (135,000 newtons) (Lifting strength feat)
U.S. Agent can tear off the wings of Falcon (38.73 metric tons)
Weaknesses
Arlong
Unfortunately, not a lot to put here. Arlong doesn’t really have many weaknesses. The most you could say is that, being a pirate, he should probably be a bit more reckless and thinks that no one can stop him. It’s surely reflected in how he acts up until his final fight with Luffy. Besides that, there’s nothing incredibly notable outside of some character flaws.
Namor
Namor’s weakness is more pressing, but less applicable in a normal combat scenario. Namor becomes stronger when he’s in the water, or has recently taken a dip in the stuff. If he were to somehow become dried out, like in the movie, he would be considered much weaker. Generally speaking, though, this would probably take some prep time as most people don’t have a dehydration gun on hand.
Before the Verdict
Namor Hulk Scaling?
So, yeah, I should probably address this. M’Baku has a little scene where he says Namor could possibly be as strong as the Hulk when he’s been submerged in water. While some people would use this to scale Namor to the full might of the Hulk… I don’t think we should. To be brutally honest, we just haven’t seen Namor be on that level of strength yet, and his main tussle was with Black Panther (well, someone with his same power kit), who has not been shown to be on the same level of the Hulk at all. The other reason is just, well, M’Baku really doesn’t know how strong Namor truly is, or the Hulk probably, and it’s not like he’s the MCU’s arbiter on power levels. He’s just some guy. If he was a more reliable source of information within the universe, maybe it would hold a little bit more weight, but M’Baku isn’t that guy. He’s cool! He’s just not that guy.
One More Thing!
Verdict
Stats
So the fight is actually a bit closer than one would think. Despite how different their canon counterparts are in strength, these live action versions are actually pretty close when it come to both stats. There’s not too much to talk about here, so we’ll try to go somewhat quick.
For strength, Namor has some pretty impressive showings. Being able to throw around aircraft with ease and withstand shockwaves that blow up large rock structures is impressive, but the biggest feat that we know he can comfortably scale to is, funny enough, a feat from his own movie, and that would be surviving the jet he and Shuri were on exploding. This feat actually gets us to a very nice .83 tons of TNT. It should be noted as well that Namor was actually dehydrated by the time this explosion happened, so his true strength should probably be higher, especially since Shuri wasn’t confident in fighting him head on without dehydrating him. As for his lifting strength, he is comparable to other stock standard superhumans like Captain America and U.S. Agent, the latter of which has a feat that’s 38.7 metric tons, and again since Namor is superior to people at this level when hydrated (even though it’s only to an unknown degree), it’s safe to assume his range is a little higher than this.
Arlong, on the other hand, does have some stuff going for him. You don’t just throw a house upside down unless you’re pretty strong, but a lot of his feats come moreso from scaling to the Straw Hats than anything he does, so he loses some of his cool factor here. The main feat we’d be considering for this is Luffy’s axe kick, as although it did take him out of the fight, he was still contending with Luffy for the most part in the fight, and Luffy opted to tear the place down around him rather than fight Arlong head on. This puts Arlong at a cozy .067 tons of TNT. This is…considerably weaker than Namor right off the bat. At least 12 times weaker than Namor, to be exact. Arlong makes up for this in his lifting strength category, though as he was able to content with Luffy who could shatter his sword with sheer grip strength, which weighs in at 96.7 metric tons, which does actually put him comfortably in the lead of Namor by a factor of x2.5. While some might say this make the category even, I don’t think that this will be a fight that comes down to grabbing, wrestling and lifting. It’s going to be a lot of punching, and because of that, the edge should likely go to Namor.
Speed is a little different, and not as much we have to talk about either. Namor’s scaling to the street tiers of the MCU means that he’s around Cap’s level of bullet blocking. This would mean his speed sits at about mach .26. Meanwhile, Arlong is able to contend with Luffy and even catch some of his punches. It’s shown that in Gum Gum Gatlin, Luffy can punch at speeds up to almost four hundred meters per second, or around mach 1.13. This is much more concrete with not a lot to consider going into it; Arlong is just a comfortable 4.3 times faster than Namor is on the regular. He takes the edge in Speed.
Arsenal
This one is like, barely a category but we should probably talk about it. Arlong only has his sword, which just does sword things, but Namor not only has his vibranium spear, which is much more durable and is capable of releasing shockwaves, but he’s also got his water grenades which he can use to keep himself at a range from Arlong. The water isn’t as big of a concern for Arlong on account of him being a Fish-Man, but high pressurized water is no joke.
Namor takes the edge here.
Tertiary Factors
Experience and Skill is where things get a little weird, because we don’t have a lot to go off on either side. First, though, we’ll discuss Arlong. He’s been a pirate for at least ten years, actively sailing the seven seas ever since Gol D. Roger was executed by the marines, and as we see from following the Straw Hats, the life of a pirate is an incredibly dangerous one, and it seems like the Straw Hats can’t go far without experiencing combat, and they aren’t even trying to take over the area. Arlong was a menace known to basically everyone in the East Blue, to the point that even people such as Buggy were scared, or at the very least intimidated of him and knew his reputation. As for skill, he hasn’t shown as much, but his crew mates could fight people like Zoro, who has been training with a sword for all his life, and it’s fair to say that Arlong is at a similar level of skill as his crew.
Namor is a little weirder, as he has been living for much longer, but as he has made it clear, most people don’t even know that Talokan exists, and that is how they like to keep it. Because of that, there haven't been any wars, or notable conflicts that we know of. It sounds like a lot of what Namor has in terms of experience comes from the movie itself. We can’t even assume he did something like attack more plantations after the first one he destroyed, because that would have certainly drawn attention to the area Talokan is near. It’s clear that his soldiers are skilled, as they are able to fight Wakandan warriors who go through rigorous training themselves, but Namor’s personal showings aren’t impressive and it’s quite possible that his fights in Wakanda were his first real fights in a while.
While some might make this even and call it a day, I’d actually give this edge to Arlong. While he’s only been in the game for ten years compared to Namor’s hundreds, those ten years would have to be full of combat and strife in order to get to where he is now, compared to the centuries that Talokan has spent in isolation. I’d prefer to go with the side that we actually know more about compared to Namor, who mostly relies on assumptions and some shaky explanations.
Summary
Arlong
Advantages:
Considerably faster than Namor
Has more concrete experience to pull on than most in Talokan
Namor’s water bombs are likely not as deadly as they would be to others
Higher lifting strength…
Considerably more successful in his goals compared to Namor
Even:
Can likely heal from Namor’s attacks mid-fight
Disadvantages:
Way weaker than Namor
Has less reliable weapons at his disposal
The main weapon he does have, while cool, is less versatile
…but he probably wouldn’t be able to use it effectively during this fight
Namor
Advantages:
Far stronger than what Arlong normally deals with
Has the better weapons overall
Is apparently way better at keeping a low profile than Arlong
His flight allows him increased mobility
Contends with people who hit heavier than Arlong
Even:
Can likely heal from Arlong’s attacks mid-fight
Disadvantages:
Considerably slower
Can’t lift as much as Arlong does
The hydrobombs will be less effective against a Fish-Man
The siren song to drown Arlong wouldn’t work
Overall, the battle is far more close than I anticipated going in, with Arlong actually getting the edge in some pretty important categories like Speed and experience. However, the problem comes when you start to compare their strengths, and realize that Arlong gets completely blown out of the water in terms of strength. With Namor’s strength scaling to his own durability, and characters such as Black Panther, he ends up being a whole twelve times stronger than Arlong is. Arlong is better when it comes to lifting things, sure, but Namor has really good ways to keep Arlong at a distance, mainly the water bombs and the vibranium spear. Even if Arlong was able to get a good choke hold on Namor, it’s questionable if this could even kill him as Namor can breathe through his skin, something the movie makes a point on. Normally this would only come into play in the water but, let's face it, this fight would probably move to the water at some point.
If Arlong or Fish-Men in general had a statement of being much stronger when submerged in water, like I’ve been told they get in the manga, this fight would be a lot closer, and Arlong would honestly probably take the win. Without that statement, though, Arlong would just not be able to do enough damage to get a killing blow on Namor, while the king of Talokan is more than capable of killing Arlong in the fewest number of hits possible. Experience can only do so much for Arlong, and he is not skilled enough to make such a wide AP gap not be a constant issue throughout the fight. Unfortunately this fight comes down to one key stat, and Arlong just is not capable of overcoming the AP gap with anything in his arsenal. Even if he’s considerably faster, it’s not overwhelmingly so, or to the point that he could tire Namor out before he gets a good hit on him.
Between these two oceanic fighters, only one could come out on top. Arlong could fish for a win all he wants, but Namor has the power and arsenal to turn him into a shark filet.
The winner is Namor!
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