When Marvel’s BLACK PANTHER debuted in 2018, it was widely believed that the character and franchise would take the place of Captain America for the unrest super-espionage and political intrigue genre. It emerged as a rallying film for inclusion, making keen social commentary about representation without getting preachy.
That’s a delicate balance for a pop franchise like the Marvel Cinematic Universe, even more so now since the word ‘woke’ became politicized. And it was balanced on the shoulders of the lead, Chadwick Boseman. As King T’Challa juggled his superhero powers with a sense of mortal trepidation, Boseman approached the role with confidence tempered with a regal sense of self-doubt knowing the modern challenges before him might render his cherished traditions obsolete. Yet honor binds T’Challa to goodness and righteousness. Boseman took on T’Challa with grace and humility, firmly establishing him as a new superhero within the hearts of fandom. And what a champion he was – the first black actor to headline a MCU film.
Tragically, Chadwick Boseman died from cancer in August of 2020. It shocked his expanding fan base as well as the general public. At the time of his death, Boseman’s career was soaring. Beyond BLACK PANTHER, Boseman’s thespian honors were growing. He received Best Actor nominations for the Academy Awards and the Golden Globes, as well as nods from many other illustrious award ceremonies for his work. These awards were compounding the closer he came to death. Here was this brilliant rising star, taken far too soon.
Beyond his acting accolades, Boseman was a real-life hero. He was a stalwart advocate for youth causes, supporting various organizations like St. Jude Children’s Research Hospital, the Boys and Girls Club, and the Jackie Robinson Foundation through personal outreach and generous donations. In 2020, only months before he died, Boseman donated $4.2 million to provide PPE to hospitals fighting the pandemic within black communities. That goodness shined through in so many of Boseman’s performances. He had an authenticity and gravitas that only comes from a charitable heart.
When Marvel announced that their character T’Challa would not be recast, fans were forced to content themselves with the knowledge (however faulty) that there was a then untitled Black Panther sequel already in production. Choosing not to replace Boseman was a wise move. No one could follow his act. He embodied T’Challa. In life, Boseman faced his own demise with dignity and nobility. He kept his condition private and kept working. Boseman was irreplaceable.
Boseman’s passing might have gone differently for the MCU. Bruce Lee was another luminary that was taken too early. But when he died, filmmakers capitalized on his death like vultures. Fragments of his unfinished film project were cobbled together to GAME OF DEATH and it was a travesty. The filmmakers were so callous that they even included images from Lee’s actual funeral, which was the last thing fans wanted to see. While special effects have advanced leaps and bounds since GAME OF DEATH, even a CGI T’Challa would have been ungenuine. Ironically, the final T’Challa appearance in the MCU was animated. T’Challa the Star Lord appeared in the Disney+ animated series WHAT IF? (2021). However, that was different. It was voiced by Boseman before he passed, and it earned him a posthumous Emmy.
So, the question for WAKANDA FOREVER is – can director Ryan Coogler, with co-writer Joe Robert Cole, re-capture the power and prestige which accompanied the first chapter of Marvel’s Afro-Futurist franchise without Boseman?
Black Films Matter
The original BLACK PANTHER has paved the way for MCU inclusion, opening the door for SHANG-CHI AND THE LEGEND OF THE TEN RINGS, as well as several Disney+ miniseries with inclusive leads such as THE FALCON AND THE WINTER SOLDIER, MOON KNIGHT, and MS. MARVEL. The expectations for WAKANDA FOREVER to take things up yet another level, whilst also paying tribute to its fallen superhero. That’s a tall order to fill.
What’s more, beyond the loss of Boseman, WAKANDA FOREVER comes at a turning point for the MCU. It is the 30th film and the final installment of Phase Four. WAKANDA FOREVER sharply contrasts the previous MCU installments: the brightly colored absurdism of THOR: LOVE & THUNDER and the campy thrill-fest/easter egg hunt that was DOCTOR STRANGE IN THE MULTIVERSE OF MADNESS. Neither mode is even remotely appropriate and would come off tone deaf.
One thing is for certain. BLACK PANTHER: WAKANDA FOREVER shall dethrone DC’s BLACK ADAM, which has been the top earning film for its three-week run amidst a sluggish box office for this time of year. And just in time for Black Friday. It’s remarkable that these two black superheroes are dominating the box office as the Thanksgiving film rush begins.
The King is Dead. Long Live the King
The cinematic death of Iron Man (Robert Downey Jr.) in AVENGERS: ENDGAME can being to compare to the emotional impact of the death of King T’Challa. Despite the fantastic elements of the MCU, the impact Boseman’s death won’t be glossed over. It even affects the original film now. T’Challa’s Disney death after Killmonger (Michael B. Jordan) hurls him to his presumed death off the waterfall becomes macabre on the rewatch.
From the very first scene, WAKANDA FOREVER reminds us of the loss of Boseman. There’s no need to mince words. The film’s opening pierces straight through the heart. And it is followed with a beautiful permutation of Marvel’s opening logo, a collage of T’Challa images instead of the assemblage of MCU superheroes, rolled in silent homage instead of franchise’s usual theme music. It sets the tone. Boseman’s passing permeates the film, and yet it is as much a celebration of the King as it is a mourning of his loss.
The new central character for WAKANDA FOREVER is T’Challa’s sister, Princess Shuri. Letitia Wright won the hearts of audiences with her brilliant and plucky portrayal in BLACK PANTHER, and she’s next in the royal line. Wright delivers a powerfully emotional performance, deftly navigating Shuri’s stages of mourning from denial to bargaining to anger to depression and finally acceptance. And despite her lithe figure, Shuri’s fight scenes are ferocious.
Aaron Toney steps into his first major film as Fight Coordinator. Toney has been doing stunt work since the early 90s and was the stunt double for both Chadwick and Jordan in BLACK PANTHER. The fight scenes are predominately polearm based: spears, staffs, and glaives. It’s refreshing to see a lot of polearm combat. Those are typically reserved for Kung Fu movies.
WAKANDA FOREVER has all the franchise tropes expected for any MCU film – eye-popping special effects, epic battles, visionary design, lavish costumes, and irreverent humor. And woven in between these familiar threads is an ever-present awareness of the ultimate reality of mortality. That anchors the film in a novel way for the MCU. It brings the audience into the moment, tempering escapism with immeasurable loss. It’s a delicate balance and WAKANDA FOREVER nails it. It’s deep, but it’s still fun. So many feels.
And by deep, it’s deep in the ocean of tears.
Namor: Marvel’s Original Antihero
If you’ve seen the trailers, you’ll know that Marvel’s ‘Aquaman’ is coming to the big screen. Introducing Namor the Sub-Mariner seems like the MCU is following DC’s lead. But if you’ve been reading comics, you know that it’s actually the other way around.
Namor the Sub-Mariner is one of comics’ oldest characters. Namor first appearing in Motion Picture Funnies Weekly a 1939 promotional comics anthology intended to be given to movie-going children. The project never really got off the ground, but sample copies were printed and now only eight copies are known to exist - at a price of approximately $35,000.
Bill Everett’s creation would see print the following year - February 1940 in the pages of Marvel Comics #1, more than a year before the first publication of DC’s Aquaman in November of 1941. Now if that wasn’t confusing enough, Marvel Comics #1 was actually published by Timely Comics, who would re-title the comic series Marvel Mystery Comics before rebranding themselves as Atlas comics and ultimately become the Marvel Comics Group of the 60’s.
But in those early days, when Superman had yet to fly and Batman carried a gun, Namor was out there sinking U.S. vessels and regularly waging war on the surface world. Fans loved this The Rime of the Ancient Mariner (1798) themed antihero so much that he not only appeared in every issue of the Marvel Mystery Comics anthology through to issue 79 (Dec. 1946), but he also starred in his own comic; Sub-Mariner ran from Fall 1941 to June 1949. A key factor in the character’s success was the choice to have him join World War II allied forces. In the 70’s, Marvel would chronicle his tour of duty alongside Captain America in a series titled The Invaders. But Namor has waged war for and against most everyone in the Marvel universe at some point, especially Wakanda.
Unrealpolitik
Despite the longevity of both Namor and Black Panther, it took until March of 1980 for the two of them to appear in the same comic. Defenders issue #84 was written by Ed Hannigan and penciled, inked and colored by Don Perlin, Tex Blaisdell, and George Roussos respectively. Maybe this had something to do with the secrecy of both hidden kingdoms of Wakanda and Atlantis.
True to comics forms, both characters would fight upon their initial encounter, discover their conflict is based on a misunderstanding, then team-up to fight the comic’s actual bad guy. In that case it was an Atlantean sting operation that netted trafficker of Wakandan weaponry on the run from the Black Panther himself. Also true to comics, that first meeting was rewritten in issue 2 of the 2018 series Rise of the Black Panther, written by Evan Narcisse with artwork by Javier Pina and Stephane Paitreau; ostensibly to remove the participation of Doctor Strange and The Hulk from that initial tete-a-tete.
Subsequent writers of Black Panther would return to the geo-political maneuvering between these two fictional nations. Most notably in Black Panther #27 (December 2000 vol.3) where writer Christopher Priest with artists Sal Velluto, Bob Almond, and Steve Oliff first placed both nations on a war footing. But it’s nearly a decade later in Black Panther #11 (December 2009 vol. 5) where Shuri as Black Panther, fights the Sub-Mariner in a suit of vibranium armor of her own.
It’s all these various volumes (Marvel is on its eighth series titled Black Panther) that make for such convoluted numbering and storylines. And for clarity’s sake, no mention has been made of the various spin-off series and team-books where Black Panther and Namor had been allies before war, once again, spilled out in the pages of Avengers vs. X-Men #8 (2012) and most recently in current issues of The Avengers.
Don’t Call it Atlantis
Up until now we’ve been discussing Namor: The Sub-Mariner as he appeared in Marvel comics. While it may not have come as a surprise to comic readers that the Black Panther sequel would tread these waters, what few would have predicted would be the world building twist that came with the MCU adaptation.
Cast in the role is Mexican actor Tenoch Huerta who portrays Kukulkan, the Mayan feathered serpent. He is called Namor only by his enemies. There’s a welcome spin to the origin of the character’s name which, according to creator Bill Everett, was “Roman” spelled backwards. Coogler and company take this as an opportunity to establish a whole new corner of the MCU, wisely making the choice to keep this movie mostly sequestered from the plot-points and Easter-eggs of from greater MCU.
Instead, we visit the aquatic kingdom of Talokan. Loosely based on a combination of the Aztec Tlālōcān (Nahuatl: [t͡ɬaːˈloːkaːn̥]; "place of Tlāloc" a paradise, ruled by Tlāloc the god of rain), the Mayan “place of fright” Xibalba (Mayan: [ʃiɓalˈɓa]), Matlatzinca and other underworld myths originating from around the Yucatan Peninsula. Historically speaking, this isn’t the first time a link has been made between Mesoamerican civilizations and Atlantis. In the 1882 book Atlantis: The Antediluvian World written by the U.S. congressman Ignatius L. Donnelly who did his own research, posited Atlantis as the origins for ancient Egypt and Maya. Among his theories, he speculated that the Phoenician alphabet was derived from the Atlanteans and later given to the Mayans. More recently there’s the 2018 episode of Ancient Civilizations titled “From Atlantis to Aztlan.” Atlantis has often been likened to the lost civilizations of pre-Columbian America.
Marvel has done it through the character casting, costume and set design as well as in the use of subtitles. Until those who truly know can read them for themselves, opinions are split. For some, this style of MCU adaptation amounts to gobble-de-gook. Marvel Studios has played similarly loosely in other properties from SHANG-CHI to DOCTOR STRANGE (though first author Patrick Lugo has spoken to at least one Thelemite who was thrilled by their take on such imagery). Regardless, this choice firmly establishes an admirably inclusive brand identity for the Wakanda franchise, and it is being noticed.
Patrick reached out to Professor Frederick Luis Aldama a.k.a. “Professor LatinX” the Adjunct Professor and Distinguished University Professor of Arts & Humanities at the Ohio State University. Aldama is currently the Jacob & Frances Sanger Mossiker Chair in the Humanities in the English Department at the University of Texas, Austin; and founder/director of the Lantix Pop Labs. He is the author of such books as The Cinema of Robert Rodriguez Oct 15, 2014, Latinx Superheroes in Mainstream Comics (Latinx Pop Culture) Oct 10, 2017, Tales from la Vida: A Latinx Comics Anthology (Latinographix) Sep 14, 2018, Reel Latinxs: Representation in U.S. Film and TV (Latinx Pop Culture) Sep 24, 2019, Latinx Ciné in the Twenty-First Century (Latinx Pop Culture) Sep 24, 2019, and The Oxford Handbook of Comic Book Studies (Oxford Handbooks) Apr 1, 2020. “I've never been this excited about an MCU flick dropping,” says Professor Aldama. “Not only because of the Latinx-indigenous casting consciousness already readily apparent – Josué Mahchi as Attuna, Mabel Cadena as Namora, and Tenoch Huerta as Namor… WOW!!!. But also because the film itself promises audiences Latinx-indigenous storyworld building and knowledge making. I'm at the edge of my sila waiting for WAKANDA FOREVER to drop!”
MCU Represents
Talokan now joins the MCU as a Latinx homage, just as Wakanda represents the African diaspora and Ta-Lo honors China. Nowadays, any franchise with global aspirations must be inclusive, lest they deny lucrative international markets. In the past, the MCU has had its missteps, like Tilda Swinton’s Ancient One, however today it is making tremendous strides. Beyond being a lot of fun, MS. MARVEL provided a unique look into Muslim culture, one seldom seen in a Hollywood production. MOON KNIGHT, which was also a lot of fun, had culturally appropriate depictions of Egypt. As the MCU travels the globe, it is becoming a platform where we can see ourselves in our heroes. And hopefully, see the hero in ourselves.
In Remembrance of Chadwick Boseman 1976-2020
