Black Panther: Wakanda Forever (2022): Character Story, Plot Summary, Meaning Of The Ending. Black Panther 2: The Hidden Meaning Of The Scene After The Credits.
Country: USA
Genre: Action, Adventure, Fantasy, Drama
Year of production: 2022
Director: Ryan Coogler
Slogan: “Forever”
The plot of the film Black Panther: Wakanda Forever continues the story of the characters of the first part. However, now without the originally announced superhero – T’Challa. All because of the death of the performer of his role – Chadwick Bowman. Actually, the second film serves as a kind of tribute to the actor. The post-credits scene, which is traditional for the Marvel movie comics universe, in many ways has the same function.
The Story of Character
The superhero Black Panther is the brainchild of comic book writer Stan Lee and artist Jack Kirby. This is the king of a country called Wakanda – a high-tech power, in which, nevertheless, the traditions of primitive times are strong.
Frame from the film.
For the first time Black Panther (King T’Challa) appeared in 1966 in one of the issues dedicated to the Fantastic Four. He lured a team of superheroes into a trap and turned into a powerful animal. The four managed to get out of this scrape, and later they completely reconciled with the Black Panther.
T’Challa told them his story, which became the basis of the biography of this character. In it, the king told about the death of his father from foreigners, as well as the transfer of the supreme title along with the Black Panther costume. The latter is an interesting detail: it’s not often in Marvel comics that a superhero’s avatar is alienated from the superhero himself. In the same issue of the comic, the authors spoke about the reason for the power of Wakanda – deposits of the high-tech metal vibranium.
Black Panther went on to be a guest character in other superhero stories, and in 1968 became a member of the Avengers. In 1973, he landed a prominent role in the thirteen-issue Panther Rage series, considered the first graphic novel in the Marvel universe.
Most notably, T’Challa was the first black comic book superhero – and the Falcon, and Luke Cage, and Blade appeared later. In the cinematic universe, Falcon, Warrior, Blade were ahead of him in this, but still, many critics considered the release of a solo film about Black Panther to be revolutionary even at the stage of creation only because of its description.
So, T’Challa is not connected to his superhero persona in the way that many other comic book heroes are. Black Panther is not his personal alter ego (like Spider-Man for Peter Parker, for example), but a title that passes from one king of Wakanda to another. According to the lore of the comic book universe, its very first carrier appeared about ten thousand years ago. T’Challa got the costume from his father.
Danai Gurira as Okoye, Letitia Wright as Shuri. Frame from the film.
The superhero’s unique outfit is equipped with vibranium claws that can penetrate almost any hard surface. The suit itself is bulletproof. Boots make it possible to land after falling from great heights without damage.
In the comics, T’Challa, even without a suit, is a strong character: smart, inventive, with a sharp instinct, able to develop tremendous speed, fluent in melee weapons and hand-to-hand combat.
Like all comic book superheroes, Black Panther has many enemies in the face of various supervillains, among whom were even members of the Ku Klux Klan. Interestingly, in the reality of the sixties and seventies in the United States, there was an organization of blacks who professed radical ideas and were called black panthers. Because of this, the hero was even temporarily given a different name – the Black Leopard.
T’Challa in the comics managed to visit not only the Fantastic Four, but also the Avengers and even the Illuminati, the most influential coalition of superheroes. For some time, Black Panther was married to Storm from the X-Men, but the marriage destroyed the conflict with this team, as a result of which they were declared enemies of Wakanda.
T’Challa has also been involved in alternate histories that have filled the content of many comics, books and games. As part of the cinematic version of the fantastic Marvel Universe, Black Panther (played by Chadwick Bowman) first appeared in the film Captain America: Civil War, which became the highest grossing picture of 2016. In it, the initiating event for T’Challa takes place – the death of his father, King T’Chaku of Wakanda. The hero becomes a participant in the civil war of the Avengers.
Angela Bassett played the role of Ramonda, Dominique Thorne played the role of Riri. Frame from the film.
In the solo film, T’Challa assumes the title of Black Panther, taking the throne of Wakanda. However, his cousin Eric appears, who seizes the throne in order to arrange the supply of high-tech weapons from vibranium to the oppressed peoples and the global redistribution of spheres of influence in the world. At the end of the picture, with the support of his people, T’Challa manages to defeat the enemy and regain the throne.
In the stories of the following films of the franchise Avengers: Infinity War and Avengers: Endgame, Black Panther also takes an active part. However, the death of T’Challa actor Chadwick Bowman from cancer leaves the producers with a choice: use a virtual copy of the character or continue the Black Panther arc without him.
The plot analysis of Black Panther: Wakanda Forever
The authors of the franchise decide to go with the second option, and the next Black Panther: Wakanda Forever comes out without the participation of Chadwick Bowman’s character.
Black Panther 2 begins with the death of the protagonist of the first film, which remains behind the scenes. The younger sister of the deceased Shuri tried to recreate the flowers of the heart-shaped grass that previously grew in Wakanda and was destroyed by Eric. They gave the superhero strength and could help cure the disease. But Shuri didn’t.
A year after T’Challa’s death, an international conflict begins to brew: Wakanda, represented by its current queen Ramonda (mother of Shuri and T’Challa), provided support to other countries, but did not share vibranimum, which could significantly improve their technologies and military potential.
Hoping to get the precious metal, foreigners use the latest apparatus to detect it underwater. A group conducting deep-sea mining of vibranium is attacked by representatives of a race hitherto unknown to mankind: blue-skinned humanoids. They can breathe underwater and have powerful hypnosis technology.
The CIA presents its explanation for the incident – in their opinion, representatives of Wakanda attacked the miners. After all, until now, only they were the owners of vibranium – it makes sense for them to protect it from encroachment. The leader of the blueskins, Namor, infiltrates Wakanda and demands that Shuri and Ramonda find and deliver to him the inventor of the vibranium search apparatus. Otherwise, he is going to attack their country.
Shuri and the head of the Dora Milaje (Black Panther’s female bodyguard unit), Okoye, meet with their friend CIA agent Ross, who gives them information about the inventor of the apparatus. It turns out to be Riri Williams, a student at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. She literally made a brilliant invention in between times, and she herself did not fully realize it. Therefore, Shuri and Okoya, who are trying to warn of mortal danger, Riri does not believe too much. But the trinity is caught by the FBI, a chase begins, in which Namor’s blue-skinned warriors intervene. They take Riri and Shuri to their underwater kingdom.
Winston Duke played the role of M’Baku. Frame from the film.
Queen Ramonda deprives Okoye of his position and tries to rescue her daughter with the help of Nakia, the former representative of Dora Milaje and T’Challa’s former lover, who helped him regain the throne. She retired and lives in Haiti after the so-called Leap – an event initiated by the supervillain Thanos and expressed in the form of the collapse of half of intelligent life in the entire universe (the event lasted five years, its end occurred, including in the movie Avengers: Endgame).
Shuri communicates with Namor, who shows her his underwater kingdom called Talokan. It is rich in vibranium and thanks to it is also highly developed. Namor is angry at the oppressors (conquistadors) who once drove his people (Mayans) from their lands. The unfortunate then managed to survive thanks to prayer and magic, which turned them into underwater people. Namor thinks it’s time to take over the rest of the world. To do this, he offers Wakanda an alliance with him. If refusal follows, Namor is ready to destroy Wakanda as well.
Nakia infiltrates the underwater city and helps Riri and Shuri escape. During it, she injures one of the inhabitants of the underwater kingdom. Namor is furious. He attacks Wakanda, killing some of its inhabitants, including Queen Ramonda, who drowns to save Riri. Namor gives another week to decide on an alliance with him.
Shuri uses the plant that gave the blueskins their powers to produce a heart-shaped herb. She takes a potion from it to travel back to her ancestral world and become the new Black Panther. The first doesn’t work out as expected (Shuri had hoped to meet up with her mother, but ended up seeing a revenge-ridden Eric instead).
However, she still gains Black Panther’s abilities. Shuri is at the Council of Elders, whose opinions are divided on what to do next.
Black Panther – 2 (the second after T’Challa) decides to take revenge and orders to set a trap for the blueskins in the ocean. The maneuver succeeds – the battle begins. Shuri takes on Namor. Their battle takes place on a deserted beach, during which Black Panther 2 is injured. Despite this, the girl wins and is going to kill Namor. But then Shuri has a vision in which her mother asks her to remember who she is and not indulge in revenge. The girl offers peace to Namor and he agrees.
Ending explanation Black Panther: Wakanda Forever
The meaning of the ending of Black Panther: Wakanda Forever, in which Shuri comes to Haiti to Nakiya in order to burn his funeral clothes and thereby accept the loss of his brother, corresponds to the spirit of the whole picture. After all, the tape was conceived not just as another adventure of superheroes in the cinematic universe, but as a tribute to the memory of the deceased actor. The essence of the film is to show the life and transformation of the characters who have suffered a loss, how they cope with new challenges without a person important to them.
In that sense, Black Panther: Wakanda Forever is no ordinary movie for a superhero franchise. Having analyzed it precisely at the level of sensations from each episode, one can understand that the authors tried to put into the picture a feeling of lack of the protagonist, which would be transmitted to the viewer.
Many perceived this moment as a flaw and a mistake of the director of Black Panther: Wakanda Forever: where is the main character that we came to see and, if he is not there, why then? After all, even the Shuri line seems a little short. But it seems that this is the point: we must feel the lack of a hero, his loss along with the rest of the characters. And even the confrontation with the supervillain Namor plays with the theme of revenge – one of the reactions to the irreparable loss of something important. This explanation for the ending of Black Panther: Wakanda Forever seems the most plausible – especially considering the final shots from the first part with a happy T’Challa.
Tenoch Huerta – the performer of the role of Namor. Frame from the film.
What does the scene after the credits mean
The ending of Black Panther: Wakanda Forever, however, has a double bottom in the form of a post-credits scene. However, this is quite in the spirit of the Marvel Cinematic Universe.
In the credits themselves, we see how Shuri’s funeral clothes are burning at the stake, which, according to our interpretation, means accepting the death of his brother. And after the ritual is completed, the girl receives a kind of “reward”. Nakia approaches her and introduces her to her son, whose name is Toussaint. Shuri, at a loss: she sees something painfully familiar in the boy’s features. Feelings do not deceive her. Nakia explains that Toussaint has royal blood, but he was brought up away from the “palace bustle”.
According to the girl, the boy’s father prepared the family for his death. The father is, of course, T’Challa. He asked Nakiya not to come with his son to the funeral, not wanting to injure the child. So in his honor, the girl arranged a separate ceremony.
It turns out that Shuri and T’Challa’s mother Ramonda also saw the boy. The authors have also focused on this for a reason. For the daughter, this is another consolation: the mother knew that she had a grandson, the son’s heir.
The child reveals a secret to Shuri: Toussaint is only for the locals. His real name is T’Challa. By the way, the girl notices that Toussaint is an important name for history. This is a reference to the leader of the revolution in Haiti, as a result of which this state gained independence in 1804 first in Latin America, François-Dominique Toussaint-Louverture. We remember that Nakia lives with the boy in Haiti – and by the way, in the house at number 1804.
The real name of the child is also important because he, as it were, additionally confirms the status of the future king of Wakanda. It will be literally and figuratively a continuation of T’Challa. Shuri laughs through her tears after learning about her brother’s parting gesture.
The role of Nakia was played by Lupita Nyong’o. Frame from the film.
Similar films
- “Thor” (USA, 2011): the story of one of the superheroes “Marvel” with roots in Norse mythology;
- “Aquaman” (USA, Australia, 2018): the adventures of a half-human half-Atlantean in the kingdom of the underwater world – a film adaptation of the comic book “DC”;
- “Wonder Woman” (USA, China, 2017): the story of an invincible warrior, an Amazon princess – another DC comics superhero.
