Annette Brown/Marvel
Letitia Wright as Shuri in Marvel Studios' ‘Black Panther: Wakanda Forever.'
Two superpowered titans clash on the field of battle, their outlandish costumes illuminated by sparks and energy beams. Powered by the magical element Vibranium, the Black Panther unsheathes her claws and hurls herself toward her opponent, the centuries-old mutant Namor. Desperate to replenish himself in the sea, Namor lifts into the air via the tiny wings sprouting from his ankles. If he reaches the water, Namor will have the strength to defeat the Black Panther, leading the armies of Talokan to conquer the nation of Wakanda.
Such action sequences are to be expected from a movie like Black Panther: Wakanda Forever.
As the latest entry in the enormously popular Marvel Cinematic Universe, Wakanda Forever brings to the screen superheroes who began as four-colored adventurers in Marvel Comics. They exist in a fantastical world, in which the Norse god Thor rides a rainbow bridge to help the people of Earth, and radioactive spider bites give teenagers superpowers instead of cancer. But despite these over-the-top plot mechanics, Wakanda Forever roots its story in real-world geopolitics, giving its battles surprisingly deep resonance.
The movie follows the lead of its predecessor, 2018’s Black Panther. Directed by Ryan Coogler, who co-wrote the film with Joe Robert Cole, Black Panther transcended the superhero genre to become a cultural phenomenon. In adapting a character that Stan Lee and Jack Kirby created in 1966, Coogler and Cole realized Wakanda, a fictional central African nation, whose technological superiority stems from its supply of the super-element Vibranium. The movie pits Wakanda’s protector, Black Panther, aka King T’Challa (Chadwick Boseman), against his prodigal cousin Erik “Killmonger” Stevens (Michael B. Jordan), who plots the violent takeover of his lost country.
The first Black Panther captured the attention of the world, not just for Coogler’s impeccable filmmaking (save for some dodgy CGI effects, a symptom of Marvel’s exploitation of visual effects artists) or the electric performances by Boseman, Jordan, and others. Rather, the film put Afrofuturism on screen, giving us an advanced African nation without the taint of colonialism or the slave trade, led by both a Black superhero in Black Panther and a supporting cast of compelling women, including Letitia Wright as T’Challa’s kid sister Shuri, Danai Gurira as Okoye of the elite Dora Milaje, and Lupita Nyong’o as spy Nakia. Even more impressive is the way that Coogler and Cole made Killmonger a sympathetic villain, whose anger toward Wakanda stemmed largely from the dehumanization he suffered from Western systemic racism and the American military.
This memorable cast helps Coogler and Cole absorb the shock of Boseman’s untimely death in 2020. For the first hour of its 161-minute run time, Wakanda Forever devotes itself to mourning, as the characters within the film hold a funeral for T’Challa, who dies off-screen by an unexplained disease. Coogler and cinematographer Autumn Durald Arkapaw deftly highlight both personal and communal grief, as the vibrancy of the funeral rites combines with the despondency weighing on those who carry on in T’Challa’s wake.
In its best moments, Wakanda Forever explores the anger left after T’Challa’s death. The film focuses mostly on Shuri, the scientific genius who could not save her brother, but also on the newly installed Queen Ramonda (a blistering Angela Bassett), who must lead her country. Unfortunately, these moments get overcrowded by those devoted to expanding the shared Marvel Cinematic Universe, with far too much screen time devoted to new hero Ironheart (Dominique Thorne) and American CIA agents Everett K. Ross and Valentina Allegra de Fontaine (Martin Freeman and Julia Louis-Dreyfus), all of whom will take bigger roles in later Marvel shows and movies.
Rather than position Namor as a man who suffered an unfortunate, but centuries-old, part of nation-building, Wakanda Forever reminds us that imperial powers remain at work today.
While these characters distract from Wakanda Forever’s themes, the same cannot be said of its chief antagonist Namor, played with charismatic intensity by Tenoch Huerta. Where the comic book version of Namor, created by Bill Everett in 1939, tends to present as white (albeit with pointy ears and winged ankles) who defends the underwater kingdom of Atlantis, this screen version—like Huerta himself—is Mesoamerican. This revision allows Coogler and his collaborators to create a film that is richer on every level. The characters speak Yucatán Mayan and Academy Award-winning costume designer Ruth E. Carter draws from that history to create unique costumes that transcend the usual superhero garb.
More importantly, the shift allows Wakanda Forever to continue the franchise’s themes of western colonization. Midway through the film, we learn that Namor gained his powers centuries ago, in response to smallpox brought by European explorers. After an experimental cure transforms the people of his tribe into underwater dwellers, Namor returns to his homeland to find Spanish colonizers, whom he destroys in a spectacular act of righteous fury.
Rather than position Namor as a man who suffered an unfortunate, but centuries-old, part of nation-building, Wakanda Forever reminds us that imperial powers remain at work today. An early scene finds French soldiers attempting to seize a Wakandan vessel. Namor and his people make their screen debut in a horror-tinged sequence in which they destroy American researchers mining for Vibranium under the ocean floor. Throughout the movie, we watch as CIA director de Fontaine and other American officials try to use Wakanda’s upheaval to their advantage and take hold of the country’s Vibranium supplies.
While Namor and his people certainly pose a physical threat to Wakanda, the real tension in the film comes from the overtures he makes to Shuri and Ramonda. As both members of the Global South, Talokon and Wakanda know well the way the West exploits these places for its own gain. The argument he makes for Wakanda to join him against the West may be violent and fueled with rage, but it is undeniably just. He has lived through the colonial pressure now being exerted on Shuri and Ramonda.
Like most superhero stories, Black Panther: Wakanda Forever is a power fantasy. But instead of imagining a disaffected teen who becomes strong enough to beat up his enemies, it imagines power being restored to people who have been exploited for the sake of Europe and the United States.
When Black Panther and Namor face off in their climactic battle, the stakes aren’t good vs. evil, but forms of governance in the world. The question isn’t whether or not Black Panther will defeat Namor. Instead, the movie asks if Wakanda should follow Namor’s lead and turn the tools of Western expansion against the colonizers—a question that lingers long after the spectacle has ended.