With the home release less than two weeks away, I thought it's time to write up my thoughts about the best reviewed and incredibly successful Black Panther, with full spoilers ahoy. I will be focusing on the ways it seeks to redeem the problematic aspects of the Black Panther comics over the years.
All images credit Marvel Studios and Marvel Comics
The Politics
While previous MCU films have dealt with politics, especially Civil War, none have been as explicitly political as Black Panther. But more than that, none has been as sharply political as Black Panther.
The film delves straight into what has always been the essential problem with Wakanda, as created by two white dudes. Wakanda is a technological, powerful, and advanced nation in the heart of Africa. Moreover, it was all of those things, hidden from sight, throughout slavery, and colonization. It is that essential problem with the original texts, and its repercussions that is at the heart of the film.
In the film, Killmonger and Nakia offer different solutions to this problem. Killmonger, bitter and broken, wants Wakanda to force reparations by military and technological might. Nakia, woke af, wants it to use its technology and knowledge to help and uplift. It being a comicbook movie, of course the righteous and moral path wins. But the thing is, Killmonger has a point. His condemnation of Wakanda's past is entirely valid. Wakanda has wronged all Africans and all those of African descent worldwide by its passivity and inaction. And while the film clearly disagrees with his solution, his anger is justified and just.
The Villain
Let's face it, the MCU has long had a villain problem. None of the Iron Man films has a decent villain. Red Skull is just cartoonishly evil, as is Ultron. And Zemo is basically a non-entity, there only to create the friction between Tony and Steve. Loki is great, of course - which is why he's in so many movies. And Hela is awesome, though much of that is due to Cate Blanchett being amazing. But whatisname the Dark Elf from The Dark World... what even WAS that?
Killmonger is, I would argue, the best Marvel villain ever. He is what a truly great villain should be: A dark mirror of the hero. He is a man of conviction, principles, and skill. Casting Michael B. Jordan - Ryan Coogler's go-to actor, who has been in each of his feature films and was the lead in the all of the rest - was brilliant, because Jordan is both a great actor and a raging ball of charisma. In another life, he could absolutely be a great king.
Malice and... ahem... Man-Ape
All of the film's prominent characters appear in the comics, but some of them appear in very different roles. Nakia, T'Challa's love interest and conscience, was Malice, a member of the Dora Milaje whose obsession with the young king led her down a dark path, and ended with her as an accomplice of Erik Killmonger. The gender politics of that are deeply fucked up, and the way Coogler turned that around was absolutely brilliant.
But as bad as that was, it ain't nothing when compared to the Racist bullcrap that is Man-Ape. In the film, M'Baku is an honorable man, an enemy turned friend. In the comics... well... I mean... he kills a sacred white gorilla, eats its flesh, bathes in its blood and gains powers and abilities making him the supervillain called Man-Ape. I wish I was making this shit up (don't read the bit about Infinity War near the end if you don't want to be super spoilered).
In the film, the comics Gorilla Cult is the Jabari (in the comics, the Jabari were members of the cult), a fiercely independent tribe, and M'Baku wears a gorilla mask because his tribe worships Hanuman the gorilla god, rather than Bast, the panther goddess worshiped by the rest of Wakanda. Also, he's a vegetarian. Again, a brilliant re-imagining.
The Women
So let's talk about the Dora Milaje, the king's guard. So awesome, right? Well... here's the thing. Originally? In the comics? They were... ooof... They were wives in training for the king. And this wasn't in the sixties. This was in the 1990s.
Ramonda, the queen mother, is actually a hybrid of two characters. The first being N'Yami, who is T'Challa's mom who died days after giving birth to him, fridged for extra man-pain. The second is Ramonda, Shuri's mom, who only gets semi-fridged by being put in a coma for a while.
Black Panther is a film that celebrates women. They are powerful, complex, brilliant. They move the plot. It is as much about Nakia and Okoye and Shuri (Shuri, it should be noted, was - as far as I can tell - always awesome) as it is about T'Challa and Killmonger. And it is glorious.
To sum up
Ryan Coogler has done an incredible thing in this film. And I hope the comics get retconned to this version of Wakanda as soon as possible. It is a better, smarter, more modern and relevant version. It is a version stripped of the racism (well intentioned as it usually was) and mysoginy of the comics. In the film, Black Panther is reborn after being an inch from death. I hope it leads to the same rebirth for the comicbook as well.