brake alert: This interview contains spoilers for the movie “Black Panther: Wakanda Forever,” which is now showing in theaters.
Plenty of new and returning Marvel characters are back in Ryan Coogler’s “Black Panther: Wakanda Forever,” but there are a couple of big, surprising vignettes that avoided leaking ahead of the sequel’s release.
Shuri Laetitia Wright, Ramonda Queen Angela Bassett, and Okoye of Danai Gurira help lead the Wakanda nation, which is missing the Black Panther and King T’Challa after the tragic death of star Chadwick Boseman from cancer in 2020. Nakia (Lupita Nyong’o), M. ‘Baku (Winston Duke), Ayo (Florence Kasumba) and Everett K. Ross (Martin Freeman) are also back, and the movie introduces new faces with Dominique Thorne’s Riri Williams, aka Ironheart superhero, Tenoch Huerta Mejía underwater villain Namor and Michela Aneka. The Wakandan warrior from Coel.
Towards the end of the movie, Black Panther fans were also happy to see a brief return of Michael B. Jordan’s actor, Eric Killmonger, the fan-favorite villain from the original movie. After Shuri makes a heart-shaped artificial turf to counter the forces of the Black Panther, she enters the ancestral plane and expects to see her brother T’Challa or her late mother Ramunda, who was drowned during Namur’s earlier attack on Wakanda. However, she was surprised to find Killmonger waiting for her.
Everett Group
The scene mirrors T’Challa’s meeting with his late father T’Chaka (John Kanye) in the first “Black Panther” movie, but Shuri and Killmonger are ideologically opposed – or so you think. Still reeling from her mother’s death, Shuri wants revenge, and Killmonger beats her up. He ridicules her father and brother’s peaceful and noble look, and prompts her to kill Namur the next time she encounters him.
During the final battle between the Wakandan warriors and Namor’s forces, Shuri trapped Namor dry and dismembered with energy in the desert. She was badly hurt, but gained the upper hand by blowing up Namur with the fire of her wrecked ship. Then she has to decide whether to kill him or not. In the end, she decides to show mercy and force Namur to obey. She promised him that Wakanda would protect his people from invaders, which Namur seems to be satisfied with – although in his last scene with Namura (Mabel Kadena), he seems to be preparing for his time.
Everett Group
In addition to Jordan’s return, Valentina Allegra de Fontaine, the shady villain of Julia Louis-Dreyfus, is back in several scenes after her recent appearances in “The Hawk and the Winter Soldier” and “Black Widow.” On Friday, Louis-Dreyfus shared a photo from the set of “Wakanda Forever,” rocking Valentina’s purple streaked hair and smiling next to Coogler. “I love this guy. #Ryankoogler. Have a great weekend.”
In the movie, we learn that Val is the head of the CIA and Ross’ ex-wife, putting them at odds both personally and professionally throughout the nearly three-hour run. She leads the American investigation into Wakanda’s vibranium and is much more aggressive than Ross, making her a powerful puppet lady with the CIA under her command.
Val was then confirmed to appear in the 2024 movie Thunderbolts, where she will lead a team of villains and anti-heroes, including Jelena Belova (Florence Pugh), Bucky Barnes (Sebastian Stan), Red Guardian (David Harbor), and US Agent (White) Russell), task manager (Olga Kurylenko) and ghost (Hannah John Kamen). Her appearance in “Wakanda Forever” makes it clear that she will play a major role in the future of the MCU by building an anti-Avengers squad as the villainous Nick Fury.
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