Comic book fans the world over are starting to realize that Black Panther just might've
changed superhero movies forever.
From its jaw-dropping aesthetic choices to its cast of butt-kicking women, Ryan Coogler's
Black Panther oozes style — and substance — and the cinematic landscape is better
for it.
Think back to Phase One of the MCU.
Remember the great jokes, the impressive costume design, the heartfelt expressions of heroism.
Now try to remember every female character from those movies as you can.
Spoiler alert: They're mostly the girlfriends.
You've got Pepper Potts, Peggy Carter, and Jane Foster... plus some side characters like
the irrepressible Darcy, Sif, Frigga, and, ultimately, the introduction of Black Widow.
It's not the most dire situation in Hollywood, but generally speaking, if you're not there
to smooch, you're either set dressing or the one very special lady Avenger who still spends
a chunk of every movie trying to seduce her prey.
Even Phase Two's introduction of Gamora in Guardians of the Galaxy fell into the same
pattern, as she's relentlessly pursued by Peter Quill throughout the film.
"NO!"
"What the hell?!"
"I know who you are, Peter Quill!
And I am not some starry-eyed waif here to succumb to your… your…
PELVIC SORCERY!"
Then came Black Panther in Phase Three and its cast full of women.
There's Nakia, Shuri, Okoye and the Dora Milaje, Queen Ramonda, and women filling out the royal
cabinet.
Women were everywhere in Black Panther, doing everything.
Both within the MCU and outside of it, this was pretty revolutionary.
While Captain Marvel's starring role in 2019 was in development for years, Black Panther's
amazing cast of women may have gotten audiences ready to receive the film a year earlier.
Blockbuster movies don't typically bet on the unfamiliar — which makes Black Panther
feel like kind of a miracle.
It has a majority black cast, takes place in a fictional African nation inspired by
real African cultures, and features actors speaking Xhosa, an official language of Zimbabwe
and South Africa.
It is deeply rooted in specific places, histories, and aesthetics that most of the worldwide
audience knows little about.
And it made over $1 billion worldwide.
Black Panther didn't just prove that people all over the world can embrace lives outside
their own spheres of experience — it proved that they can fall in love with them, cheer
them on, and come back for more.
Superhero movies tend to look the same.
Save for a signature color or a formalwear scene, it's all based in ultramodern tech
and military drab.
This can be an interesting look, of course, but it does tend to blend together into a
canvas of olive green, stainless steel, and dark suits.
Thor shook this up admirably, and, with the release of the positively psychedelic Thor:
Ragnarok, cemented its branch of the MCU as a risk-taker.
For a while, you had three choices: you could be surrounded by SHIELD black or army base
grey, or you could be in Asgard.
The thing about all of these aesthetics, even Thor's, is that they're familiar.
We know how action movies look, how high fantasy looks, how military movies look.
The MCU did them all well, but they'd been done before.
Then in strides Black Panther, with its wealth of color, texture, and fashion both ancient
and contemporary.
Audiences saw the deep green of the River Tribe, the bright coral of the Dora Milaje,
and Shuri's up-to-the-minute bomber jackets.
Costume designer Ruth E. Carter, who won an Oscar for her work on Black Panther, managed
to bring color, history, and an entirely unique Afrofuturistic aesthetic the majority of the
audience was unfamiliar with.
It's not just cohesive, it's not just new to the genre, it's not just rooted in an absolute
avalanche of research — it's all of those things and more, packed into one movie.
Marvel's home base has always been New York City.
This has done a lot to bring a unique sense of place to the stories that take place within
it: Daredevil, She-Hulk, and Spider-Man all live in locations you can visit, that their
creators grew up in, that mirror the rapid changes of 20th and 21st-century life with
a specificity that's hard to replicate in Metropolis or Gotham.
Peter Parker is a boy from Queens, just as Daredevil is a child of Hell's Kitchen.
The city, to use a well-worn but very true cliche, is as much a Marvel character as Captain
America.
But that can start to feel a bit confining, especially when the same city is splashed
across the screen over and over again.
Marvel branched out, for sure — Guardians of the Galaxy went far afield indeed — but
there wasn't anywhere with the same strength of location until Wakanda came along.
Rooted in painstaking research of actual African cities and cultures, Wakanda looks, sounds,
and feels like a real place with real history.
"Sister Nakia.
My Prince.
We are home."
Audiences agreed, cheering when the heroes returned to Wakanda in Infinity War.
Black Panther didn't just show that audiences can invest in MCU locations beyond NYC and
outer space — they can feel right at home there too.
"Wakanda forever!"
T'challa isn't the first royal in the MCU. Thor, of course, begins his journey as heir
to the throne of Asgard, on a path to discovering what makes someone worthy of that authority.
Loki has been twisted by his desire for kingly power into a perennial villain.
Both men — as one might expect — find themselves often engaging in battle.
This isn't a flaw — these are, after all, action movies.
But T'Challa's kingship is defined as much by his role in international diplomacy as
his ability to send forces into battle.
Much of Black Panther is concerned with how best to share Wakanda's resources with the
rest of the world, how to aid in global conflicts responsibly, and, tellingly, how violence
has typically led to tragic outcomes in Wakandan history.
We don't see T'Challa commanding conquering armies — rather, we see him consulting his
advisers, speaking at the United Nations, and engaging in ceremonial combat as a means
of transferring power.
"Wakanda will no longer watch from the shadows.
We cannot.
We must not."
T'Challa is a diplomat first and a warrior second, a man who leads his troops into battle
reluctantly.
Superheroes, post-Black Panther, aren't confined to the Pentagon, military bases, or other
martial visions of world power — they debate others, open community centers, and strive
for global cooperation.
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