Marvel Studios' Black Panther has brought King T'Challa and his home country of Wakanda
to life, drawing inspiration from the hundreds of Black Panther comics.
Virtually every character in the film was inspired by a comic book counterpart, and
while they might never see the same twists and turns in the movies that they did in the
comics, there's a lot more to them than you might've thought.
Here are the characters from Black Panther who might just have a little more meaning
than you realized.
And in case you haven't seen the movie yet, spoilers ahead!
Shuri
In the film, Letitia Wright plays Shuri, the young technologist responsible for the Black
Panther’s vibranium-powered tech.
In the comics, however, her role wasn’t limited to fighting alongside T’Challa.
In 2009, she actually replaced him.
While Shuri wasn’t introduced until almost 40 years after Black Panther first appeared
in 1966, her rise to prominence came pretty quickly.
After losing the Black Panther identity twice, T’Challa decided that he’d be a lot better
off choosing his own successor.
Since Shuri was his closest relative, and since she’d already proved her valor by
defending Wakanda against an invasion by Klaw, he chose to train her.
Sure enough, her ascension as Black Panther later became necessary.
After T’Challa was injured to the point of death, Shuri took the Heart Shaped Herb
and became the new Black Panther and the ruling Queen of Wakanda.
Whether or not the movies will follow this storyline remains to be seen, but as we’ve
already seen her as a capable warrior in battle and the brains behind the Black Panther’s
tech, we wouldn’t rule it out.
Ulysses Klaue
Despite being the character who links Black Panther to the earlier installments of the
MCU, Ulysses Klaue, as played by Andy Serkis, isn’t exactly the major villain of the movie.
Instead, he makes his exit about halfway through, a red herring that works so well because in
the comics, Klaw is one of Black Panther’s most enduring arch-enemies.
Like the version in the films, comic book Klaw was an amoral arms dealer with a keen
interest in vibranium, and even sported the sonic “arm-cannon” in place of his left
hand.
The big difference, though, is that his abilities didn’t stop there.
In a desperate attempt to gain super-powers that would make him the equal of the Fantastic
Four, Klaw transformed himself into a being made of living soundwaves.
Klaw began a supervillainous career that saw him battling against the Fantastic Four, Daredevil,
and Black Panther, forming a hatred that would see him amassing an army of supervillains
to invade Wakanda.
The question is whether the movie version of Klaue will make a return in a form that’s
closer to his comics counterpart.
As good as Serkis is in the role, and as nice as it is to see his actual face for once,
you don’t hire the world’s most famous motion-capture actor if you’re not planning
on turning him into a being made of pure sound.
M’Baku
One of the biggest surprises of Black Panther came in the form of M’Baku, T’Challa’s
first challenger to the throne of Wakanda.
Played by Winston Duke, M’Baku is the leader of the Jabari Tribe, who have withdrawn to
Wakanda’s mountains, where they live without dependence on vibranium.
His towering physical presence and sense of humor make him one of the movie’s most memorable
characters.
But given his comic book roots, it’s kind of a shock to see M’Baku in a movie at all.
Created in 1969, he originally operated under the rather unfortunate name of “Man-Ape.”
The idea was to tie him to another jungle animal in the same way that T’Challa drew
his powers from the panther, but deeper social implications made him a pretty awkward supervillain
to have around.
The movie avoids a lot of that awkwardness by just calling him M’Baku, and toning down
his costume a little while still keeping nods to his comic book roots.
They’re small changes, but they make a whole lot of difference.
As for where he goes from here, the movie M’Baku does something that he never did
in the comics: he formed an alliance with T’Challa.
Considering that Winston Duke is already listed in the cast for Avengers: Infinity War, it’s
safe to say that this alliance is going to last… at least for now.
Zuri
On the screen, Zuri is the spiritual leader of Wakanda, a priest and advisor to both T’Challa
and his father, T’Chaka.
The comics tell a different story.
Zuri was one of the Black Panther’s closest advisors, but his concerns tended to be more
on the physical side.
He was considered one of Wakanda’s strongest warriors, and even got into a fistfight with
Thor.
Of course, since it was Thor, they became good friends after their throwdown.
Sadly, both versions of Zuri managed to meet their ultimate fate at the hands of a supervillain.
In the comics, though, it was during an invasion of Wakanda by Morlun, a Spider-Man villain
who basically eats animal-themed superheroes.
That’s a pretty unlikely fate even for the Marvel movies, but the real tragedy here is
that we lost out on Forest Whitaker and Chris Hemsworth re-enacting Dutch and Dylan’s
epic handshake from the opening scene of Predator.
Ayo
Of all the characters in Black Panther who deviated from their comic book roots, Ayo,
played by Florence Kasumba, was the one who sparked a minor controversy.
In the MCU, she’s one of the Dora Milaje, the order of potential wives-in-training who
also serve as Wakanda’s security forces, but not much more.
In the comics, however, she became one of Marvel’s most prominent LGBTQ characters
shortly after being introduced.
Her lover, Aneka, started out as her combat trainer, forming a tense relationship that
developed into much more.
Unfortunately, Aneka was convicted of a crime, and while Ayo pleaded with the reigning queen
to spare her life, it didn’t work.
Instead, Ayo broke her out and the two became vigilantes in Wakanda known as the Midnight
Angels.
While Ayo’s orientation was only hinted at in scenes that were ultimately cut from
the film, her story did take center stage when Marvel launched Black Panther: World
of Wakanda, with the first arc focusing on Ayo and Aneka’s history.
Nakia
In the film, Lupita Nyong'o plays Nakia as T’Challa’s love interest, an ex-girlfriend
who devoted her life to working in secret as a spy.
In the end, she steps out of the shadows to defend Wakanda, and even steps back into her
very close personal relationship with the Black Panther.
In the comics… not so much.
While Nakia was introduced as one of the original Dora Milaje in 1998, she didn’t stay as
one for long.
T’Challa’s interest in the Dora Milaje was purely ceremonial, but Nakia harbored
an infatuation with the superheroic king that grew to the point of obsession, causing her
to attempt to murder the Black Panther’s former girlfriend, Monica Lynne.
Nakia was dismissed from his service, and eventually re-emerged as an enemy named Malice.
It seems unlikely that the MCU’s Nakia will follow that path, but it’s a lot easier
to believe that something might drive a wedge between Nakia and T’Challa to make drama
in a future film.
After all, since they’re broken up at the start of the movie, it’s something that’s
happened to them before.
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