With the recent success of the Black Panther film, everyone wants to know more about T’Challa,
Wakanda, and more about what the sequel will be like.
While there’s a ton of speculation floating around, a lot of fans have been returning
to T’Challa in the comics and revisiting his old foes to fuel their need for more.
Some of the villains on this list are pretty nefarious foes for the King of Wakanda.
Others, well, they’ve fallen off the radar in recent years, but have an interesting history
nonetheless.
So today we’re going to take a closer look at these antagonists, big and small, and primarily
from the perspective of the comics, with our list of the top 10 black panther villains.
10 Namor Starting off this list is one of T’Challa’s
biggest rivals – Namor, the King of Atlantis.
These two have many reasons to be at each other’s throats.
And it’s bigger than them just disliking one another on a personal level.
During Avengers vs X-Men, Namor was possessed by Phoenix and, leading an Atlantean charge,
flooded Wakanda’s capital city.
Wakanda then captured Atlantean generals and put them on trial for war crimes.
Then Namor and the Atlanteans responded by killing the Wakanda ambassador to the UN and
60 other Wakandan troops infiltrating Atlantis, claiming they had help from Wakandans willing
to betray their country to see T’Challa’s sister, Queen Shuri, fall from power.
T’Challa and Namor met to discuss peace, but Namor shows no regret for his actions,
and Shuri doesn’t trust him, so the nations go to war.
9 Moses Magnum Initially a villain of Spider-man’s and
the Punisher, Moses Magnum is an arms dealer and terrorist who was rescued by Apocalypse
and giving superhuman powers – he can release seismic energy through his fingertips.
Overall, while Magnum isn’t a huge villain on Black Panther’s to do list, the character
has continued to be a threat to the nation of Wakanda.
After his army took over Canaan, a small country in Africa, Moses sent his minion Phreak to
steal military secrets from Wakanda, which failed.
Later, he would send Killjoy to Wakanda to try to assassinate T’Challa and throw Wakanda
in chaos.
Also didn’t work.
Tough luck.
8 King Cadaver King Cadaver is one hideous MF.
First off, he’s an agent of Killmonger’s.
Second, it’s easy to see why he wasn’t all that popular.
Warped by energies of the Resurrection Altar, King Cadaver used to be a regular Wakandan
– one who had joined the insurrection against T’Challa.
On the plus side, he has psychic powers because of his mutation.
He once tried to trick T’Challa by leading him into a trap set beneath a graveyard, using
bright lights and mirrors to temporarily distract him, but that didn’t last long, and T’Challa
gave him a serious beating.
He’s presumably killed in the final assault on the Wakandan forces when a brachiosaur
crushes him.
7 Malice There have been multiple versions of Malice
over the years at Marvel.
The first was a mutated ally of Erik Killmonger’s when he tried to invade and take the Wakandan
throne.
She fought alongside Venomm, Lord Karnaj, and Baron Macabre – all smaller villains
that didn’t make too much of a splash outside of their story arcs with Killmonger.
The second Malice was more notable – named Nakia, she first appeared in 1998 in Black
Panther Vol 3 issue 1, and was picked by the elders of her tribe to be part of the Dora
Milaje when she was just a teenager.
In the comics, the Dora are traditionally the King’s bodyguards and wives in training,
although T’Challa informed her that the role was purely ceremonial.
She became obsessed with him though, to the point where she tried to kill his ex-girlfriend,
and she was banished.
Killmonger eventually came along and used the Altar of Resurrection on her after saving
her from being tortured, which gave her new powers.
He named her Malice after the previous one, and she would go on to fight T’Challa and
typically his female allies, even killing one of them – Nikki Adams.
6 Achebe First appearing in 1999 in Black Panther vol
3 issue 3, Achebe has been called “the Joker to Panther’s Batman.”
While his origin story is considered to be vague, the gist of it was that he was a Ghudazan
farmer who helped rebels from the neighbouring country cross the border into his land.
The soldiers repaid him by seducing his wife, destroying his farm, stabbing him thirty two
times and leaving him for dead.
He then allegedly made a deal with Mephisto and went around killing everyone who had ever
interacted with his wife, killing them by stabbing them 32 times.
He then returns to Ghudazan to instigate an ethnic war, and when T’Challa set up a refugee
camp on the outskirts of Wakanda to help, Achebe infiltrated it and stirred the drama
pot between the refugees and Wakandans, his sights now set on causing chaos for the King.
It goes much further than there, with Achebe even almost getting crowned king of Wakanda
and killing Black Panther.
5 Baron Zemo In the comics, two men have used the alias
Baron Zemo – the first, Heinrich, was one of the top scientists in the Nazi Party who
fought against Captain America and the Howling Commandos in WW2.
Years later after the Avengers resurrected Cap, he came out of hiding and the two continued
to be adversaries until he was killed.
His son, Helmut, then took over the Baron Zemo title.
This is where Black Panther comes in.
But in the MCU as opposed to the comics.
Zemo’s family was killed in the battle of Sokovia, so he decided to take revenge on
them by causing a riff from within their ranks.
Spoiler alert, by the way.
Zemo framed the Winter Soldier for T’Challa’s father’s death.
This led to Captain America defending Bucky, which Iron Man didn’t dig, and eventually
led to the events of Civil War.
So naturally, that made T’Challa an enemy of Zemo’s, although he refuses to let the
vengeance consume him, and prevents Zemo from committing suicide.
4 Man-Ape Man-Ape is a Wakandan named M’Baku who,
in the comics, is a foil to Black Panther – his Man-Ape identity uses brute animalistic
force to achieve his goals and target his enemies.
First appearing in Avengers issue 62 volume 1, he is one of Wakanda’s greatest warriors,
second to only Black Panther.
The character plotted to usurp the throne and turn Wakanda back into a primal state
– seems absurd, but to be fair, he is a man who got his powers from killing a white
gorilla, bathing in its blood and eating its flesh.
Fun.
The character makes an appearance in the Black Panther film as friend rather than foe, but
who knows what the MCU has planned for him in upcoming sequels.
3 White Wolf The White Wolf aka Hunter was adopted by the
previous King of Wakanda, T’Chaka, when his family;s plane crashed in the nation and
he became an orphan.
Having to deal with some serious xenophobic behavior from other Wakandans for being white
and a foreigner, he still persisted to rise in the ranks and become appointed the leader
of the Wakanda secret police.
He strived to be the best Wakandan he could be, especially after the birth of T’Challa,
who he was incredibly jealous of.
After T’Chaka was assassinated, T’challa disbanded the secret police, seeing them to
be brutal, which resulted in conflict between the two step brothers as to what was best
for Wakanda.
Those of you who stuck around to the end of the credits for Black Panther would have seen
the scene with Bucky Barnes and the ‘White Wolf’ reference, leading many to think that
this character may be re-appropriated to fit into Bucky instead of the White wolf being
a stand-alone character.
2 Klaw Created by Stan Lee and Jack Kirby, Klaw is
perhaps one of the Black Panther’s most nefarious villains.
He’s also the first villain T’Challa faced – Klaw was the one who murdered his father
T’Chaka.
So let’s back track a second here – in the comics, Ulysses Klaue is the son of a
Nazi war criminal, and was sent to Wakanda by Hitler himself to learn the nation’s
secrets.
After the war he moved to Belgium and changed his name to Klaw, and became a physicist who
worked in the field of applied sonics where he invents a sound transducer which converts
sound waves into physical mass.
But in order to really make it work, he needs vibranium.
And guess where there’s large deposits of that.
Klaw starts to formulate a plan to steal vibranium from Wakanda, but in the process, he is confronted
by T’Chaka, who he murders.
T’Challa sees Klaw murder his father, and attacks him, but Klaw gets away, minus his
right hand.
The character has been adjusted a bit to fit into the MCU, along with his story.
But no spoilers here.
1 Erik Killmonger Likely the most well-known Black Panther villain,
before and since the film’s release, Erik Killmonger is a complex character that, similar
to some other Marvel villains, is dangerous because his motives have a point.
It’s not difficult to sympathize with Killmonger, and perhaps that is what makes him so likeable.
The son of an exiled Wakandan villain, Erik’s family was forced to move to Harlem New York
where he grew up having a very different experience as a young black man compared to those who
grew up inside of Wakanda.
One of the most prominent features of his character’s adaptation in the film is the
contrast between Wakanda, a super power state that promotes Pan-Africanism, versus the world
in which Killmonger comes from, and the fact that Wakanda has done nothing to help the
millions of Africans and those of African descent fight back systematic oppression.
While in the comics, Killmonger is very much so driven by vengeance, the film further explores
the character, making his goal to be more than just liberating the Wakandan state, but
to dissolve it to further liberate the rest of the world.
It’s a battle of two completely different philosophies.
And let’s not forget the Killmonger physically is one hell of a match for T’Challa.
There we have it friends!
Which of these villains would you want to see in the next Black Panther film?
Let us know your thoughts in those comments below!
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I’ve been Kelly Paoli and this has been top 10 nerd.
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