It is testimony to the Pulp roots of the superhero genre that in Marvel Comics, the most technologically advanced nation on Earth is a traditional African kingdom that has never been colonized by whites, and no one considers this unusual.
The Black Panther character was introduced to the Marvel Cinematic Universe in Captain America: Civil War, and while he wasn’t the center of the action, Chadwick Boseman set the stage with a formidable portrayal of Prince T’Challa, seeking justice after the death of his father. This leads to the Black Panther solo movie, in which T’Challa formally claims the throne of Wakanda.
I had mentioned in my review of Wonder Woman that while Wonder Woman may be a feminist icon, the movie wasn’t precisely a feminist film, because the character had not grown up under patriarchy. The nation of Wakanda poses a similar issue with regard to race. The main drama in Black Panther comes from T’Challa’s would-be usurper, the mercenary code-named Killmonger (Michael B. Jordan), who in his character depicts the contrast between being African and African-American. Killmonger’s personal history also brings up a state secret of Wakanda: in the MCU, in order to keep “colonizers” from exploiting the country’s wealth, the kings of Wakanda hide their country’s technology and use holograms and other tricks to convince the West that Wakanda is an (ahem) shithole country. But this means that Wakanda is not using its resources to address the civil wars and refugee crises of its neighbors. Right now, politicians in the United States and the European Union demonize immigrants and refugees from “developing” countries as being not only a threat to national security but the traditional way of life. The fact that this issue is posed by a movie with an almost entirely black cast is the most subversive thing about the film, from both a left-wing and right-wing standpoint.
In this regard, Black Panther has the now-standard MCU post-credits scene, but this scene, in which T’Challa addresses the United Nations office in Vienna, isn’t simply an add-on Easter egg but the entire point of the movie.
I didn’t think that Black Panther was the most awesome movie ever – at this point in the MCU, all the super-tech didn’t impress me as much as the uber-rhinos and Hanuman warriors – but it did what it needed to do.
Show respect and bow down.