Wakanda Forever | Black Panther 'Wakanda Forever' bids farewell to T'Challa and Chadwick Boseman

 

Given how carelessly the Wonder motion pictures have treated passing over the a long time — typically a franchise that broadly slaughtered off and after that restored half its cast — there's something effective approximately how straightforwardly Dark Puma: Wakanda Until the end of time

Forever

Until the end of time

 stands up to issues of melancholy and mortality. In the exceptionally to begin with scene, we learn that T'Challa, ruler of the African kingdom of Wakanda, has passed on of a strange sickness. It's obliterating news, but not a stun for those of us observing: We knew this was coming, ever since it was declared, at some point after Chadwick Boseman's passing, that T'Challa — the Dark Puma himself — would be laid to rest as well. 'Wakanda Forever' is both an excitement and an requiem, in which on- and off-screen tragedies merge. And so Wakanda Until the end of time is both an excitement and an funeral poem, in which on- and off-screen tragedies blend. It's a moving exertion and in some cases an inconvenient one, but I cleared out appreciating the chief Ryan Coogler's choice to recognize the reality of misfortune and honor

There are also some fresh faces in the mix, including Michaela Coel of the HBO series I May Destroy You as a Wakandan warrior, and Dominique Thorne as a whip-smart 19-year-old tech whiz who's being set up here for own future Disney-Marvel TV show, Ironheart. It's a reminder that, at the end of the day, the movie is still just one piece in an endless, overarching Marvel narrative.

Coogler is a terrific and sensitive director, but even he can't get past some of the series' more formulaic beats: As always in these movies, the action scenes are murky and hard to follow. A CIA-related parallel subplot falls tediously flat. It raises a sacrilegious and probably preposterous question: Why did Wakanda Forever have to be a superhero movie at all? What if, instead of falling back on the usual comic-book tropes, it had developed its characters more fully and allowed its story of grief, loss and redemption to play itself out naturally?

But for better or worse, it is a superhero movie. And so inevitably, someone new — I won't say who — ends up putting on T'Challa's catsuit, becoming the new Black Panther and saving the day. It's a somewhat hollow outcome, and it reminds you just how tiresome and rote the Marvel narrative has become. I was stirred by the beauty and sincerity of this movie's farewell to T'Challa and the great actor who played him. But I also wish that Black Panther: Wakanda Forever had found a more imaginative way to move us onward.

Wakanda Forever’s touching credits scene, explained

The Black Panther sequel says goodbye to Chadwick Boseman.

Black Panther: Wakanda Forever has a post-credits scene that looks and feels a little different from other recent Marvel teasers.

Over its last few movies — Eternals, Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness, and Thor: Love and Thunder — Marvel has used its post-credits scenes to announce big new castings. Harry Styles, Charlize Theron, and Brett Goldstein all had cameos introducing new characters (Eros, Clea, and Hercules) who will be major players in those respective franchises. One might assume that would happen with Wakanda Forever, especially with how the movie introduced the antihero sub-mariner Namor (Tenoch Huerta) and the underwater city of Talokan.

But Wakanda Forever did something different, using its post-credits scene to further one of the movie’s ongoing  plots.

Black Panther

In the film, Shuri (Letitia Wright) is holding on to an immense amount of grief after losing her brother T’Challa (the late Chadwick Boseman) to an unknown disease. In real life, Boseman died in August 2020 at the age of 43 after his colon cancer had progressed to stage four. He kept his disease private and his death was a shock to his fans and colleagues. In Wakanda Forever, his character dies offscreen.

Shuri wrestles with her anger and guilt at not being able to help him. She’s unable to give herself closure — something her mother Ramonda (Angela Bassett) urges her to do. At the same time, we learn her brother’s lover Nakia (Lupita Nyong’o) did not attend T’Challa’s funeral. Nakia moved to Haiti after Thanos’s snap turned T’Challa and half the Earth’s population into dust (T’Challa was brought back in Endgame but died sometime after his resurrection).

The post-credits scene is a continuation of that scene. As Shuri is grieving, Nakia approaches her with a 6-year-old boy in tow and asks if they can grieve with her. Nakia introduces the boy as her son, and he tells Shuri his name is Toussaint. Nakia then explains that Toussaint is T’Challa’s son, at which point the boy recites his Wakandan name and title as Prince T’Challa, son of King T’Challa, the late king of Wakanda.

Nakia tells Shuri that she and T’Challa had the child secretly (and seemingly prior to Thanos’s snap), and that she fled to Haiti because they didn’t want their son to grow up with the pressure of the throne. They wanted a normal life for Toussaint, Nakia says, and the scene ends with Nakia and Shuri’s newfound nephew asking Shuri to keep their secret.

In the comic books, T’Challa does have a son, known as Azari T’Challa. But that child exists in an alternate universe and his mother is Storm, the X-Woman who hasn’t been introduced in the MCU or the Black Panther series yet. T’Challa’s child with Nakia seems to be a brand new character who doesn’t have to follow source material. And because Prince T’Challa is so young, it seems unlikely that he’s going to be a major recurring character (though I guess this could change some 20 years down the road).

Instead, the post-credits scene feels more like the ongoing tribute to Chadwick Boseman and the character he played. Although Boseman had been a star since playing Jackie Robinson in 2013’s 42, his time as T’Challa struck a particular chord with audiences. Shuri’s flashbacks to times with her brother allow fans to remember and honor the actor. Their shared moments are some of the best parts of the first Black Panther movie.

Young T’Challa instantly brings not only joy to Shuri but a sense of hope, the feeling that her brother is still with her. In a way, the scene also feels like Marvel’s way of saying goodbye. Now T’Challa has a brand new world of possibility ahead of him, full of wonder and endless possibility. That’s what Boseman meant to so many people, so many fans, and especially so many children who love and were inspired by the character he played.

In the movie, Nakia gives Shuri a standing offer to live with her in Haiti. The movie’s final scene has Shuri finally visiting Nakia and performing a Wakandan ritual in which she says goodbye to her brother.