Let me plunge right in. And I will say again SPOILERS!!!
When Shuri took the heart shaped herb to become the new Black Panther, I was not surprised. I know that was the big secret of the film, but there was this question that always nagged at me to that moment: Supposing anyone could take the herb-even if only those exposed to vibranium-why wasn’t everyone in Wakanda so equipped?
It was limited
to the royal family, to a certain genetic line. Why? There are people far more
imaginative than I who could explain that. But she was the obvious and the only
choice (unless there were other branches of the royal family, which has not
been indicated in canon).
To indicate
that something did not surprise me points to the possibility that something did
surprise me. And something did take me completely by surprise.
Killmonger showing up when she journeyed to the realm of the Ancestors. I do
not know what I expected. The actor who played her father? Angela Basset? Some
kind of CGI/cut up of previously unused material containing Chadwick Boseman? Maybe
a final secret bit of filming he did before his death? Anything but him.
For me, the
power of that moment was how Killmonger was the ideal choice. It
reinforced the detailed and realistic exploration of grief across
that entire movie. This movie is as much a tribute to the memory of Chadwick Boseman
as it is a next step in the Marvel Cinematic Universe, whose death touched the lives of so many of us.
Shuri’s journey
of grief into anger and revenge is certainly not a unique comic book theme. It
is common enough to be a comic book trope. Consider the origin story of Batman
for example. But Bruce Wayne was raised by Alfred. The influence for Shuri
coming into the mantle of Black Panther was Killmonger.
How many
villain origins start from something terrible that happened that sent them down
the wrong road? Something bad happened to me so I response by doing something bad it return. It is
supposed to make the villain somewhere between misunderstood and sympathetic?
And it came
down to the climactic moment. The Black Panther was ready to kill Namor. Her vengeance
would have been complete. She would have, in the words of Killmonger, ‘gotten the
job done’. But unlike other Marvel movies, the grief was not concentrated in
that finale. I am thinking of Iron Man 3, where Tony Stark watched Pepper fall
to her apparent death. Grief concentrated into the shock of failure for Iron Man. We followed Shuri through her journey. We cried with
her, we were angry with her, we found moments of strange peace and even humor
before the grief washed back up.
What would have
been the villain’s end to this movie? The Black Panther executed vengeance on
Namor. Then Shuri returned home and continued her work on the herb to allow it
to work for all Wakandans (as all are exposed to vibranium). That, with vibranium technology, would have been a
world-conquering combination.
But at the
end of a journey of grief, life comes back into focus. The notion of ‘closure’
is incorrect. Rather, the memories remain but the emotions return to a place where
they are a part of life, instead of taking life over. That was symbolized in
the ritual of burning the mourning garments. And the Easter egg, but I will
leave that to be seen.
Peter Hofstra
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