The death of a celebrity sends cascading shockwaves through the populace. Everyone remembers Robin Williams’ passing. My family and many friends distinctly remember the news that Bourdain had passed. Late last year we mourned the loss of Betty White. Marvel fans, in the last few years lost Stan Lee, the name behind America’s superhero Mythos, and just recently William Hurt, who played General “Thunderbolt” Ross. But no loss stings quite as much, cuts quite as deep, as the sudden and unexpected loss of Chadwick Boseman. Chadwick immediately had the audience's hearts, from the very first moment he pounced on to the screen in Captain America: Civil War as the Black Panther. When the Black Panther got his own movie it set records for the MCU, and pushed down walls, opening the floodgates as a black led, black directed and written superhero film soaked up the spotlight.

On screen as in life, Chadwick was a monolithic personality. A spirit of kindness and warmth that endeared himself, engrained himself, in the minds of the black community and the hordes of MCU fans across the world. He was magnanimous, mellifluous, and the embodiment of strength and compassion. What we learned in 2020, when he passed, was that he was all of these things while battling undisclosed colon cancer. The realization of what that discovery implied would hit people in unending waves for nearly a year. How did he do so much? How did he hold such divine composure? How did he act with such grace and resilience all while, in complete secret, he was dying?

All of these questions, all of these thoughts, tumbled around while people started wondering what all of this meant about the future of the Black Panther. Members of the community were split between the importance of Boseman’s legacy and the importance of T’Challa, both as a symbol and role model for the black community and in the MCU at large, and the possibility of recasting the hero, for the same reasons. Was it unkind to replace him in the next film? Was the character indeed more important than the actor? Ryan Coogler, director of the first Black Panther and director and writer of the planned sequel later told press that after Boseman passed he contemplated quitting film all together, such was the impact and influence of Chadwick’s death. When Coogler decided to proceed, he said it was because he knew what he needed to do. In the months that followed we learned what he meant. That the upcoming Wakanda Forever was going to be a tribute to all things Wakanda. A memorial for Chadwick, a continuation of his legacy, and the next step for the characters we all met, as they grieved the loss of their King. Of their Black Panther.

At the risk of leading with too much information, Black Panther: Wakanda Forever is perfect.

The start of Wakanda Forever is what you would expect. From a hushed black screen Letitia Wright’s Shuri breathlessly pleads for guidance to save her brother from illness. It’s the kind of opening that sucks the oxygen from your chest. We are shown a nation in mourning, as people line the streets to celebrate King T’Challa’s life. It’s extravagant and heartbreaking. Coogler plays with massive musical arrangements and absolute silence as these scenes play out, a harsh but very real representation of grief. The dichotomy of grief is just this, that in one moment we wail and scream at what power above would allow such sadness to occur, and in the next we tremble and sob in ear shattering silence. Angela Bassett and Letitia Wright are the very illustration of misery, giving performances throughout the film that will grab you by the heart and pull it up into your throat.

When T’Challa is interred, the film gets busy with the matters at hand. As one who has experienced a familial death, I was acutely familiar with the urge, that as a means of survival and instinct, we must move on to the next day. Queen Ramonda is called before the UN, as the world bemoans their lack of access to Vibranium and complains about Wakanda not holding up its end of the deal in providing resources for education to the outside world. Romonda’s response is calm, composed, and makes the hair on your neck stand on end. This is also the first time the new score announces itself. For the introduction of the film, essentially the eulogy for T’Challa, the moment is engrossing enough you would be forgiven for absorbing it as a singular event. The music here is strong and emotional. But when Romonda is before the UN, informing them of an intrusion at a Wakandan outreach facility, Ludwig Göransson’s new score starts to shake to life. Sharp vocal chirps gather momentum into a booming announcement. With the action playing out on screen, the effect is intoxicating.

In fact, throughout the film, Göransson’s score is nothing if not its own character. The composer/producer has been cutting his teeth in the hip-hop world for a decade, working with monumental talents like Childish Gambino and Kendrick Lamar. He’s also been scoring film and TV just as long. After winning an Oscar for the previous film, the bar sat at a nearly unreachable high. Luckily Ludwig set the first bar himself. Wakanda Forever’s score is a beast possessed. The themes from the first movie return, but because the world is different, more accurately because Boseman is gone and Wright’s Shuri is more central, Göransson lets each queue leech a bit of her high-tech prowess. Booming synths accompanied by full heated horns play in mixed company with traditional percussion and thick 808 bumps. It’s truly stellar, and listening back to the tracks when the soundtrack released cements the volume and impact while giving listeners gentle clues to listen for on subsequent viewings. It makes sense that when Christopher Nolan set out to make Tenet and asked Hans Zimmer to score, the world famous and at-the-time Dune-booked composer told Nolan he had to go to Göransson. The man only knows how to deliver.

Outside of matters concerning Boseman and the future of the Black Panther, fans have been itching for Wakanda Forever because it was set to be the introduction of Marvel’s first hero: Namor the Submariner. Debuting in comics in 1939, Namor was the king of Atlantis, an isolated people beneath the sea, with a distaste for people of the surface world. Adjusting the origins of the character slightly, Wakanda Forever moves the city of Atlantis across the Atlantic Ocean and gives them a Central American origin, thus renaming the city Talokan. Cast in the role of Namor is Tenoch Huerta Mejia, a veteran of Latin American and Spanish film. Tenoch is brilliant. In a film following Killmonger, whose motivations divided the audience, Namor is Killmonger with an army and the tension that his introduction injects into the MCU is delicious. It truly feels we are one step closer to the scale of conflict represented in the comic representations of the Registration Civil War and the Avengers vs. X-Men conflict.

Namor is a king embroiled. He wants to protect his people and in a world desperate for Vibranium and advanced technologies, he sees the best way to protect them is to lash out against the surface world preemptively. The ways in which this mindset clashes with our heroes from Wakanda are numerous and complicated. Ramonda is fending off attempts to steal Vibranium from outside nations and Shuri is mourning the loss of her brother and hoping to find a way to replace her nation’s protector. How can they do this with a newly discovered national super power emerging? What if that super power asks for your help? What if what they are asking goes against your goals?

The way these events play out lays the ground work for years of conflict in the MCU, but most importantly, takes the characters we already know and pushes them to their limits. The sacrifices they make, or are forced to make, will have deep and prolonged repercussions. And still remaining is the question: what will Wakanda do without her Black Panther? Wakanda Forever has an answer to that. In fact it has multiple, and each is satisfying and shocking, something that will surely lead to fan theories and conjecture that will carry us to the next theatrical release.

Wakanda Forever is a brilliant and heartfelt work that honors Boseman and makes way for the future in astonishing ways. The performances of the cast are incredible with raw emotion on everyone’s sleeve. From the grief of our Wakandans, to the defensive fury and vengeance of Namor and the people of Talokan. I could not have asked for a better follow up of Black Panther. Nor did I expect to get something so adept at filling gaps, answering questions, and putting forward such a smorgasbord of possibilities. I can not wait for more from everyone in this movie. Everyone.

One can only hope to leave a legacy as broad and lasting as Chadwick Boseman. All of the questions about how that legacy would play out in future MCU movies, ordinarily an inconsequential thought after the loss of a human life, can be found answered in this movie. He is painted in every scene. From the sorrow of T’Challa’s loss to the joy in his sister’s smile. Very few moments lack the imprint of this great and sorely missed man. Watch any interview with the cast members. His absence was felt. But so was his presence. A gift from the Ancestral Plane.

In the final moments, in a theater full of misty eyed MCU faithful, Coogler tucks in one last surprise that sent audible gasps rippling across the theater. Wakanda Forever indeed. Chadwick would have been so proud. Long live the King. Long live the Black Panther. Long live T’Challa.

@LubWub
~Caleb

Black Panther: Wakanda Forever (Disney, PG-13