The prince of a country that has spent centuries pretending to be poor, who inherits the throne in the worst week of his life and has to decide whether the secret was ever defensible.
T’Challa is introduced in someone else’s film, at a conference table in Vienna, sitting beside his father. By the end of the scene his father is dead and he is the heir to the most technologically advanced country on the planet, which almost nobody knows exists.
His own film is about the price of that secret. Wakanda has vibranium, medicine that works, and a border nobody can cross, and it has spent centuries watching the rest of the continent be taken apart while telling itself that hiding is the same as safety. The film gives the counter-argument to Erik Stevens, makes it genuinely strong, and then has T’Challa lose to him.
What follows is the rare thing in this material: a hero who concedes. He wins the throne back and then does what his opponent wanted, more slowly and without the killing. His last act in his own film is to establish an outreach centre in the building where his uncle N’Jobu died, run by Nakia and Shuri, and then to stand up at the United Nations and tell the world what Wakanda actually is.
Show detailsThe mantle is a job, not a person
Black Panther is a title. It is held by the ruler of Wakanda, it comes with the heart-shaped herb and the blessing of the panther goddess Bast, and it can be contested. At T’Challa’s coronation, M’Baku of the Jabari challenges him in ritual combat and very nearly wins.
That distinction matters more than it first appears. It means the story can continue without the person, which is what eventually happens.
Major spoiler
T’Challa dies before the sequel begins, of an unspecified illness that Shuri believed the heart-shaped herb could have cured. He had a son with Nakia, raised in Haiti and named Toussaint, whose Wakandan name is T’Challa. Shuri takes the mantle.
Chadwick Boseman died of colon cancer in August 2020. Kevin Feige confirmed that the role would not be recast and that no digital double would be used, saying Boseman’s performance had transcended any previous version of the character.