While Marvel didn’t have a lot of announcements at San Diego Comic Con, the ones they did offer fans were very exciting. We got the announcement that Ryan Gosling is joining the MCU as Ghost Rider and getting his own movie with Shawn Levy at the helm and we also got the official announcement for Black Panther 3 as well as a very important casting reveal: The Long Walk star David Jonsson as T’Challa II, the grown-up version of boy we met ever briefly at the end of Black Panther: Wakanda Forever. The casting is major news for the Black Panther franchise, suggesting that the story will move beyond Shuri in the role of Black Panther and even suggesting that T’Challa II will in some way be impacted by the events of Avengers: Doomsday. However, even beyond the larger MCU implications of things, there is something bigger that Black Panther 3 could end up doing — and it’s something that we have rarely seen from Marvel.
While stories of grief and loss are integral to the overall MCU, when it comes to the Black Panther franchise these themes are particularly acute. Over the course of two films to date, filmmaker Ryan Coogler has been largely telling a story of loss and legacy, one that started with Chadwick Boseman’s T’Challa taking up not only the Wakandan crown but the role of Black Panther after the death of his own father in Captain America: Civil War. It’s a theme that has only deepened through Black Panther and Wakanda Forever, but with Black Panther 3, there’s a real opportunity to break that cycle with Jonsson’s T’Challa II coming into his power not because of loss but from a place where he chooses his own path.
So far, every iteration of Black Panther we’ve seen has had to deal with profound loss, grief, and suffering as they take on leadership and power. There’s T’Challa taking up the crown and mantle following the death of T’Chaka, but it goes even further than that. While not necessarily a case of having to lose something in order claim power, in Black Panther we saw that King T’Chaka (who was Black Panther at the time) killed his own brother, N’Jobu after N’Jobu had decided to share Wakandan technology with those in the African diaspora. It’s an act that would ultimately lead to additional trauma, at least for T’Challa, when N’Jobu’s abandoned son, Erik, shows up seeking to settle the score.
T’Chaka’s actions weigh heavily on T’Challa and prompts him to make huge changes to Wakanda as a result. We see him open up the nation to the world and share its technology, but the grief and trauma tied to the Black Panther legacy sadly does not end there. By the time we get to Wakanda Forever, it’s Shuri’s turn to deal with loss and legacy. T’Challa is dead, which leaves Shuri in a place of mourning as well as responsibility, but it isn’t just the death of her brother that Shuri has to deal with. It’s the death of her mother, Queen Ramonda, that ultimately pushes Shuri into becoming the new Black Panther. Across those three figures — T’Chaka, T’Challa, and Shuri — a clear through line of loss exists, making it a big part of the Black Panther legacy.
At this point in time, we don’t actually know where Black Panther 3 will pick up the story or where it is going, but there is a lot of opportunity for this story to break the cycle we’ve seen with T’Chaka, T’Challa, and Shuri— and even Killmonger, if we want to go there. Up until this point, we’ve seen each new Black Panther have to carry the weight of the one before them, including the consequences of that hero’s choices. But with what we already know about T’Challa II from his brief introduction at the end of Wakanda Forever, that he was raised at least in part away from Wakanda and that larger legacy, as a young man he could very well be the first person in his family to step into his power on his own terms rather than merely picking up the family baggage. If Coogler takes that concept and gives us a coming-of-age story or a coming into one’s own power story, even if it’s couched in the impact of Doomsday or another existential threat, we would be getting a completely different story. We’d get a Black Panther who represents a generation of Wakandan hero and leader defined not by loss and pain and picking up the pieces, but one that gets to truly honor those who came before and lead into a better tomorrow.
In a sense, that would be the finest way to bring Boseman’s T’Challa’s story full circle. The last time we really saw him, he was opening up Wakanda to the world, putting a down payment on a brighter future for everyone before he was tragically taken too soon. By having his son be the person to actually succeed at the work he began and be a hero of his own creation, the cycle of loss will end and the new legacy for Black Panther will be one of hope. It would offer an emotional payoff we’ve rarely seen in other MCU installments and might just make it the most powerful story of them all.
