Killmonger is right again in Black Panther: Wakanda Forever

Back in 2018, Ryan Cooglers Black Panther sparked a wave of memes that have plagued the Marvel Cinematic Universe ever since, all because main antagonist Erik Killmonger (played by Michael B. Jordan) didn’t follow what had become the standard MCU model for a villain. “Killmonger was right” stuck in part because it’s a memorable phrase (and infinitely transferable to “Thanos was right,” “Riddler was right,” and so on).

But it became such a ubiquitous argument hanging over the film for another reason: because it’s true. After a string of lackluster MCU villains whose primary motivations were “power for power’s sake” or “I just hate the hero of this movie,” Killmonger came with a particularly understandable grudge against his native Wakanda and an agenda that transcended personal retribution expanded to help oppressed blacks around the world, using Wakanda’s military might on their behalf. Audiences responded to this agenda, often with resentment that the film’s hero, King T’Challa, aka Black Panther, didn’t always live up to Erik’s grievances.

In the powerful sequel Black Panther: Wakanda Forever, Killmonger’s tactics take on new meaning and a new chance to be right in a number of ways. But at the same time, his legacy is being wronged. The film respects the way fans reacted to the character when they first saw it, while also exploiting it. But Coogler and co-writer Joe Robert Cole could have gone further by giving Erik the hearing he missed the first time.

[Ed. note: Spoilers ahead for one key scene in Black Panther: Wakanda Forever.]

Is Killmonger in Wakanda forever?

Photo: Marvel Studios/Disney

Some fans have been hoping for this all along Black Panther Sequels might somehow find a way to revive Killmonger and even turn him into the new Black Panther. (It seemed unlikely, but in a franchise increasingly drawing on the infinite possibilities of the multiverse, it wasn’t impossible — Episode 6 of the MCU animated series What happened if…? did just that.) Early rumors that Jordan would return to the role only fueled the fire.

Coincidentally, Jordan returns as a Killmonger – but only posthumously. When Wakanda scientist Shuri (Letitia Wright) finds a way to synthesize the heart-shaped herb that grants those who consume it the powers of her country’s signature hero, Black Panther, she follows in the path of her brother T’Challa ( Chadwick Boseman). recorded Black Panther, and consumes the herb in a ritual process. It sends them on a vision to the Ancestral Planes, where previously T’Challa and Killmonger alike were able to meet and speak to their dead fathers.

But instead of her father, brother, or recently deceased mother Ramonda (Angela Bassett), Shuri finds Erik Killmonger waiting for her, smugly proclaiming that she called out to him more than anyone else. She denies it, but it quickly becomes apparent that he is telling the truth. From grief at the death of her brother to an unnamed illness and enraged at the death of her mother at the hands of the seemingly immortal mutant Namor (Tenoch Huerta), Shuri wants no wisdom or any comfort she doesn’t believe in. She wants revenge. So she instinctively reaches out for the most powerful vengeful figure she has ever met.

Killmonger was right

Image: Marvel Studios/Disney

The scene is a thrill for fans of the character. More often than not, the chance to see Jordan back in action feels like a stark antithesis to the way he disappears in act three of Black Panther, which turns into an unsatisfactory CG effect instead of a captivating persona. in the Wakanda foreverhe returns to the purring, self-assured villain he played in the early parts of Black Panther, and he can dominate a room with his presence. He can also drop some truth bombs, voicing the things Shuri knows but refuses to acknowledge: that her brother and father weren’t cruel or ruthless enough to give her the advantage she wants in the upcoming battle against Namor.

A lot of Wakanda forever is a battle for Shuri’s soul: how she channels her grief over T’Challa and then her mother, and how she deals with the temptation Namor offers her to turn Wakanda’s security issues into a grudge against the entire jealous, to transform covetous world . The main question that runs through the film is what will she choose: The dream of open borders and outreach that T’Challa promised the world? Isolation in her lab and the experiments she loves? The camaraderie and working partnership represented by her new acquaintance Riri (Dominique Thorne), possibly the first person she’s ever met who could rival her intellect, curiosity and talent? Domination of Wakanda at the expense of the rest of the world?

Not all of these choices are mutually exclusive, but they are all on the table, and they all represent possible paths she could take if she doesn’t let revenge consume her. But Killmonger who did let vengeance consume him represents a barrier she must overcome if she is to advance. He’s what all good villains need to be: a dark mirror of her obsession, a reflection of what she could be if she makes selfish and selfish choices.

But at the same time he is right when he says she’s hurt and angry and wants to do something about it. He’s right when he says that kindness, compassion, and prioritizing other people’s needs didn’t save their family members. And he is right when he denounces her for denying her feelings and her desires. He may be dead and ancestral, but he’s as sharp and determined as ever.

Killmonger was wronged

Image: Marvel Studios/Disney

And yet the scene could have been so much more. Black Panther never really lets his Wakandan characters acknowledge the injustice that T’Chaka left Killmonger to grow up fatherless and alone in America. The audience senses the injustice and sees the depth of Erik’s feelings, but everyone else in the story is more preoccupied with their own agendas. Wakanda forever there is already so much going on that there is no point in rehashing this conspiracy or renegotiating this point. But it’s worth noting how eloquent, emotional, and compelling Killmonger was in the first film when he said his piece, and how comparatively little he has to say Wakanda forever.

He points out that Shuri asked him for advice on revenge and power, but he offers no more specific or useful advice than “Mind business”. He doesn’t bring her the tactical advantages or insights that he seems to take for granted. He scoffs at Shuri’s family but offers no alternative to what he describes as their weaknesses other than “Follow the path I followed that failed and left me dead and labeled a villain.” In the scene between him and Shuri loses so much opportunity because he has so little to say other than confirming what the audience already knows: that Shuri is angry and bereft and is looking for someone to validate her anger as righteous and just.

Killmonger’s acknowledgment of Shuri’s anger is momentous at the moment, and also terrifying in the best way. It’s a moment when a hero seeks a villain to tell her it’s okay to commit villainous acts, to reassure her that whatever she wants to do to her enemies is justified. And her exchanges with Killmonger help her: it validates what she thinks and feels and what she tries to deny. He suddenly helps her make the right choices by clearly defining what the wrong choices are and why they are so tempting—even though he doesn’t remotely try to when he’s talking to her.

But it’s such a short scene wasted on denial and hubris. Shuri never makes the most logical arguments she can come up with. She doesn’t talk about how grief made her embrace the idea of ​​speaking to her ancestors, despite her lack of belief in the supernatural. She doesn’t make the obvious point that the path he’s pushing her down hasn’t served him well. Just a little more push from her would have enabled so much more from him – and it would have been worth hearing why he did quiet believes that revenge is the way to go even though it has failed him, or how he might have set her down a path she was reluctant to accept.

And in the end she seeks him for advice, but all she gets is “revenge is good”. Killmonger had many strengths in the righteous aspects of his cause and his complete faith in his actions. But he’s also a strategist and planner, and he doesn’t conjure up any of that, even in the simplest sense art of war-style by telling her to find and exploit her enemy’s weaknesses. His rhetoric and the power of his presence were also great weapons, and Wakanda forever doesn’t give him nearly enough room to unleash them.

It’s a glorious scene anyway. It’s both a shock to audiences and a perfectly logical confirmation of things we already know. (It also raises a lot more questions about exactly who gets to hang out at the ancestral level, which clearly doesn’t deal with hero-villain dichotomies.) But the sequence still leaves a lot of potential on the table given the chance to killmonger by to separate it from its origin story and let it shine. It’s a place where Coogler could delve deeper into the themes of revenge, grief, and justification, and exploit Jordan’s presence even more. Who knows how many more chances Killmonger has of showing up and being right – why not make more of it?