Black Panther: The Young Prince

To many, the Black Panther is most recognizable as actor Chadwick Boseman. Boseman played the superhero in Ryan Coogler’s 2018 Marvel movie Black Panther. The Black Panther of this movie faces the familiar adversary of Killmonger, the villain who tries to conquer Wakanda with the goal of using its technology to alleviate the suffering of the African diaspora across the world. The Wakanda of this film is technologically advanced, and vibranium is at the heart of each invention. Despite this, the figure of the Black Panther has a long and important history in comics: “The Black Panther, created by Stan Lee and Jack Kirby, is widely heralded as the first high-profile Black superhero in mainstream American comic books” (Whitted, Qiana J. “Volume Introduction.” Black Panther – Penguin Classics, 2022). As the first major Black superhero in comics, T’Challa is a groundbreaking figure. His role as a superhero not only opened the world of comic books to wider audiences but also introduced the world to new possibilities and realities: “T’Challa is a king, a warrior, a scientific genius, and under the mantle of Black Panther, he is the divinely sanctioned leader of an unconquered African people” (Whitted). As the leader of Wakanda, T’Challa rules a country that is never conquered and exists without the influences of imperialism and the legacy of the slave trade on the African continent.