Black Panther: 10 Reasons Why It's The Most Important Marvel Film Yet

2. It Continues Marvel's Convincing Record With Origin Films

Black Panther T Challa Killmonger
Marvel Studios

The MCU is no stranger to a good origin movie; Iron Man, Captain America: The First Avenger, Doctor Strange and Ant-Man all released to relative acclaim and it's true that Marvel have done the most out of any studio to make that premise stick. Fatigue surrounding those stories - aided in part by mediocre releases from the early 2000s - had begun to set in until the MCU (read, Iron Man) came around in 2008.

The interesting predicament for Marvel these last few years has been about how they keep that momentum going. With Infinity War and the next Avengers film set to usher in a new age for the comic book genre's premier franchise, efforts have been made recently to introduce new characters into the mix, namely Ant-Man, Doctor Strange, and the soon to be released Captain Marvel.

These heroes, along with Black Panther, will lead the MCU's next phase. The three to have featured so far have all had their own origin story now, but they've been produced in a very un-origin-like way. We see these heroes evolve at a realistic pace, exposition is handled fluently and the films themselves are both bold and accessible. Black Panther, with all its Wakandan lore, world-building and more, continues that trend.

It even builds upon it, providing Marvel with another platform from which to expand their universe and another selection of stars to lead it in the years to come.

Advertisement
Content Producer/Presenter

WhatCulture's very own resident movie guy, Ewan has been working in the content creation biz for over 10 years now, having started as a freelance contributor to WhatCulture Gaming all the way back in 2015. After graduating with a First-Class Honours in History from Northumbria University in 2017 (where he won a prize for a totally killer dissertation on the Watergate years), Ewan took on the role of Comics Editor at WhatCulture and quickly developed WhatCulture Comics into one of the biggest superhero-focused channels on YouTube. He followed this with a brief hiatus at Screen Rant in 2021, where he worked across the Gaming and Film sections as a writer and editor, before returning to WhatCulture as a Senior Content Producer / Presenter in 2023. He started his own podcast, We Love Dad Movies, in 2022, and has contributed several written pieces to the Eisner-nominated comics website Shelfdust as well. In his current role, Ewan incorporates his love of cinema, comic books, and history into written pieces and video essays for WhatCulture's Film & TV channel, as well as WhatCulture Gaming and WhatCulture Horror, with a particular focus on nineties-era Dad Movies, old school Westerns, and Golden Age Hollywood Noir. John Carpenter is his fave, and he thinks Batman Beyond should never have been cancelled. If that's your vibe, you'll probably like his stuff.