Black Panther: 10 Reasons Why It's The Most Important Marvel Film Yet
10. How It Tackles History
Marvel Studios
The MCU is no stranger to using history to tell a story, with a wide selection of Marvel films having now utilised flashback at some point or another, but Black Panther is the first to actually address it.
The conversations the film has stem directly from the source material itself, with Wakanda symbolising what the African continent would've looked like had it not been for centuries worth of colonisation, exploitation and tyranny from European Empires, but it should still be commended for translating them so diligently regardless.
What makes BP's discussion so brilliant isn't just that it's the first comic book movie to really have it, but the way in which it does so too. Killmonger's introduction at the British Museum is executed perfectly, with the anti-villain pointing out the absurdity of a British institution claiming ownership over items pillaged by their soldiers but a few hundred years earlier.
It's incredibly refreshing to say the least, and with the film also discussing the effects of institutionalised racism in the United States, Fanonist rhetoric and modern day imperialism, Black Panther is by far the smartest comic book film of our time.
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.
