Marvel has released a new trailer for Black Panther, showing off the newest look for Chadwick Boseman as T’Challa, the titular superhero, and Michael B. Jordan as Erik Killmonger, the film’s fiery villain.
While the first trailer, which premiered in June, gave us a frenetic sampling of the cool details the film has to offer — the female bodyguards known as the Dora Milaje, Boseman in that signature Black Panther super suit, and Lupita Nyong'o giving fierce looks — this second trailer gives us more depth.
It hints that there’s a void left after Marvel’s Civil War, which saw T’Challa’s father assassinated. T’Challa, heir to the throne in his home country of Wakanda, has to assert how the nation, which is arguably the most technologically advanced on earth in the Marvel Cinematic Universe, will be ruled, and must grasp that power. But Killmonger seizes the opportunity to stage a coup.
Add in fight scenes, hi-tech gadgetry, not one but multiple vibranium-enhanced Black Panther super suits, and you’ve got a jaw-dropping trailer.
Directed by Ryan Coogler, Black Panther will be the first solo black superhero movie in Marvel’s current cinematic universe. And it’s an opportunity to tell a story from a different point of view — not just based on race. (The majority of characters in Marvel’s superhero stories so far have been white or European.) Black Panther is also a story about what the world of superpowers looks like to a country that isn’t the US, doesn’t share the US’s views, has a ruling king, and has its own unique circumstances to deal with.
From what we’ve seen so far, it sure looks impressive.
Black Panther hits theaters on February 16, 2018.
