70 Fun Facts About Black Panther

In which comic book did the Black Panther make his first appearance in 1966?

That July 1966 debut made him the first Black superhero in American mainstream comics, three months before the Black Panther Party was founded.

Which writer and artist created the Black Panther?

Kirby later returned to write, pencil and edit a solo Black Panther series in 1977, but it lasted only 15 issues.

Jack Kirby's original concept art for the character used which working name?

The early concept was a swashbuckler; the finished hero became the king of a hidden, hyper-advanced African nation instead.

T'Challa gains his enhanced abilities by consuming the essence of what?

The plant only grows in Wakanda, and being denied it is a serious handicap in a ritual challenge for the throne.

In which year did the Black Panther travel to New York to join the Avengers?

He joined in The Avengers #52 and, while on the team, moonlighted as a Harlem schoolteacher under a false name.

Which anthology title carried the acclaimed 1973-75 storyline "Panther's Rage"?

It ran in issues #6-18 and is often called one of the first true graphic novels in mainstream comics.

Who wrote "Panther's Rage", the storyline that introduced T'Challa's nemesis Erik Killmonger?

The same writer followed it with "Panther vs. the Klan" in 1976 and later "Panther's Quest" with Gene Colan.

In a 1972 guest appearance the hero briefly went by which alternative name?

The switch was meant to avoid association with the Black Panther Party; it was reversed by The Avengers #105.

Christopher Priest's 1998 series introduced which State Department attorney as a viewpoint character?

Priest used him as a bridge for readers; in the films the same character became a CIA agent instead.

The name of T'Challa's all-female bodyguard, the Dora Milaje, is said to translate as what?

In the comics they were chosen from 18 rival tribes to serve as guards and ceremonial wives-in-training.

In the comics, Okoye spoke to the king only in which African language, chosen for privacy?

The film version made her a Border Tribe traditionalist and head of the guard rather than a silent attendant.

In 2006, during Reginald Hudlin's run, T'Challa married which member of the X-Men?

The wedding was written as a temporary truce in the middle of Marvel's Civil War crossover.

Readers compared T'Challa and Storm's 2006 wedding to which real-life couple?

The comparison ran ahead of reality: the musicians did not actually marry until 2008.

After marrying, T'Challa and Storm temporarily replaced which two members of Marvel's first family?

Reed and Sue stepped away in the aftermath of Civil War, and the royal couple filled their spots on the team.

Black Panther vol. 5 launched in February of which year, with Shuri taking over as the new Black Panther?

Shuri had only debuted in 2005; her rise to the mantle came a decade before Letitia Wright played her.

Which artist drew Ta-Nehisi Coates's 2016 Black Panther relaunch?

That book's self-forming suit was the direct inspiration for the Panther Habit in the 2018 film.

What was the title of Coates's first Black Panther storyline, in which T'Challa faces a popular uprising?

Coates borrowed the title from a Steven Hahn history of Black political struggle in the rural South.

At the end of Coates's first storyline, Wakanda is reformed into what?

T'Challa stays on as a figurehead king rather than a ruler, a change the films have not adopted.

What is Erik Killmonger's Wakandan birth name in the comics?

The 2018 film kept the name and made him T'Challa's cousin, a relationship the original comics did not give him.

Erik Killmonger first appeared in September of which year?

He was created by Don McGregor and Rich Buckler, and did not reach the screen for another 45 years.

In the comics, at which university did Killmonger study while plotting revenge?

He was written as a gifted intellectual from childhood, exiled to the US after his father sided with Klaw.

While living in New York as an Avenger, T'Challa taught school under which secret identity?

The Coates-era comics later gave him a second civilian cover as Mr. Okonkwo, a Congolese diner owner in Hell's Kitchen.

Kasper Cole, who replaced T'Challa as the lead of Priest's series for its last 13 issues, worked as what?

T'Challa personally trained him as a new Black Panther while sidelined by injury.

In Jack Kirby's 1977 solo series, the Black Panther hunts for which magic artifact?

Kirby wrote, pencilled and edited the book after returning from DC, but left after 12 of its 15 issues.

In the comics, T'Challa was sent abroad to graduate from which university?

The films skip his schooling entirely; the character is already a diplomat's son at the UN when we meet him.

Wakanda's secret police, the Hatut Zeraze, are known in English as what?

The 2018 film borrows the term for its undercover spies abroad, including Nakia and Killmonger's father.

Who voiced T'Challa in the 2010 animated Black Panther series on BET?

The six-episode motion-comic adaptation was based on Reginald Hudlin's "Who Is the Black Panther?" arc.

Vibranium made its Marvel debut in February 1966 in which title, five months before Wakanda's king?

That first version had the odd trait of absorbing sound; the Wakandan variety later became famous for soaking up kinetic energy.

The Antarctic form of vibranium is nicknamed "Anti-Metal" because it does what?

It lives in the Savage Land, and Wakandan vibranium can be converted into it with the right radiation.

In the Marvel Universe, how long ago did the vibranium meteorite land in what became Wakanda?

Coates named the meteorite Mena Ngai; the film compresses the timeline into a five-tribe origin legend.

Who directed the 2018 film Black Panther?

Marvel re-opened talks with him after Creed opened big in late 2015; he brought most of that film's crew with him.

Which actor plays Erik Killmonger in the 2018 film?

It was his third film with the director after Fruitvale Station and Creed, with Creed trainer Corey Calliet building his physique.

Which actor announced plans for a Black Panther film in 1992 that never got made?

Stan Lee joined the project in 1994; one problem was people assuming it was about the Black Panther Party.

The film's 1992 opening flashback takes place in which city?

The director grew up there, and Atlanta's Sweet Auburn neighborhood doubled for it during filming.

The film's big car chase, involving 150 cars and over 700 people, was shot in which city?

Filming there began at the Jagalchi Fish Market; Stan Lee's cameo is set in the same city's casino.

The Wakandan language spoken in the films is based on which real language?

John Kani, who plays T'Chaka, taught it to Boseman on Captain America: Civil War, and Kani's son served as dialect coach.

Winston Duke spoke a version of which Nigerian language to set his mountain-tribe character apart?

The tribe's hair, war paint and blocky wooden aesthetic were separately inspired by Senegalese warriors.

Which of these was one of the three Academy Awards Black Panther won?

Its other two wins were Costume Design and Production Design, the first Oscars ever for a Marvel Studios film.

Black Panther was the first superhero film ever nominated for which Academy Award?

It was also the first superhero film up for the Golden Globe for Best Motion Picture - Drama.

Who designed the film's costumes, creating around 700 of them?

She drew on the Maasai, Himba, Dogon, Basotho, Tuareg, Turkana, Zulu, Suri and Dinka peoples for the tribes' looks.

Angela Bassett's costumes as Queen Ramonda drew inspiration from which real woman?

Each Wakandan tribe also got its own palette: black and royal purple were reserved for the Panther and the palace.

Who composed the film's Oscar-winning score?

He built his character themes around the talking drum and the tambin, a Fula flute, plus horns.

The composer spent a month researching in which African country, touring with musician Baaba Maal?

He then spent weeks recording with local musicians there to form the base of the score.

Which rapper produced the film's curated soundtrack, Black Panther: The Album?

Disney had him play the very first College Football Playoff championship halftime show to launch the album and ticket sales.

Which song from the film was nominated for the Academy Award for Best Original Song?

The SZA collaboration lost to "Shallow" from A Star Is Born.

Black Panther set a record for the biggest February opening weekend, surpassing which 2016 film?

Its $202 million four-day debut was also the best-ever Presidents' Day weekend opening.

Roughly how much did Black Panther gross worldwide?

That made it the highest-grossing solo superhero film at the time and the top-grossing film ever by a Black director.

Stan Lee's cameo in Black Panther casts him as what?

He pockets T'Challa's casino winnings "for safekeeping" moments before the fight breaks out.

In the post-credits scene, Bucky Barnes has been given which Wakandan name?

Shuri is helping him recover; in the comics the White Wolf is T'Challa's adopted brother Hunter, who leads the secret police.

Which actor from The Hobbit plays the CIA agent who ends up in Shuri's lab?

Both he and Andy Serkis, who plays Klaue, are Tolkien-film veterans, which led fans to nickname the pair "the Tolkien white guys".

Which actor plays the arms dealer Ulysses Klaue?

He first played the character in Avengers: Age of Ultron, where he lost the arm that becomes a sonic cannon here.

Nakia, played by Lupita Nyong'o, comes from which of Wakanda's tribes?

Ruth E. Carter dressed her tribe in green with shells, a look modelled on the Suri people of Ethiopia.

Where did Chadwick Boseman study directing before starting out in theatre?

He turned down a college basketball recruitment to pursue the arts, and later gave the school's 2018 commencement address.

Boseman's breakthrough film role was playing which historical figure?

He followed 42 with two more biopics, Get on Up and Marshall, before Wakanda took over his schedule.

In which year did Chadwick Boseman die?

He had been diagnosed with stage III colon cancer in 2016, before Black Panther even started filming, and never disclosed it publicly.

Boseman received a posthumous Oscar nomination for his final role in which film?

He won the Golden Globe and SAG award for it, becoming only the eighth person to get a posthumous Oscar acting nomination.

What is the name of Namor's hidden underwater kingdom in Wakanda Forever?

The name comes from Tlālōcān, an Aztec paradise, and the design was inspired by ancient Maya culture rather than the comics' Atlantis.

Namor's people refer to him by the name of which feathered serpent god?

Tenoch Huerta Mejía learned Yucatec Maya and how to swim for the role, and the character got wings on his ankles to distance him from Aquaman.

Angela Bassett's Wakanda Forever nod was Marvel's first in an acting category. Which one?

She won the Golden Globe for the role; the film's only Oscar win was again for Ruth E. Carter's costumes.

Which artist performed "Lift Me Up", the lead single from Wakanda Forever?

It was her first solo release since 2016 and was written as a tribute to Chadwick Boseman.

In Wakanda Forever's mid-credits scene, Shuri learns T'Challa had a son. What is the boy's name?

Nakia has been raising him in secret in Haiti; his Wakandan name, he reveals, is T'Challa.

Since the Blip, Nakia has been living in which country when Ramonda seeks her out?

The film ends there too, with Shuri burning her funeral robe on the beach to finally grieve.

Wakanda Forever was the final film of which chapter of the Marvel Cinematic Universe?

It opened on November 11, 2022 and became the sixth-highest-grossing film of that year.

Riri Williams, the student inventor Shuri befriends in Wakanda Forever, is from which US city?

Dominique Thorne's character got her own Disney+ series, Ironheart, in 2025.

In Wakanda Forever, Shuri gives Okoye a new set of armor that makes her one of what?

The armored Dora Milaje division debuted in the 2010 comic miniseries Doomwar.

Under what working title was Black Panther filmed in the Atlanta area in 2017?

Principal photography began at EUE/Screen Gems Studios in January 2017 and also used Pinewood Atlanta and the Sweet Auburn neighbourhood.

Which director did Marvel court for Black Panther or Captain Marvel in 2015?

Kevin Feige confirmed meeting several directors that June; Coogler was confirmed in January 2016 and called it his most personal film.

Which two films did Coogler and cinematographer Rachel Morrison cite for the Busan car chase?

The chase involved 150 cars and more than 700 people, and drew on Bullitt, Drive and The French Connection.

Which real country's designs inspired the sigils and look of Wakanda's Border Tribe?

Production designer Hannah Beachler gave each tribe its own architecture; the Merchant Tribe's sigil drew on Nigerian writing.

Which visual-effects house was chiefly responsible for building the digital cityscapes of Wakanda?

VFX supervisor Craig Hammack compared the job to Tomorrowland, with the extra challenge of rooting a futuristic city in authentic African culture.