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The 'Black Panther: Wakanda Forever' Easter eggs you might have missed
You know what else are forever — or at least eternal — in superhero movies? Easter eggs.
By Ariadne Night
Wakanda is forever. It’s right there in the name of the latest MCU movie, Black Panther: Wakanda Forever. But you know what else are forever — or at least eternal — in superhero movies? Easter eggs. Wakanda Forever is no exception, as there are some Easter eggs to be found in King T’Challa’s farewell. There aren't quite as many as the most jam-packed Marvel movies, but we still spotted several references, allusions, and other little tidbits worth mentioning.
As there are Easter eggs throughout the entire movie, which is now in theaters, this list contains spoilers for all of Black Panther: Wakanda Forever. Consider this your spoiler warning.
1. Queen Ramonda’s Entrance
In the first act of the movie, Queen Ramonda returns to Wakanda after a particularly rousing speech at the United Nations. She’s seated in a Wakandan ship with her crown in her hands, as Okoye, general of the Dora Milaje and pilot of the ship, alerts her that “we’re home.” It’s a direct parallel to King T'challa's entrance into Wakanda in the first movie, where the king sits in the same position as his mother and flies into Wakanda after the death of his father King T’chaka.
2. MIT
In addition to being one of the best schools in the country, MIT has a bit of MCU history as well. Along with being Tony Stark’s Alma Mater, MIT is also the site where the man in the suit approved funding for an entire school's worth of research in Captain America: Civil War. It's also where Alfre Woodard’s character approached him about the death of her son in Sokovia during the events of Avengers: Age of Ultron. Yet another connection between Tony and his successor Riri Williams. Additionally, MJ and Ned both get accepted to MIT at the end of Spider-Man: No Way Home. Riri’s classmates, perhaps?
3. Ant-Man’s Memoir
CNN’s Anderson Cooper makes a cameo in the movie, reading the headlines towards the beginning of Wakanda Forever. If you were to look at the news ticker scrolling along the bottom of the screen during his first of two appearances, you’d find an alert explaining that team's most size-fluid avenger Ant-man is on tour for his memoir. Presumably, this book will come up when Ant-man: Quantmania comes out this winter.
4. Valentina
Valentina Allegra de Fontaine, played by Julia Louis Dreyfus, first appeared in The Falcon and Winter Soldier before making a post-credits appearance in Black Widow. She appears in Wakanda Forever, too, and it’s revealed that she’s Everett Ross’ ex-wife. Valentina seems poised to be the leader of the Suicide Squad-like Thunderbolts team. With the Thunderbolts movie coming to theaters next year, we can be sure to see the MCU’s most killer CIA agent in action soon.
5. Shuri Holding the Mask
After finding a means to synthesize a heart-shaped herb to give herself powers, Shuri enters a room filled with her brother’s Black Panther masks. She steps past them and picks up her own mask, holding it just in front of her face. This is undoubtedly a callback to Shuri’s stand-alone comic Shuri (2018) #2, where the princess is forced to take up the mantle of Black Panther once more to find her missing older brother.
6. Shuri’s Killmonger Connections
Just like her brother in Captain America: Civil War, Shuri finds herself drowning in her grief. She’s pushed towards vengeance as T’challa once was, to the point where when she travels to the ancestral plane, she doesn’t meet her brother or her mother but her late cousin Killmonger, who shows her that she’s not so different from him either. These relationships make themselves visible on Shuri’s Black Panther suit, where its gold-plated black fabric is reminiscent of both Kilmonger and T’challa’s suit in the first movie, only now inlaid with the umchokozo marks Shuri has been known to wear into battle.
7. Chadwick Boseman’s License Plate
Wakanda Forever’s “favorite colonizer,” Agent Everett Ross, gets arrested for his conveying state information to Queen Ramonda about the United States’ plans for her country. If you were to look at the front license plate of his prison van, however, you’d find an interesting collection of numbers: CB112976 — a reference to Chadwick Boseman’s birthday, 11/26/1976
8. Toussaint’s Name
Wakanda Forever’s post-credit scene for is monumental in what it sets up for the future of the series, but also what it does to enrich the themes of the movie. Named after Haitian revolution general Francois-Dominique Toussaint Louverture, the son of King T’challa — raised in Haiti — is representative of a legacy of liberation. It’s a fitting continuation of the movie’s exploration of the relationships between the other colonizer/colonized environments, like Talokan and 16th-century Spain.
Black Panther: Wakanda Forever is in theaters now.
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