Black Panther: Wakanda Forever is an emotional, fitting tribute to Chadwick Boseman and T'Challa. As well as introducing Namor and Ironheart, the sequel establishes Shuri as the MCU's new Black Panther. That all worked really well, but a subplot revolving around Valentina Allegra de Fontaine and Everett Ross did not.
As well as revealing they used to be married, the Black Panther sequel confirms Val is the CIA's new Director and someone who is very interested in acquiring Vibranium.
Beyond that, it was hard to figure out why Val showed up beyond laying the groundwork for movies like Captain America: New World Order and Thunderbolts. During a recent interview with The New York Times, writer Joe Robert Cole and director Ryan Coogler denied that Marvel Studios forced the MCU's mysterious new antagonist on them.
"I've never had a conversation where I was asked to incorporate something that didn’t feel organic," Cole says. "The dynamic of the U.S. being an instigator and Western powers being an instigator, that always existed. It wasn’t, 'Oh, we need to find a reason to make this character exist.' It was, 'Oh, this is already in here and there’s this wonderful actress available.'"
Coogler added, "Yeah, nobody was shoehorned in or asked to be put into the movie or anything like that. Actually, in this version, [Louis-Dreyfus’s role] was pared back in order to make space for dealing with T’Challa’s death. And we had Val in there before she even appeared in any of the other movies, before 'Black Widow' and 'Falcon and the Winter Soldier.'"
"People assume that we were told to put her in," the filmmaker adds, "but she was there from the beginning."
While it's interesting that Val wasn't forced on Black Panther: Wakanda Forever's creative team, we'd still argue that her role in the movie didn't work particularly well.
Yes, we've learned a little more about her, but for anyone who didn't remember her from Black Widow's post-credits scene or that Disney+ appearance, this cameo gave fans few reasons to care about her machinations. We'll see how things play out in the next few years, though.
Black Panther: Wakanda Forever is currently playing in theaters!