Black Panther: Wakanda Forever concludes on a powerful note, with Shuri (Letitia Wright) burning her funeral robes as she finally allows herself to stop mourning her brother T'Challa's death and attempt to move on as Wakanda's new protector.
Then, in the movie's mid-credits scene, things get even more emotional when we learn that T'Challa had a son with Nakia (Lupita Nyong’o).
As Shuri chats with her nephew (Divine Love Konadu-Sun), he tells her that his real name is T'Challa. This obviously suggests that the boy will eventually grow to take on the mantle of Black Panther, and possibly even rule Wakanda as king.
Though it would be reasonable to assume that the idea of T'Challa having a son was only brought up after Chadwick Boseman's death, writer Joe Robert Cole has now revealed that "Toussaint" was always going to be part of Ryan Coogler's sequel - and actually had a larger role at one point.
"T’Challa had a child in a previous iteration of the script prior to Chad’s passing," Cole tells Rolling Stone. "Him having a child was always in the DNA of what we wanted to do. We just weren’t sure, after he passed, about the best way to incorporate him. So there were various iterations of his son being in our new story."
It seems there was talk of introducing the son of the Black Panther earlier in the movie when Ramonda (Angela Basset) pays Nakia a visit in Haiti, but Cole believes they "landed on the best possible version."
"Yeah, [in] a previous iteration, we really were more child-focused in the narrative, and his son was a part of that. Obviously that changed, but we wanted him to exist in the film in some way. It was much more reduced. And there were conversations about, when do we reveal this information to the audience and what’s the best version of it? Not only emotionally, but just narratively for the story and how it affects the characters in the story when they find out this information, and so forth. We played around a little bit, but he was never going to have a much larger presence after Chad passed."
We're not sure when we'll see T'Challa Jr. again, but unless a significant time-jump takes place between movies, it'll be a while before he's ready to inherit his father's - now aunt's - mantle.
What did you guys make of Wakanda Forever introducing T'Challa's son? Would you like to see him take over as the Black Panther when he comes of age, or should Shuri be the one to carry on her brother's legacy for as long as possible?