Black Panther is being praised by critics and is on pace for a fantastic opening weekend at the box office. Its Thursday numbers have been bigger than any solo Marvel movie to date, and fans are touting it as one of the best films in the Marvel Cinematic Universe.
Ranking the MCU movies is a difficult task, mostly because there aren’t really any outright bad ones. Most fans have team-ups and sequels like The Avengers, Captain America: The Winter Soldier, and Civil War near the top of their lists, but what about the origin stories?
X-Men and Spider-Man kicked the century off with two great superhero origins, and this has generally been the template for introducing a character ever since. In the early days of the Marvel Cinematic Universe, the major characters would get their own movies, and lesser known heroes would be introduced in these movies only to get a bigger role later on. This happened with Black Widow and Hawkeye, even though Hawkeye isn’t getting his own movie anytime soon.
However, Captain America: Civil War showed that Marvel is perfectly capable of introducing major characters in supporting roles as well. It sounds a bit weird that Spider-Man, Marvel’s most profitable character, was introduced in a Captain America movie, but the fact that we had seen a few versions of the character at that point made this a logical move.
Black Panther was a bit more complicated. While fans have been demanding a Black Panther movie for a long time, there were some concerns that a superhero film with a predominantly black cast would be a hard sell for the general audience. While these concerns are swiftly being put to rest, it still ended up being a smart decision to introduce Black Panther in Civil War because a storyline of that scale needed more heroes.
Civil War effectively established T’Challa’s character while still leaving lots of material for his solo film. This paved the way for Ryan Coogler to make an origin story that isn’t really an origin story, and this lack of conventional superhero origin elements is part of what makes the movie so great.
In Civil War, the death of T’Chaka gave T’Challa clear motivations for the rest of the film. However, there is a lot more to his character than just revenge. Black Panther showed who T’Challa really is, and explored his backstory without laboriously showing every stage of his childhood. Much like Spider-Man: Homecoming, the film acted as an origin story by putting the hero through challenges that he’s never faced before, having him really come into his own as a hero. What these movies didn't do was wait until halfway through the film to put the hero in their costume.
The more traditional form of origin story can be great when done well, like with Iron Man and Thor, but in an age where audiences are used to seeing several superhero films each year, they don’t need the entire backstory. People understand the superhero formula at this point, so it’s a welcome change to see filmmakers play around with genre conventions.
Black Panther shows T’Challa come of age, but also let its villain shine. This is evident from the very beginning of the film, where after we hear the story of Wakanda, we see how Erik grew up, with Wakanda only being a story in his mind. Later we get introduced to Erik years later and see how his disconnect with his homeland has made him very dangerous.
Killmonger’s storyline is just one of the many things going on in this movie, but every scene he is in is absolutely riveting. This is yet another parallel with Homecoming, as the villain’s clear motivations make him much more compelling than any CGI monster. While one of my main concerns going into the movie was that pitting a hero and villain with identical powers would be boring, the contrast between the backstories of the two men made things much more interesting.
While there are some elements of Black Panther that feel awfully familiar and somewhat predictable, as a whole, the film felt like something new in the Marvel Cinematic Universe. By the end of the film, the Marvel universe had changed significantly, similar to what we saw at the end of Iron Man.
So is it the best MCU origin story? It’s certainly in the conversation. Right now I have edging out Doctor Strange, Thor and Captain America: The First Avenger. Black Panther is on the same level as Iron Man and Spider-Man Homecoming, certainly in the top tier of Marvel movies, and after seeing it again I might even say it’s the best.
What do you think is the best MCU origin film? Comment below!