Black Panther III

Lore & Background

Black Panther III is a planned sequel to Black Panther: Wakanda Forever (2022), which was the 30th film in the Marvel Cinematic Universe and the final film of Phase Four. No release date, plot details, or cast have been officially announced.

Reader's Guide

The significance of Black Panther III lies in its continuation of the Wakandan story following the death of Chadwick Boseman and the transition of the Black Panther mantle to Shuri. The film is part of the Marvel Cinematic Universe's ongoing narrative, building on the events of Wakanda Forever, which introduced new characters such as Riri Williams (Ironheart) and the underwater kingdom of Talokan. The sequel's release in December 2028 marks a continuation of the franchise's exploration of Wakanda's role in the world and its legacy. The film is expected to further develop themes of leadership, grief, and cultural preservation, as established in the previous installments.

Did You Know?

• Black Panther III has no official release date announced by Marvel Studios.
• It is the sequel to Black Panther: Wakanda Forever (2022).
• No plot details or cast have been confirmed.

A Contested Birth: Lee, Kirby, and the Idea

The question of who truly conceived Black Panther has remained unresolved for decades. Both Stan Lee and Jack Kirby have staked their claim, yet neither could point to definitive documentation. Kirby, in a 1990 interview with The Comics Journal, argued that he simply noticed a glaring absence of Black characters in his own work and felt, for what he called "human reasons," that one was needed. Lee, meanwhile, framed the decision as a deliberate editorial choice to expand Marvel's roster with African and African American figures, noting the complete lack of Black superheroes in the medium at the time. Scholar Asher Elbein's research adds a complicating layer, suggesting that by 1966 Kirby was largely plotting Fantastic Four on his own and merely relaying finished stories to Lee. The character debuted in Fantastic Four #52 in July 1966. Lee recalled that the name drew from a pulp-era adventurer who had a panther companion, while Kirby's earliest visual sketches actually depicted a swashbuckling figure he called the "Coal Tiger" before the design was reworked.

The King, the Herb, and the Nation

T'Challa inherits the mantle of Black Panther from his father T'Chaka, becoming both the sovereign ruler and the armed defender of Wakanda, a fictional African nation whose extraordinary technological sophistication is powered by vast reserves of the fictional metal vibranium. His superhuman capabilities stem from a sacred Wakandan ritual in which the wearer ingests the essence of a heart-shaped herb, but the role demands far more than raw power. T'Challa is portrayed as a world-class scientist, a master of his nation's cultural traditions, and a highly disciplined martial artist whose hand-to-hand combat skills are sharpened through rigorous physical training. He also commands access to his country's considerable wealth and cutting-edge technology. In 1968 the character joined the Avengers, and his membership with that team has continued in an intermittent fashion across the decades, placing him alongside Earth's mightiest heroes while he simultaneously governs his own sovereign state.

Writers Who Reshaped a King

The Black Panther comics have been transformed by successive writers who each injected new thematic energy into the title. In the 1970s, Don McGregor's critically praised run introduced T'Challa's most enduring adversary, Erik Killmonger, and wove in urgent social commentary, including the resurgence of the Ku Klux Klan in Georgia and the realities of apartheid in South Africa. By the late 1990s, Christopher Priest undertook a full reinvention, foregrounding Wakanda's identity as a proud, independent, and technologically formidable African nation, and he brought the Dora Milaje—Black Panther's elite female bodyguards—into the story. Reginald Hudlin's subsequent series pushed Black cultural pride to the forefront and delivered stronger commercial results; during his tenure T'Challa married X-Men's Storm, and his sister Shuri briefly assumed the Black Panther role while he lay in a coma. Then in 2016, journalist and essayist Ta-Nehisi Coates took the pen, producing a series whose first issue became the month's best-selling comic. Coates's narrative challenged the very legitimacy of Wakandan monarchy and proposed a more democratic path forward.

From Firsts to the Future: The Panther on Screen

As the first Black superhero to appear in American mainstream comic books, Black Panther also stands as an early embodiment of the Afrofuturist aesthetic, and the character has since crossed into television, animation, and video games. In the Marvel Cinematic Universe, Chadwick Boseman brought T'Challa to life across four Phase Three films: Captain America: Civil War in 2016, the standalone Black Panther in 2018, Avengers: Infinity War in 2018, and Avengers: Endgame in 2019. The 2018 film became a landmark of both critical acclaim and box-office success. After Boseman's passing in 2020, his voice was used for alternate versions of T'Challa in the first season of the animated series What If...? in 2021. Letitia Wright, whose character Shuri had appeared in earlier MCU entries, then inherited the Black Panther mantle in Black Panther: Wakanda Forever (2022). Looking ahead, David Jonsson is set to portray T'Challa II in Black Panther III, scheduled for 2028, continuing the story of a character whose cultural significance extends far beyond the page.