Michael B. Jordan has admitted that he’d like to return to the MCU as Black Panther MVP Killmonger one day, and while that won’t be happening quite yet, Marvel have announced that the character will be getting his own comic book series. The five-part miniseries will be written by Brian Edward Hill (Detective Comics) and illustrated by Juan Ferreyra (Green Arrow), and will explore the backstory of Erik Killmonger, the Wakandan warrior.
In an interview with Vulture, Hill pinpointed what made Killmonger such a sympathetic bad guy in Marvel’s blockbuster, and wanted this to be the driving force of the series. He said “I wanted to explore the choices and the failures that lead a person to dedicate their life to revenge, and how that happens. Because with Erik, I feel like it’s really a tragedy. It’s a story of a guy who was failed a lot by Wakanda in certain ways, by the people he met outside of Wakanda, by his own conscience in other ways, and I wanted to paint a portrait of that. Because to me the iconic fight between Erik Killmonger and T’Challa is tragic”.
Hill indicated that the jump off point for the comics would be “Erik graduating from MIT. Like all stories, it begins with him having a fork in the road in front of him. He’s a young man who could have a successful and peaceful life if he could just put away his desire for revenge. In this case he’s really focused on [villain Ulysses] Klaw and the men that took him from Wakanda, and also punishing Wakanda itself for its failures. We begin the story with him making that choice to step away from one potential future and step into another that speaks to more of his darker nature. For me, that’s what a tragedy is, really. Something isn’t tragic unless you can see a way that it could have worked out better.”
With the success of Thanos in Avengers: Infinity War, Killmonger, which should be available sometime in December, would cap a great year for an aspect of the MCU that has always been found wanting; the villains.
After the events of Captain America: Civil War, King T’Challa returns home to the reclusive, technologically advanced African nation of Wakanda to serve as his country’s new leader. However, T’Challa soon finds that he is challenged for the throne from factions within his own country. When two foes conspire to destroy Wakanda, the hero known as Black Panther must team up with C.I.A. agent Everett K. Ross and members of the Dora Milaje, Wakandan special forces, to prevent Wakanda from being dragged into a world war.
Black Panther sees Ryan Coogler (Creed) directing Chadwick Boseman as T’Challa alongside Lupita Nyong’o as Nakia, Michael B. Jordan as Erik Killmonger, Danai Gurira as Okoye, Winston Duke as M’Baku, Forest Whitaker as Zuri, Daniel Kaluuya as W’Kabi, Angela Bassett as Ramonda, Florence Kasumba as Ayo, Martin Freeman as Everett Ross, Andy Serkis as Ulysses Klaue, Letitia Wright as Shuri, Sterling K. Brown as N’Jobu, John Kani as King T’Chaka and Nabiyah Be as Linda.
