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| Just lie back and think of Krypton. |
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| "My son, we are a fictional African nation as envisioned by white Americans. Apart from sitting around in this circle of dirt, combat rituals are kind of all we have." |
Heh, wrong.
They fight, and Black Panther loses, thanks to M'Baku's secret weapon: a sonic disruptor, courtesy of Klaw, the villain from another Micro-Episode. Klaw's sonic disruptor catches T'Chaka off guard, and allows Man-Ape to commit regicide, which he accomplishes while breaking the king's Panther mask all symbolically. The people bow to Man-Ape. All but T'Challa, who runs away to the temple to put on the mantle of the Black Panther himself.
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| "Now that I have won the throne by right of combat, I shall draft a bill to reduce our dependence on foreign oil." |
The next day, T'Challa makes his way through the treetops, having taken on the mantle of the Black Panther as he begins his quest to avenge his father and reclaim his rightful kingdom.
And then... it's over.
In all seriousness, this was a terrible Micro-Episode. Not necessarily because of what happens, but... well, everything and nothing happens.
I feel as though this story should have had more buildup, because stuffing all this into a Micro-Episode requires taking a lot of plot points that could have been expanded upon and rushing through them, making it feel as though very little plot actually happened, which makes it pale in comparison to the other Micro-Episodes. It might not be the last Micro-Episode, but it's the last part aired in the last compilation episode, which also makes it feel like a bit of a lackluster finale.
Here, I'll give you a bit more analysis so you don't feel cheated by a bare-bones Recap.
Wakanda here is an isolationist country, with an amazing natural resource that breaks the laws of physics (Vibranium), as it is usually depicted. Except... well, this particular depiction of Wakanda, with its king sitting on his throne by a dirt circle, with the most high-tech thing around being something that M'Baku got from a white guy.
Other depictions of Wakanda include fantastical technology that Wakanda uses to defend itself against invaders. But as shown here, all it has to defend its borders are bows, spears, and one superhuman king. In a world where nearby dictators can probably get his hands on AK's, let alone HYDRA weapons if he had connections, this is utterly laughable. Especially when Wakanda has such a treasure trove of natural resources like a metal that redirects or amplifies any and all vibrations, which makes it a huge target.
Whatever. We've got one more Micro-Episode, and it's my favorite one. See you then.
My love of the Black Panther is probably blinding me to its flaws but, I'm going on record as saying this was not terrible. A weak entry, yes definitely. So little happens that its almost sad, but I'm willing to cut the mini-ep some slack due to the short run time. The other episodes were much more successful, but that was because they explored their focus characters. For example, Ant-man and Wasp give us a taste of their personalities and powers. Here, something happens and T'Challa springs into action. Maybe, if they showed T'Chaka explaining how vibranium worked and demonstrating its powers during the fight it would have at least been more interesting and set up what we could expect from T'Challa when he became Black Panther. It doesn't help that T'Challa's character is much different in this episode than the rest of the series. This is probably the worst of the Mirco-episodes, but I still can't bring myself to call it terrible.
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