How 'Black Panther' Could Tie Into 'Captain Marvel'

Black Panther made its eagerly-awaited debut this weekend, delighting audiences with not just epic action sequences, but by digging a little deeper into Marvel Cinematic Universe history. That history doesn't just give frame of reference for Black Panther, however. It may tie into Captain Marvel as well.

Warning: Spoilers for Black Panther below! Read on at your own risk!

While we've known since well before Black Panther debuted that Erik Killmonger (Michael B. Jordan) would be T'Challa/Black Panther's (Chadwick Boseman) primary antagonist in the film, but Killmonger's motivation remained a mystery, but it was revealed to be tied to events that happened back in the 1990s.

Black Panther opens, of all places, in Oakland, California back in 1992 with King T'Chaka showing up to pay a visit to a man who turns out to be N'Jobu (Sterling K. Brown,) the king's brother and a War Dog stationed in Oakland. While T'Chaka's visit doesn't end on a happy note -- N'Jobu had collaborated in the theft of Vibranium from Wakanda with the intent to arm the community and T'Chaka ends up killing him when N'Jobu attempts to kill Zuri, another undercover War Dog -- and sets up for Killmonger's ultimate motivation later in the movie, it also creates a possible tie to Captain Marvel. We already know that Captain Marvel will be set in the 90s and have speculated that Everett K. Ross (Martin Freeman) could even appear in the film considering that Ross would have been an Air Force pilot in the 90s, but knowing that War Dogs, the secret Wakandan intelligence operatives scattered all over the world, were operating in the 90s could mean that Wakanda is already aware Carol Danvers -- and the threat of Skrulls.

While we don't know much about what to expect in Captain Marvel outside of a green costume that harkens back to original costume of the Kree hero known as Mar-Vell with significant ties to Carol Danvers in the comics and the recently revealed working title of the movie, "Open World," we do know that the Kree-Skrull war will be part of the movie. With spies in all of the major governments of the world, it's very likely that Wakanda became aware of the Skrull threat as early as the 90s, information that would allow the nation to secretly develop deterrents and possibly even detection methods to use against the shapeshifting alien race.

The development of this potential technology could be something that T'Chaka kept secret. After all, we know T'Chaka was king during the 90s. It would make sense that he would come up with something to protect his nation and his people if he found out about the intergalactic threat, especially if he'd kill his own brother and abandon his nephew to protect Wakanda as well.

Black Panther is now in theaters. It will be followed by Avengers: Infinity War on May 4th, Ant-Man and the Wasp on July 6th, Captain Marvel on March 8, 2019, the fourth Avengers movie on May 3, 2019, the sequel to Spider-Man: Homecoming on July 5, 2019, and Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 3 in 2020.