‘Black Panther’: Klaw’s Connection to Wakanda Revealed

Black Panther will see Andy Serkis‘ Marvel Cinematic Universe villain Ulysses Klaue (Andy Serkis) finally grow into his alter-ego as the sonic weapon-wielding “Klaw,” and during the st visit for Black Panther we got to learn a little bit more about why and how that character evolution will go down.

According to Serkis, there’s just as much love and desire involved in Klaue’s obsession with Black Panther‘s homeland Wakanda as there is anger and hate.

“He’s [Klaue] got a very specific relationship to Wakanda,” Serkis said during a set visit last year. “He’s got a bit of a love/hate relationship with it, really. He certainly has discovered things about it that nobody else has, and we discover that in this movie. He’s one of the few people who’s been into Wakanda and he reveals quite a lot about it.”

The Black Panther trailers have used the secret knowledge that Ulysses Klaue has of Wakanda as the basis for the film’s storyline about if/how Wakanda moves out of a period of isolationism to join the world stage. That transition is made more difficult by the fact that the new king leading the initiative (T’Challa / Black Panther) isn’t fully supported by his own people, many of whom want to keep the traditional ways in place.

So how does the character arc of T’Challa as king intersect with the threat of Klaw?

“He doesn’t really have a personal relationship with anyone, but they’ve definitely crossed paths,” Serkis said. “They spar.”

Given the action-packed sequences of “Vibranium vs. sonics” combat we’ve seen in trailers, “spar” may be something of an understatement.

Black Panther opens on February 16, 2018. Other upcoming Marvel Cinematic Universe movies include, Avengers: Infinity War on May 4, 2018, Ant-Man and the Wasp on July 6, 2018, 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.