How Black Panther: Wakanda Forever Could Be an Explosive Ending for Phase 4

Black Panther: Wakanda Forever is the final film in Phase 4 of the Marvel Cinematic Universe, and fans on Reddit have come up with some pretty good ideas as to what might happen in the film to justify that lofty position in the MCU's history. Prior phases have ended on huge story beats, from Marvel's The Avengers to Ant-Man (which followed Avengers: Age of Ultron) to Spider-Man: Far From Home (after Endgame). Each of these movies marked an obvious chapter-turn in the ongoing story of the MCU and, generally speaking, such sweeping moments have been kind of missing from most recent Marvel movies (aside from Spider-Man: No Way Home's introduction of the multiverse). 

Just being a sequel to Black Panther is a pretty big deal: the movie was a massive critical and commercial hit, remains one of Marvel's best-loved movies, and starred the late Chadwick Boseman. His passing will have to be reckoned with in the text of Wakanda Forever, so that will be a pretty big moment for fans. But Redditor MagicJoshByGosh came up with a pretty convincing breakdown of the most likely surprises to make Ryan Coogler's follow-up a must-watch.

The three things he posits as likely springboards for Phase 5 are the introduction of the Fantastic Four, the proliferation of mutants in the Marvel Cinematic Universe, and a global political upheaval that would reduce public trust in both the government and superheroes, and set the stage for Secret Invasion.

The latter makes a ton of sense given the reported conflict between Wakanda and Atlantis in the upcoming film. And given the strong ties that both Namor and Black Panther have to the Fantastic Four, that one seems pretty likely, too. Ms. Marvel has already done the heavy lifting of introducing MCU fans to the concept of mutants, so that one's a pretty fair guess, too. You can check out the post linked above for a lot more in the way of details.

Here's how Marvel describes the upcoming movie: "In Marvel Studios' Black Panther: Wakanda Forever, Queen Ramonda (Angela Bassett), Shuri (Letitia Wright), M'Baku (Winston Duke), Okoye (Danai Gurira) and the Dora Milaje (including Florence Kasumba), fight to protect their nation from intervening world powers in the wake of King T'Challa's death.

"As the Wakandans strive to embrace their next chapter, the heroes must band together with the help of War Dog Nakia (Lupita Nyong'o) and Everett Ross (Martin Freeman) and forge a new path for the kingdom of Wakanda. Introducing Tenoch Huerta as Namor, king of a hidden undersea nation, the film also stars Dominique Thorne, Michaela Coel, Mabel Cadena and Alex Livanalli."

Black Panther: Wakanda Forever sweeps into theaters on November 11th.

What do you hope to see in Black Panther: Wakanda Forever? Sound off in the comments.