“Black Panther: Wakanda Forever” Teaser Sees Shuri Telling Namor to Bring It

October 12, 2022

“They think we’re vulnerable. They’re welcome to find out.”

This challenge is issued by Shuri (Letitia Wright) in a new Black Panther: Wakanda Forever teaser, which Marvel released today to celebrate the film’s rapidly approaching release date just a month away. It’s a thrilling, bite-sized glimpse of the film, and it offers us a few closer looks at not only Wakandan heroes like Shuri, M’Baku (Winston Duke), Ramonda (Angela Bassett), Okoye (Danai Gurira), and newcomer Riri Williams (Dominique Thorne) but also the film’s presumed villain, Namor (Tenoch Huerta). This is who Shuri is speaking about when she says they think we’re vulnerable—it’s Namor and his vast army, which hail from the underwater kingdom of Talocan.

Why do we write “presumed” villain when speaking about Namor? Because the way director and co-writer Ryan Coogler, the cast, and Tenoch Huerta himself have talked about Namor suggests he’s not so much a villain as an immensely powerful king of his own nation trying to protect his own people. In the comics, Namor, one of Marvel’s oldest characters, has battled with Black Panther, but they’ve also been allies. In the teasers and official trailer for Wakanda Forever, Namor is being positioned as if he’s the villain, but if you’re paying close attention to the way the sequences are cut, you might notice that the reality is far less clear. In this new teaser, Namor tells Ramonda, “Wakanda will fall,” but we don’t get to hear the context of why he’s saying that. Is there a condition here, a “Wakanda will fall if” we’re not hearing? We think it’s likely.

As for Shuri, she’s going to be a huge part of Wakanda’s protection plan going forward after the loss of her brother, T’Challa (the late, great Chadwick Boseman). In the comics, Shuri becomes Black Panther, and there are indications that might be the case here. We already saw a female Black Panther arrive on the scene at the end of the official trailer, and Shuri certainly sounds like she’s ready to take on the mantle in this new teaser.

Check out the teaser below. Black Panther: Wakanda Forever hits theaters on November 11, 2022.