Wakanda Royalty Graces EW’s Comic-Con Special Black Panther Cover

UPDATE: A handful of new photos have been released and can be viewed alongside the cover and original stills in the gallery below.

One week out from San Diego Comic-Con and Entertainment Weekly has blown the lid off Marvel’s Black Panther with a suitably regal cover and two new stills.

Ryan Coogler’s standalone pic, one penciled in for release in February of next year, has been selected as the cover star of EW’s special double issue, which is no doubt packed to the rafters with costumed crusaders as the industry braces for what is undoubtedly one of the biggest events on the calendar. It’ll begin in earnest on Thursday, July 20th and continue through until July 23rd, so keep your peepers peeled on We Got This Covered for all the latest updates.

When it comes to Black Panther, we know that Chadwick Boseman has been anointed king of Wakanda in place of King T’Chaka, who bit the bullet in Captain America: Civil War. Now, Boseman’s T’Challa presides over a radically advanced kingdom – the modern-day El Dorado, essentially – opposite Nakia.

Star Wars: The Force Awakens actress Lupita Nyong’o will take point as the aforementioned character, who’s described as “a covert agent whose job is to stifle word of Wakanda’s secrets, hunting down its enemies with deadly force.” She safeguards the people of this great nation from danger, then, but there’s trouble brewing in the form of Michael B. Jordan’s Killmonger, a “dissident from the country and aspiring prince who has colluded with a hostile foreign adversary in a bid to bring down the rightful heir to Wakanda’s throne.”

Balancing such a diverse ensemble is no mean feat, but writer-director Ryan Coogler is seemingly more interested in exploring the morality of Black Panther.

In this movie, a lot like politics, it’s a little tricky to define who’s [a good guy]. The film very much plays with those concepts, looking at conflicts and different motivations, and who’s with who.

“What do you know about Wakanda?” asks Andy Serkis’ deranged Ulysses Klaw in the wondrous first trailer for Black Panther. We’ll find out for ourselves what all the fuss is about when Ryan Coogler’s spinoff claws its way into theaters on February 16th, 2018.