Black Panther Director Explains Why [Spoiler] Had To Die

After fans had been complaining for years that the Marvel Cinematic Universe rarely gave us a good villain, the past few MCU movies have served up some consistently great ones – Homecoming’s Vulture and Thor: Ragnarok‘s Hela. Thankfully, we can now add Michael B. Jordan’s Killmonger to the list, too, as he’s arguably the most fleshed out and layered antagonist the franchise has had since Loki.

As those who’ve seen the film will know, the hot-headed nemesis of Black Panther holds a grudge against T’Challa because of the actions of his late father, T’Chaka. It’s a deeply compelling arc by any stretch, but unfortunately, it looks like he’s a one-and-done character as Jordan’s villain dies in battle with T’Challa at the end of the movie.

Considering how good he is, though, we really hope they find a way to resurrect him. After all, vibranium has so many amazing properties and we know it can heal people, so maybe it’s not too far-fetched to think he might return? What’s more, there’s even a comic book precedent for it – as Killmonger has been revived after death a few times on the page.

According to director Ryan Coogler though, we shouldn’t hold our breath for that to happen. The filmmaker recently spoke with Empire and explained why he felt the need to kill the character off, saying that there’s just no way him and T’Challa could co-exist.

“That wasn’t something that we went back and forth on. His end was the same as draft one that it was in the film. Just because the idea was that these two things can’t coexist; if T’Challa and him… you know, that was a great tragedy of it for T’Challa, I think. But Killmonger was too far gone.”

What the director says here makes sense, but again, if this really is it for Michael B. Jordan in the Marvel Cinematic Universe, that’d be a great shame. Not only is he a tremendous young actor, but his villain was one of the franchise’s best to date and will probably remain as such for some time to come. But like Coogler mentions, he was way too far gone and simply can’t co-exist with T’Challa.

Black Panther is now playing across screens near and far – just don’t be fooled into thinking that we’ve seen the last of Wakanda. Between talk of a direct sequel and Avengers: Infinity War, Marvel’s fictional utopia is about to become a familiar destination for moviegoers in 2018 and beyond.