Despite being the final Marvel movie before Avengers: Infinity War, the first half of the massive finale that the past decade of MCU films has been leading up to, Black Panther was mostly standalone and didn’t tease what was to come in too many major ways. Right? Well, not quite.
It turns out that King T’Challa’s first solo outing might just have foreshadowed the end of Infinity War…and no one even noticed. While we were waiting for that post-credits scene featuring Bucky Barnes to play, the end credits of Black Panther were in fact giving us a much bigger connection to the events of the next installment in the franchise.
To see what we mean, check out the Tweet below from Markeia McCarty, who noticed that this snippet of the film’s awesome credits animation is more important than it first appears.
Watching ending credits of #BlackPanther, all I see is a warning about #InfinityWar 😭 pic.twitter.com/elgkbZW5VB
— Markeia McCarty #SAGAFTRAStrong #UnionStrong (@markeiamccarty) May 15, 2018
Yes, the dust blowing in the wind motive of Black Panther‘s credits mirrors the shocking fate that awaits the Wakandan protector and many of his fellow heroes at the end of Infinity War. When Thanos snaps his fingers and activates the powers of the assembled Infinity Stones, he wipes out half of the population of the universe and half of the Avengers with it. In what has to be the most emotional sequence in all of the MCU, various fan favorite characters turn to dust before their friends’ eyes.
Presumably, the similarity between Black Panther‘s credits and that Avengers: Infinity War sequence is just a coincidence and the dust animation was simply decided upon as it was a cool visual aesthetic. Still, Marvel Studios has connected its movies in unexpected ways before, so you never know. It may have been engineered as a subtle warning to fans about the tragedy that was soon to befall their new favorite hero.
