Marvel Comics Announces Black Panther Spinoff Shuri For This Fall

Black Panther was pretty damn excellent, with Chadwick Boseman serving up a hero quite different to what we normally expect from the MCU. And that’s despite the fact that he was constantly in danger of having the scene stolen out from under him by the excellent supporting cast of characters, be it Daniel Kaluuya’s W’Kabi, Lupita Nyong’o’s Nakia, Michael B. Jordan’s Killmonger or, the best of all, Letitia Wright’s super-smart, ass-kicking princess Shuri.

In fact, Shuri’s now so popular there are plausible rumors that she could be stepping into the Black Panther role permanently at some point in the future. There’s even a movement to get her declared an official Disney Princess alongside Cinderella, Ariel, Jasmine and the rest. Clearly sensing the character’s growing popularity, then, Marvel has commissioned a limited solo series for her that follows the timeline set up in Ta-Nehisi Coates’ digital comic Black Panther: Long Live the King.

Here’s the synopsis:

“Shuri is happiest in a lab, surrounded by gadgets of her own creation. She’d rather be testing gauntlets than throwing them. But a nation without a leader is a vulnerable one — and Shuri may have to choose between Wakanda’s welfare and her own.”

The series will be written by award-winning Nigerian-American writer Nnedi Okorafor, best known for her science fiction novel Who Fears Death, which is set to become an HBO series with George R.R. Martin as executive producer. Let’s hope that this comic does well, too, as if it proves that the character can easily sustain her own narrative without T’Challa being directly involved, someone at Marvel Studios might wonder if there’s room for a solo project in a future phase of the MCU.

Speaking about the new series, Okorafor said (in an email with Bustle) the following:

“[Shuri is] an African young woman of genius level intelligence who is obsessed with technology and has traveled spiritually so far into the past that she’s seen Wakanda before it was Wakanda. The Ancestors call her Ancient Future. And she’s super ambitious. What do I love about her? Alllll that and more, she’s a character in the Marvel Universe who really sings to me.”

Regardless of whether that happens here, Marvel Studios have already promised that Shuri‘s going to be making future appearances beyond her brief turn in Infinity War. And I, for one, can’t wait to see more of her.