If there was one thing that Avengers: Endgame had enough of, it was characters. At an astonishing three-hour runtime, Marvel’s galactic epic sprawled across the entirety of their cinematic universe, making sure it had incorporated at least one piece from each of their mega franchises.
A great portion of this final assembly took place during the film’s climatic battle against Thanos, as Doctor Strange ushered the lineup of Infinity War‘s vanished heroes back into the modern day. But despite all of these famous names on the screen together, there were some notable exceptions that fans couldn’t help but point out.
That being said, now that the film’s art book, Avengers: Endgame – The Art of the Movie, has hit shelves, some of those concerns have been vanquished, bringing viewers into the minds of its creators and showing exactly how much bigger they were planning to go. And speaking of that, the filmmakers were apparently planning to incorporate one more person into that ginormous final battle: Black Panther‘s Nakia.
You can go ahead and check out the art for yourself down below:
Pictured above, Lupita Nyong’o’s ferocious Wakandan character can be seen fighting alongside the likes of Captain Marvel, the Wasp, Gamora and Valkyrie. It’s interesting that while she had absolutely no part in Infinity War, the creators were still considering planting her into Endgame‘s narrative. Perhaps, this is because Marvel now had time to consider just how popular Black Panther would be with its fans (Infinity War came out only 2 months after Ryan Coogler’s film first hit theaters); though that doesn’t explain why they left Nakia out.
This isn’t to say that Avengers: Endgame left out all Black Panther characters. In fact, not only were T’Challa, Shuri and Okoye the first to emerge from Doctor Strange’s portal, but members of Wakanda’s army led by Winston Duke’s M’Baku helped lead the final charge against Thanos, too.
