When people were drawing up lists of who’d survived Thanos’ Decimation and would make it through to Avengers: Endgame, Shuri, the Princess of Wakanda was always a pretty popular choice. After all, she was an instant fan favorite after her appearance in Black Panther, played an important role in Avengers: Infinity War and was even confirmed by Angela Bassett (who plays her mother, Queen Ramonda) to have survived.
When asked about whether she or her on-screen daughter died, the actress said the following a few months back:
“No. Neither did my daughter. Shuri, she’s a bright girl there in Wakanda. So…”
Well, it looks like Bassett was telling porkies, because there’s a shot of various heroes in the Endgame trailer – including Ant-Man, Spider-Man and Shuri – and they all have ‘missing’ next to their names. Presumably, there’s going to be a distinction between those who were dusted in front of witnesses and those who are simply presumed to be gone.
For example, to the surviving heroes, Black Panther and Winter Soldier are inarguably gone, whereas Ant-Man merely disappeared (they can’t know he was trapped in the Quantum Realm rather than was dusted), Spider-Man vanished into space and was never seen again and Shuri was hard at work in her laboratory and could have been dusted with no one to witness it happening.
Even if that were the case, you’d think if she wasn’t dusted she would have made her presence known pretty sharpish. That she hasn’t indicates that she’s just another of Thanos’ billions of casualties. Sadly, this blows a hole in the theories that we’d see her taking on the mantle of Black Panther as the surviving heroes battle to resurrect those killed, and also indicates that she might not be playing much of a role in the film at all.
I guess we’ll find out for sure though on April 26th, when Avengers: Endgame opens big.
