The Dora Milaje
The Dora Milaje is essentially the Wakandan Special Forces, and it’s an exclusively female team. They protect T’Challa/Black Panther and the nation from would-be aggressors. The team first appeared in Black Panther Vol. 3 #1 and was created by Christopher Priest and Mark Texeira. T’Challa used the idea of the Dora Milaje to promote peace among the Wakandan tribes, by selecting women from each rival tribe to serve in his personal guard. The Dora Milaje also function as ceremonial “wives-in-training.”
Each of the Dora Milaje have fascinating stories of their own. Two of them – Aneka and Ayo – branched off to become a vigilante double-act known as Midnight Angels. This was after Ayo liberated Aneka from jail, where she was incarcerated for the murder of an abusive man, who was a Chieftan in her home village. Wakandan Mutate Nakia was obsessed with T’Challa, and plotted to kill his girlfriend. This caused T’Challa to banish her, whereupon she was captured and tortured by villains. This led her to become the villainous Malice, allied with Erik Killmonger.
Okoye was a more traditional Dora Milaje – speaking only to the King in a dialect little known in Wakanda. This allowed the King to communicate with his “wives” with intense privacy. Queen Divine Justice is a Wakandan tribeswoman, but was raised in Chicago. Her connection with the U.S. provides common ground between the Dora Milaje and T’Challa, who has himself spent a great deal of time in America.
While the fact that the Dora Milaje are partly ceremonial “wives-in-training” has given rise to accusations of sexism, the case of these women is not so cut and dried. Firstly, the point of the fictional nation of Wakanda is that it cannot be compared to western nations, such as the U.S. As a sovereign nation, it has an entirely different social structure – one that’s based upon tribal systems, rather than the monogamous relationships seen within nuclear family units that are familiar to western audiences. Secondly, the women of the Dora Milaje are a distinct group of highly skilled heroes and villains – each with their own motivations and desires.
Most importantly, in a comic book series that’s essentially centred on the male character of T’Challa, the Dora Milaje allows for numerous women to be involved – all of whom are fully realized and well-written, with complex arcs of their own, and all of whom are women of colour.
