Michael B. Jordan says Killmonger isn’t a villain, and the internet has thoughts

The old saying posits that the best villains are the ones convinced their actions aren’t nefarious at all, with the finest antagonists holding firm in their belief that whatever they do is entirely justified within the context of their own worldview, and that logic most certainly applies to Black Panther‘s Killmonger.

On top of being one of the best bad guys we’ve ever seen in the Marvel Cinematic Universe, Michael B. Jordan’s incendiary performance paints Erik Stevens as a man seeking to do right by his own father, with his personal quest for revenge also fueled by a desire to take what he thinks is rightfully his.

It make him a three-dimensional counterpoint to Chadwick Boseman’s T’Challa rather than the archetypal ‘bad guy does bad things and must be stopped by the hero’, with Jordan recently outlining that “he cared about his people just as much as T’Challa, he just had a different way of going about getting it done”.

As you can see from the myriad of reactions below, though, it’s stirred up debate on social media all over again.

Speculation continues to run rampant that we’ll see Jordan in some form during next year’s sequel Wakanda Forever, but it’s a testament to his performance that arguments over Killmonger’s intentions still rage nearly four years after Black Panther‘s release.