There was a flurry of news surrounding the Marvel Cinematic Universe’s Black Panther 2 yesterday, and not only was it confirmed that the sequel would start filming in July, but the first new face in the ensemble has been announced as well. Joining returning stars Letitia Wright, Winston Duke, Angela Bassett, Danai Gurira and Lupita Nyong’o will be Narcos: Mexico‘s Tenoch Huerta as a mystery villain.
This will mark the biggest role of the 39 year-old’s career by far, although he does have plenty of experience working on blockbusters having played the pivotal part of Mexican Man in Lift in James Bond sequel Spectre. There’s still no official word on who he’ll be portraying in the MCU pic, but a new report now claims that he might be suiting up as White Tiger, who’s been rumored on a few occasions to be involved in the film.
In the pages of Marvel Comics, several different names have embodied the character including Hector Ayala, Kasper Cole, Angela del Toro and Ava Ayala, so there’s plenty of room for interpretation if Marvel end up heading down that route. The Kasper Cole version has lots of history with Black Panther as well, having found T’Challa’s costume and fallen under the employ of Killmonger, while he sports a Vibranium outfit of his own.
Mikey Sutton of Geekosity is the one with the scoop and claims that a source has told him that White Tiger will be one of the film’s main foes, explaining that “the MCU likes to combine variations of their heroes and villains so a mix of Ayala and Cole wouldn’t be out of the ordinary.” He can’t confirm if Huerta is indeed portraying the character, and instead only says that White Tiger will be in the movie, but it certainly seems like a good bet.
In any case, with more news on Black Panther 2 set to come thick and fast over the next few months, it shouldn’t be too long until we get a definitive answer. But for now, it sounds like we can definitely expect to see White Tiger show up in a villainous capacity.
