By Susan JAMES

For all of their tricks and eye-catching images, for all of the Marvel Masters and those dastardly villains they’ve saved the world from, none of the Marvel universe films have had the wow factor like “Black Panther.” “Black Panther” explodes forever the idea that a white guy must always be the one to ride to the rescue. Under the direction of Ryan Coogler, known for his gritty work in “Fruitvale Station” and “Creed,” and from a script he co-wrote with Joe Robert Cole, “Black Panther” dazzles the eye while it teases the brain with some thorny questions. The fingerprints of today’s current events are all over it.
The story is a primal one that reaches back into Greek tragedy although the Black Panther would certainly argue that it was stolen from Africa by those thieving Greeks. The legitimate heir to the throne in a little known kingdom called Wakanda has his inheritance usurped by an evil cousin. Where the story goes from there is surprising, exciting and unexpected. To the international community, Wakanda appears to be a Third World nation; poor, undeveloped and of little interest to anyone. But behind Wakanda’s façade of grass-thatched mud huts and wandering goat herders, a national cloaking device protects a technological civilization so advanced that it keeps itself hidden from the world. Wakanda controls a mountain of a super-metal called Vibranium, which not only powers technological invention but also has miraculous healing powers. Each king in succession is given a potion of Vibranium that turns him into the Black Panther, superhero and protector of his people and of the kingdom they have created.
Chadwick Boseman plays prince and then King T’Challa with a dignity and authority that dominates the screen. And that’s a hard play as he is surrounded by spectacular performances, most of them from the powerful women who form T’Challa’s entourage. Letitia Wright as sister and tech wiz Shuri (the movie’s Q), Danai Gurira as General Okoye, Lupita Nyong’o as lover Nakia and Angela Bassett as Queen Ramonda show the power of women as something obvious. No one’s telling them to take up knitting. Against the force of the Africans in the story, evil weapons merchant Ulysses Klaue (Andy Serkis) and good guy CIA agent Everett K. Ross (Martin Freeman) come off as the only true comic book characters.
The story surrounding T’Challa’s ascent to the throne flashes back several decades to a period when his uncle N’Jobu (Sterling K. Brown) was working undercover in Oakland. N’Jobu sees the injustices perpetrated against blacks and wants to arm them, an act that leads to his death and starts T’Challa’s young cousin, Erik Killmonger (Michael B. Jordan) down the road of revenge. The battle between T’Challa and Killmonger for Wakanda’s throne may be the heart of the action, but all of it happens against a rich visual ground that shows Africa the way it might have been without the stigma of slavery, European imperialism and the notion that somehow as a continent its people were inferior.
Again, without fuss or grandstanding, Coogler, Cole and their mighty cast of actors present a superhero who happens to be black but is so much more. It is now Africa, particularly the Shangri-La-like kingdom of Wakanda, that can offer the world the peace it can’t seem to find for itself. The results are a film that has raised the bar for Marvel and for Disney.
See you at the movies!