New year, old grudges in our return to the world of Wakanda. Black Panther is Public Enemy No. 1 for his role in definitely not killing Captain America but being blamed for it anyway. The only way to clear his name is to break into a highly secure federal entity, steal a bunch of information, beat up all his accusers and break one of his greatest foes out of the prison he put him in. He also has to put up with cat-based puns and proverbs in this, our second half of Black Panther’s Quest!
1. O Captain! My Captain!
Captain America is dead (see: vaped last episode) and everyone is having a really hard time with it. There’s a nice new statue in Central Park erected in Cap’s memory that wouldn’t look out of place in front of a Planet Hollywood, and a giant mass of seemingly apathetic New Yorkers standing silently in the rain just dying to hear Tony Stark deliver a speech he most assuredly had a digital assistant write for him ten minutes prior. Tony’s grief has led him down the dark path of passive aggression, using the press jackals as a tool to needle T’Challa about how much he sucks. Kamala cries, while Black Widow has turned straight up psychopath, constantly unhinging and screaming about the “destruction” of Captain America. Meanwhile, Scott Lang doesn’t seem to give a single shit and is more bummed out about his sandwich that Widow just wrecked with her blood rage. I can only imagine Hawkeye is in his bedroom throwing darts at a picture of T’Challa while screaming cuss after cuss. All of this is just a prelude to Tony Stark’s ultimate plan in misplaced revenge: setting Bucky loose to go totally ham on Panther.
2. PR Disaster
So yes, I am excited for Bucky to show up this season, but there’s a huge level of irresponsibility present in this plan. Obviously, it’s just kind of insensitive of Tony to rile up the best friend of the deceased but maybe a worse idea when said friend is an armed (ha), formerly brainwashed assassin with severe attachment issues. Of course, the fight is going to move into the streets of Manhattan and when it does everyone is so busy flipping shit over T’Challa being this unbelievable traitor who definitely killed Captain America in cold blood for no fathomable reason, they completely disregard the immense collateral damage they themselves are directly causing. Bucky opens fire into crowds with his laser rifle multiple times and Tony in his “Panther Buster” armor busts everything in a square block except for Panther. After blowing up Cap’s City Walk statue and nearly killing another bystander Bucky has to be talked down from “destroying” T’Challa in a public space by Tony who cranked him up in the first place.
3. Of Ants and Men
It’s refreshing, if not a little strange, for Ant-Man to be present, let alone have a fairly significant fight scene in the episode. The dude hasn’t been around all season and has little motivation for starting now, but here he is, and what a relief. The Avengers have been so damn dour and acting bonkers out of character, so it’s great to have an aside with Scott just doing what he’s supposed to but still treating Panther like the ally and co-worker that he is and has been. That said, Scott hands T’Challa his ass which is another change of pace for the show. Typically Panther is this blazing god of destruction and could probably even kill a bear, so it’s a lot more engaging than the average scrap when kicking ass can’t be the solution and alternate means must be sought, in this case scanning Ant-Man’s suit to find the grow-big button and wrecking half of Avengers Tower.
4. Upgrade U
While everyone is all sad and crap over Cap’s PlayPlace statue, T’Challa has kept busy by killing robots that look like Iron Man and having his suit upgraded to presumably kill the real Iron Man. It feels like it’s been a grip since we got a taste of Bond-gadget Panther, what with all the ultra-specific riddles, space travel, and volatile super-charged Nazi treachery in the past few episodes. There’s a lot of the usual Panther apps like environmental scans, electronics-hacking paw pads and charged vibranium claws, but the real meat is in the predictive Iron Man countermeasures (like tracking force field modulation [?]) that turn Tony’s new Mk-59-A and “Panther Buster” armors into coffins. With as many times as T’Challa could have killed Tony in this episode and doesn’t, it’s baffling to rationalize why everyone thinks Panther is this unrepentant psycho murderer of freedom and its avatar.
5. Art of War
The animation quality is about the same as it has been in the past, but it really shines in action-heavy episodes like this where a lot of attention is put into fight choreography and blocking. Way back in the third episode, I mentioned Panther’s cat-like fighting style and how it was visually distinct and evocative of character in locomotion alone. While it hasn’t exactly gone away, we just haven’t had a lot of exposure to it in such long takes. The fight with Bucky and Tony in the streets is a great example of how well the show grasps the individuals as combatants and delineates how that is expressed. Panther is cat-like, shadowstepping and pouncing, using agility and momentum to whittle away with a thousand cuts (or double-kicks as he prefers). Winter Soldier is very front-loaded, blindly throwing cyber-haymakers and ineffectively slugging it out with heavy debris when his superior marksmanship and ballistic skills are subverted. Iron Man is an untrained rich dude in fancy battle armor that, while experienced and over-equipped, is no match for those with actual martial prowess.
