I don’t get the whole “Shuri isn’t Black Panther” argument the fake Marvel Fans are having over the fact that Shuri is the Black Panther of Tokon and not T’Challa. First things first, people complaining because a character wears a mantle over another character is insane, to this day we have people arguing that characters like Miles aren’t Spiderman, Sam Wilson isn’t Captain America and now it seems fake fans are mad Shuri is Black Panther.
A little history of Black Panther Comics: unlike other mantles like Spiderman and Captain America who are mantles that represent the idea that anyone can be that hero, anyone can be Spiderman (which by the way there’s a movie about this Message, it’s called into the Spider-verse, I don’t know if anyone’s ever heard about it) or anyone can be Captain America, you know the difference between Black Panther and other mantles, not just anyone can be Black Panther.
In the Wakandan culture, the mantle of Black Panther must be Earned, key word “EARNED” so not just anyone can be black panther. These traditions of Wakandians are basically the fact that even though the Mantle is Hereditary mostly by the royal family, it must still be earned, to be Black Panther you basically have to the best in all of Wakanda, the best fighter, smartest mind, and of course, worthy of the Mantle. We’re talking yearly resets, the current bearer of the Mantle must be challenged every year to test both the king (or queen) and the challenger. This leads to the yearly challenges where the Current king/queen of Wakanda must face anyone to be proven once again worthy of the Mantle.
Where does this get Shuri?: Shuri had her solo run as black panther in 2009, in which during a time of need where T’Challa was in a bad state and Wakanda didn’t have its king, Shuri was chosen by Bast to be the new Black Panther and Queen of Wakanda, this was around the Doom War storyline. In more recent comics however, a new event (caused by Bad writing) led T’Challa to drop the mantle of Black Panther and the title of the King of Wakanda, so once again, Shuri became Black Panther. Of course T’Challa was Black Panther, but the difference here is he is to this day, unofficially Black Panther, not only that, Shuri is actually the official Black Panther in modern continuity.
Overall I don’t get the hate going on, I admittedly prefer T’Challa as Black Panther over Shuri, even so I was still excited to see her in Tokon’s Roster, getting the recognition she deserves, she looks fun to play, I’ll definitely main her. If you don’t like her that’s ok, not everyone has the same tastes, but some of the comments I’ve seen Online about Shuri being BP over T’Challa are insane and I wonder if the so called “Marvel Fans” are really Marvel Fans. Anyways, have a great day y’all.