The Wild Reed: “The Perfect Send-Off”

Saturday, August 28, 2021

“The Perfect Send-Off”

Today is the first anniversary of the death of actor Chadwick Boseman.

I’ve been honoring Chadwick at The Wild Reed on the 28th day of every month since his passing last year on August 28. Chadwick died of colon cancer, and although he had been living with the disease since 2016, he never spoke of it publicly.

Today the honoring continues with my sharing of a heartfelt piece by The Gamer’s Stacey Henley. It focuses on Marvel’s animated Disney Plus series What If...?, in which Chadwick posthumously reprises his role as T’Challa (aka Black Panther).

Henley’s article is reprinted in its entirety below with added images and links.

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What If . . . ? Is the Perfect
Send-Off for Chadwick Boseman

By Stacey Henley
The Gamer
August 24, 2021

Hearing Chadwick Boseman in What If...? was always going to be bittersweet. Not only was it Boseman’s last turn as the character of T’Challa/Black Panther but, as an animated show, it also led with his voice, something Boseman was particularly central to forming. Black Panther was originally going to have an American accent, but Boseman stepped in and suggested our African hero who was born and raised in Africa should probably sound African. Boseman himself then worked with a dialect coach to create the Wakandan accent, which all the other actors then had to learn. Black Panther is a crucial character in the Marvel Comics Universe (MCU) and is important to so many people. From day one, Boseman understood this.

As the Infinity Saga closed, it was clear that Boseman was being positioned as the MCU’s new lead. He is the first character to emerge from the portals in Avengers: Endgame [above] and he is the character who picks up the Infinity Gauntlet [left] during the literal passing of the torch. Black Panther, Spider-Man, and the female heroes are intentionally pushed into the spotlight in the battle against Thanos. These are the heroes of the future. Thanks to Boseman’s untimely passing, this will no longer come to fruition, and with Black Panther: Wakanda Forever avoiding a CGI Boseman out of respect, What If...? will be his last turn in the role of T’Challa. That’s especially fitting, with the question “what if” being destined to hang over the MCU forever when it comes to Boseman.

Of course, at the time at Marvel nobody knew this. Boseman kept his cancer diagnosis a secret from the public and most of his colleagues, so What If...? was never written as a last hurrah. That’s probably for the best though; T’Challa as Star-Lord is such a hopeful tale and a fitting goodbye to Boseman that it had to happen organically. Any attempt to write a real goodbye would have been far too schmaltzy, and would have been robbed of the humour, wit, and spikiness that What If...? has.

We’re two episodes in now, and we’ve had one miss and one hit. Peggy as Captain Carter sounds great on paper, but it played out far too similarly to Steve Carter’s own time as Captain America in the war and shoehorned in a relationship that no longer made sense. It just felt like Captain America: The First Avenger with Carter in the lead role. T’Challa as Star-Lord [aka Peter Quill] does not suffer in this way. It is not just Guardians of the Galaxy with Black Panther. The entire dynamic of the crew is flipped. We see a post-Mad Titan phase Thanos, a more sophisticated, femme fatale interpretation of Nebula, a new Drax, a softer Yondu, and the same old Kraglin and Taserface.

It doesn’t just reimagine T’Challa as Star-Lord. T’Challa is, by all accounts, a less selfish person than Peter Quill. Sure, some of that is down to upbringing – Quill was raised by a single, sickly mother in Nowheresville, Missouri, while T’Challa is royalty – but some of it is just nature. Quill is loyal and protective, but he’s also a bit of a douchebag. T’Challa as Star-Lord is more of a Robin Hood character - he’s able to defeat Thanos with words and is much more capable when it comes to rallying people to his cause. It’s not just replacing a character in the story, it’s rewriting the story for the character.

It’s not a riff on Guardians at all. It’s more What If...? Ocean’s Eleven Was Robin Hood, Oh And Also Black Panther Is Star-Lord And Friends With Thanos. It’s exactly what What If...? should be, and it even throws the spotlight on Howard the Duck. In showing a new side to Nebula, it could be a key part of her post-Endgame faceturn development, but for now, all eyes are on T’Challa.

We are set to get more T’Challa What If...? stories before the first season wraps up, and that too is bittersweet. The most recent episode felt like the perfect conclusion, and it feels like tempting fate to ask for more. Then again, Boseman is one of the MCU’s most fascinating performers, a rare straight man hero, letting Shuri riff off him and giving Killmonger the breathing space to become one of the best villains superhero cinema has ever seen. I want more of Boseman, but I also want him to have a fitting ending. What If...? gave him that, and I can only hope the series keeps it up.