Black Panther: Wakanda Forever is not your typical Marvel movie

A war that, it seems, isn’t as compelling as the feelings that ignite it: the American government’s relentless lust for global primacy, the blinding rage Shuri (Letitia Wright) feels at the loss of her brother, and the way this drives her to action, Namor’s wickedness (if it can be defined as such, since in reality it is a side of the character that has deeper and more human roots). The latter follows in the footsteps of the classic MCU anti-heroes, like Wanda Maximoff. Namor isn’t entirely unwarranted in his wrath at him: he’s the descendant of a sixteenth-century Meso-American tribe who escaped slavery and were forced to find refuge underwater. His moral weight is substantial.

In the sequel all the characteristics of the iconography of the are present Black Panther original. After the emerald fields and teeming markets of Wakanda, we are introduced to Namor’s aquatic eden. The one created by production designer Hannah Beachler and costume designer Ruth Carter (who had previously worked on the first film) is a visual wonder inspired by Mayan culture: the clothing, accessories and architecture are all peppered with indigenous details of great charm. As a critique, the film does not allow the viewer more time to wander around the underwater city and learn more about its people and culture.

The pain in the center

Often the trauma crystallizes at its peak and therefore requires you to linger, to take stock of the extent of what happened, however excruciating pain it causes. Ramonda and Shuri do their best to deal with a unimaginable mourning and to keep the memory of what they have lost. All of this is in open conflict with the narrative logic that underlies the cinecomic genre. Superhero movies require momentum, movement, action. You leaf through them like a comic book, box after box, without ever pausing for a long time on one scene before moving on to the next. Pain demands exactly the opposite. He wants us to stop, to slow down. That’s where Wakanda Forever reveals the nature of his conflict: has difficulty deciding what to feel, which emotion to dwell on. Perhaps, however, it is precisely this contradiction thatmost truthful and honest aspect of the film. Which is not so clean, on the contrary, it is decomposed and, consequently, vulnerable.

The key aspect that makes Wakanda Forever a unique Marvel cinecomic is therefore that the film uses the pain as a fulcrum. It’s a component that can’t be ignored in a film like this. You can’t pretend that pain that never seems to go away doesn’t exist. You have to go around it and then face it head-on. Thanks to that mourning that materializes beautifully in a work like Wakanda Forever we can admire capable and caring black women – mothers, sisters and friends – who use pain and don’t let it use them. Also in afrofuturist utopias There is one stubbornly persistent fact in the lives of black people: not even superheroes can defeat death.

And when they don’t prove invincible, what happens? Those who stay find a way to fight, to heal. IS an ancient and tragically realistic story, which you have probably already heard. It is a story that never loses its meaning.

This article originally appeared on Wired US.