Black Panther 2 Might Be Adding Up To 3 New MCU Superheroes

By the end of Black Panther: Wakanda Forever, the MCU could boast three new superheroes. Shown off at San Diego Comic-Con 2022, the Black Panther 2 teaser trailer provided a look at the characters featured in the sequel. Releasing in November 2022, the movie is confirmed to mark the end of Phase 4 for the MCU.

The Black Panther 2 trailer teased the live-action debuts of two highly-anticipated Marvel characters. One of them – Namor the Sub-Mariner – is one of the company’s oldest characters and an iconic anti-hero with a rich history in Marvel Comics. Based on rumors and what’s been shown so far, it seems Black Panther 2 will draw inspiration from Namor’s rivalry with Wakanda by making him the villain. The other new character, Dominique Thorne’s Ironheart, is poised to become a major MCU superhero. After bursting onto the scene in the new movie, Ironheart a.k.a. Riri Williams will be back in Phase 5 to headline her own Disney+ show.

Interestingly, Ironheart is unlikely to be the only new hero to emerge from Black Panther 2’s story. There’s also Namor himself. Though he’s commonly expected to be the villain, chances are the situation will be a lot more complicated than that. While Namor does have a reputation as a conqueror in the comics, he’s also a hero who has done his part to protect the world on numerous occasions. It would be a huge missed opportunity for Marvel to only make use of his potential as an antagonist. A third character worth mentioning is his cousin, Namora. Namora, who was a member of Agents of Atlas in the comics, appears in the trailer and will be brought to life by Mabel Cadena.

Will Black Panther 2’s New Characters Become Heroes After Phase 4?

There’s little doubt about Ironheart being among the next generation of Avengers: Secret Wars. Marvel refraining from making him evil does feel like a real possibility, especially since the trailer has confirmed the inclusion of Attuma, a notorious Namor villain with a much better shot at Black Panther 2’s central antagonist. As for Namora, Marvel can easily cast her as a secondary villain or position her as a future ally of Namor in Phase 5 and beyond.

In addition to having Ironheart around as a candidate for the Young Avengers team, the MCU can set up several new stories with Black Panther: Wakanda Forever’s Namor and perhaps Namora as well. In the comics, the two Atlantean superheroes sometimes took different paths, with Namora ing Jimmy Woo’s Agents of Atlas and Namor the Sub-Mariner finding a place for himself on teams like the Avengers and Defenders. The MCU could end up copying that approach and splitting the two up. Or, it could simply use Namora as a ing player in Namor’s stories, not unlike how Marvel utilized some of Black Panther’s Wakandan allies in the Avengers movies.

More: Black Panther 2 Trailer Strongly Hints Namor Is A Mutant In The MCU