It’s no surprise that Black Panther was a cinematic and a historic success. Even before T’Challa (finally) got his own solo film, the Black Panther multi-titular comic books were insurmountable successes and actively changed the course of comic book (and entertainment) history. As Black Panther: World of Wakanda continues to see wide-success in comic consumers, Marvel Entertainment has decided to expand the Wakanda-themed comic series yet again—this time, with an upcoming comic series about Shuri.
The Hollywood Reporter notes that Shuri’s impending comic run, entitled Shuri (because we all already know who Shuri is, and she needs no introduction), will debut in October. Honestly, we don’t know how we can wait that long.
Unlike Tom Holland, Marvel doesn’t pay us to do PR, so we’re not about drop any contextual spoilers about Shuri. To avoid in-context spoilers, we’re paraphrasing and omitting some details from Bustle’s coverage. Now that we can read on free of spoiling the soon-to-be-released comic book series, let’s figure out what the heck Shuri will be about.
Cover I painted for Marvel’s “Shuri” (Black Panther’s genius sister) written by the incredible @Nnedi. This’ll also be my 1st ongoing comic series as Marvel brought me on to tackle cover art for every issue in the 1st arc so … gotta lotta beads & braids to draw. pic.twitter.com/ObaoWpI9yU
— Sam Spratt (@SamSpratt) July 18, 2018
According to Bustle, Shuri will obviously follow Shuri. (We didn’t see that coming either.) Something major happens in Shuri’s life—and this is Marvel we’re talking about, so we’re underestimating the word major—and Shuri has to use her techie badassery and ingenuity, which is a superpower in itself, to make sure Wakanda is safe and thriving.
Wherever Shuri’s illustrated adventures take her, we already know that this is going to be a binge-read, seeing as Nnedi Okorafor is writing the series and Sam Spratt is illustrating it. CNN reports that Okorafor is a veteran in the science fiction genre, which is a crucial element to basically every comic book character, particularly Shuri seeing as her technological inventions, at times, straddle the line of fiction and non-fiction.
While we’re elated that Princess Shuri is becoming the comic book and cinematic Disney Princess (and technological genius) she was born, illustrated and written to be, we’re even more excited for the young women who have an exceptional comic book hero to look up to—especially young women of color. Mindful representation matters and Shuri could inspire young women to nurture their passions in STEM, while bolstering Shuri’s intrinsically selfless philanthropy.
Hopefully, Shuri can give us some desperately-needed relief from our post-Infinity Wars woes. However, Shuri’s comic book can’t come soon enough, seeing as Avengers: Infinity Wars debuts in DVD and Blu-ray form next week, and we’re going to be self-inflicting some super-powered sobbing sessions because we have no self-control. (Save us, Princess Shuri!)