I came here to praise the heart of my country, the vibranium miners of the Great Mound. For I am their king and I love them as the father loves the child. But among my children, all I found was hate. The hate spread. And so there is war.
Amazingly enough, the first two lines of this quote sound very much like something that you might expect to hear from either a heroic king or a villainous one. There is literally no context from which one might extricate an opinion on the standing or status of the monarch speaking. This is perhaps less surprising to those full grounded in the mythology of Black Panther, but to a relatively newcomer it could be a bit unsettling to realize this. Of course, everything changes with the third line, though not because of the line itself. The panel containing the first two lines is portrays the miners in a long shot, from behind Black Panther, and is quite suggestive of the distance separating their respective positions. The miners are given shape and form, but lack detail.
A panel change occurs with the third line quoted above which is a thing panorama filled with nothing but highly detailed faces of angry miners who appear to have gone well beyond hate. Their glowing green eyes suggest something more supernatural even as the final two lines—each compacted within their own limited frame—servers to convey that even when the supernatural is involved, the consequences rarely alter.
NO ONE MAN
This is not a quote in the traditional sense of the term, but it is a vital one nevertheless. The radical feminist resistance in the story known collectively as the Midnight Angels are seen in one striking panel engaging in a ritualistic celebration as in the background these words are quite literally burning on the ground. The unburned unspoken remainder of the unexpressed thought is “shall rule Wakanda.” While contextually directed specifically toward the current one man rule of Black Panther, it is really directed less specifically against one man—ironically, perhaps—than toward the idea of patriarchal determinism. Of notable significance is that the quote actually being spoke during the ritualistic dance is collectively spoken: “They shall all pay.” In other words: one man equals all men equals every many equal any man.
Once when I was tree, African sun woke me up at green dawn. African wind combed the branches of my hair. African rain washed my limbs. Once when I was tree, flesh came and worshipped my roots. Flesh came to preserve my voice. Flesh came honoring my limbs. Now flesh comes with metal teeth and chopping sticks and fire launchers.
Clearly a pattern is developing in the delivery of character thoughts. The pattern is to set up a context that is a little difficult to pinpoint before delivering a gobsmack of information at the end that almost subverts expectations, but actually serves to delineate more clearly what is happening here. Tetu’s backstory is that he was a student of a great Wakandan philosophy instructor. Clearly, he has held on tightly to that aspect of his upbringing; he is expressing a primeval sort of philosophical spiritualism. Something changed, however, because it turns out that he was leading all along to revealing it is a political philosophy that is obsessing his thoughts. Wakanda is at war according to the first quote listed here. The next two are highly suggestive about which interests the war might be with.
