Here's Why Black Panther Didn't Include a Certain Major Marvel Connection

Image: Disney
Image: Disney

Black Panther is now in theaters and it’s great. Like, really great. And one of the best things about it is you don’t need to be super familiar with Marvel’s 17 previous movies to enjoy it. It totally works on its own. However, if you are familiar with those movies, maybe you walked out of the theater with a question.


That question isn’t exactly a spoiler since, well, the answer isn’t in the movie. But, just in case, we’ll leave this right here.

Illustration for article titled Heres Why iBlack Panther/i Didnt Include a Certain Major Marvel Connection

Again, we aren’t spoiling anything in the movie, just something that’s not in the movie.

That is, of course, the Soul Stone! The final of six Infinity Stones Thanos needs for Avengers: Infinity War. It’s not there! We were wrong! Fans had long suggested the stone would either be in Thor: Ragnarok or Black Panther but, now that we’ve seen Panther, we know it’s not in there.

Why though? Well, the film’s co-writer and director Ryan Coogler has a pretty good answer for that.

“I love the Infinity Stones as much as any comic book fan,” Coogler told IGN. “It’s just Wakanda already has its thing, which is Vibranium. For us, that was special enough. So to throw in something like another special thing didn’t feel right. It felt like we should stick with our one MacGuffin for the country and explore that. Let that be the important thing because, frankly we didn’t need to have another piece like that.”


“[Marvel Studios] never really was interested in putting a stone in there, either,” he concluded.

So that answers that. By simple process of elimination, it seems like now the whereabout of that pesky soul stone won’t be revealed until Avengers: Infinity War. Thankfully, that’s less than three months away.


Black Panther is now in theaters.



Entertainment Reporter for io9/Gizmodo

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**I don’t think this is spoilery, but just in case...**

I don’t know if that’s the case. As cool as vibranium is there is no explanation at all for the flowers that give physical enhancements and the ability to visit spiritually with one’s ancestors. Add in that the trailer for Infinity War show a whole bunch of heroes fighting in what could be Wakanda, I think the soul stone could very well be there. Coogler’s explanation for not wanting to add it explicitly because he didn’t want to add extra unnecessary stuff makes sense, as well as the lack of exploration or explanation into that flower allows it for to still be there.