Originally Posted by
Blind Wedjat
I think this is where I disagree with some on here about T'Challa in Civil War.
Maybe I haven't said this before, but the way Markus and McFeely changed the circumstances of T'Chaka's death ultimately changed T'Challa as a character moving forward. T'Challa in the comics is like Bruce Wayne in the sense that tragedy striking in their childhood ultimately robbed them of having a complete one. In Wayne's case, he starts getting groomed to take over the family empire and then travels the world in order to learn how to fight crime. In T'Challa's case he is immediately groomed for the crown and then travels the world (or to the West) to learn about the outside world. This sudden thrust of responsibility is what I think led to the cold personality both men sometimes have.
By changing T'Chaka's death as an event that occurs when T'Challa is a man, it allows him to deal with this trauma a lot better than as child. He had his childhood, and when he was no longer a child, he was a already ready to be king and was the Black Panther. This may make T'Challa more mentally stable, but also takes away the guarded nature, the slight paranoia, and the shrewdness the character is often associated with.
But really, I don't think the MCU prepared for his arrival properly. Keep in mind that the dismemberment of Klaue was taken away from T'Challa and given to Ultron, and the assassination of T'Chaka was given to Zemo, not Klaue. These are key events in T'Challa's history that play out completely differently.
To get back to why I don't think Civil War did T'Challa justice though, I said that killing T'Chaka while T'Challa is an adult makes him more stable. It should have also made him a lot more methodical and logical. Instead the film portrays him as irrational and antagonistic. We know Bucky didn't do it. Everybody knows he didn't do it, except T'Challa. He simply takes what the news told him at face value without ever investigating, and he seemingly has no real plan other than clawing Bucky in the face. His on intelligence network can't find Bucky and needs Black Widow's help. He's never once shown to be an intelligent man (and there were several opportunities to show this) but rather a capable fighter. Almost throughout the entire film T'Challa is wrong. He's supposed to be right when everyone else thinks he's wrong.
In his ruthlessness, he never gets anything done. He has three opportunities to take out his target but doesn't. Moreover, he let Zemo live. Now I understand that one of the themes of the film was that revenge makes you less human, but come on. Zemo killed T'Chaka pretty much for no reason other than to get the Avengers to fight each other. He was essentially collateral damage and Zemo admitted this to T'Challa's face and he let him live. I'm sorry, but that's bullshit.
Now I don't hate this characterisation. But I seriously wonder why so many have a problem with T'Challa in his solo when he was the exact same character at the end of Civil War. He should have been the one guy that saw the Avengers where being played when they were too busy being caught up in their emotions. That's T'Challa, not the revenge obsessed and irrational version we got.
The solo movie actually showed that he can be a lot more methodical and logical.