Meeeh!!!
We already have several white superspy types all over media and now you want another whitespy FOR AN AFRICAN GLOBALLY LEADING TECH NATION.
Nah man....nope!
Let Shuri be the Wakandan "Nick Fury with P.R.I.D.E as her team. As much I may never forgive Maberry for the atrocity that was Doomwar, I admit to liking his Shuri and her P.R.I.D.E idea.
But given the whole movie synergy bit of scientist Shuri then I will have one of the Leading DM characters as the Nick Fury or Black widow type.
Hunter was foooorced into BP lore so hard in the most cliche trope manner......and represents characters to similar to white savior of savages type heroes like Tarzan, Sheena and The Phantom. The whole survives a transport accident (plane crash or shipwreck) or assassination attempt only to find himself in an isolated land of non-whites then is accepted and raised (which is fine) and somehow becomes their leader champion (nationalist in the case of Hunter).
I get it that Priest tried to NOT make Hunter into The Phantom type character by making Hunter always feel like an outsider and Wakandans never truly accepting him inspite of the affections of the Royal family that raised him ....and the supposed entitlement from Hunter who feels he was robbed of the throne because he is not a biological son of king Tchaka.
I dunno...Hunter is messy and I can see why Hudlin completely refused to use him and had the foresight to create Shuri because if Hudlin hadn't done that....we would have gotten a "The Phantom" situation with Hunter becoming king when BP was brutally wounded by Doom.
That scenario can still happen in "John Carter" type manner were some future idiot writer will suddenly claim that Hunter and Shuri are secretly starcrossed lovers... "White savior gets the princess/queen". This would be presented in a terribly forced "forbidden love" type story. I suspect the longer Hunter remains in limbo, the sooner this tragedy might happen.
As much as I like TNC shipping Shuri and Manifold..he hasn't really done much to cement it to make it solid enough to be a strong ongoing relationship like Storm/BP and Monica/Adam.
Priest also never developed Hunter's background beyond just a plane crash... apparently Priest got hella pressure to put white characters in BP mythos.lololool! He did a better job with creation and use of Ross than Hunter...IMO.
I was make Everette Ross the younger more timid brother of the Hulk's General Ross/Red Hulk.
Hunter....hmmm....I dunno...I would make him a humanoid alien lost prince to some alien space kingdom now ruled in tyranny. Tchalla helps Hunter reclaim his throne and an intergalactic is established similar to the US/UK partnership. Stipulate the plane crash was actually a starship crashing and Hunter's human form is bio-holographic alien tech embedded under Hunter's skin based on european tv broadcasts the starship received from orbit. Hunter's parents were killed in an assassination, their body guard escaped with Hunter in the starship whicj which was chased by the assassin's until it was shot, damaged and it crash landed in Wakanda.
Alien bodyguard gravely wounded by the crash King Tchaka was first on the scene soon joined by the queen and the Wakandan army....the dyeing bodyguards offers infant Hunter to Tchaka before its last breathe. However both the Queen and Tchaka had witnessed baby Hunter transform in his human form, the bodyguard activated the bio-holographic sub-dermal tech before dying.
Tchaka used Wakandan tech to digitize the mind of the alien bodyguard who has been used as a living cyber-security program over the DECADES which most Wakandans (including Hunter) thought was just an a.i.
The pursuing aliens assassins were either defeated or a shield camoflage hid Wakanda from their sensors so they left.
Hunter of course goes through a personal crisis with the revelation that he isn't human, why BP has kept this secret from him all this time, the whole "my entire life has been a lie" arc which could go either way.....Hunter becomes a villain (temporarily) rampages against BP and Wakanda...almost destroys Wakanda but is soundly defeated Shuri while Tchalla does another one of his tech feats to save Wakanda.
Tchalla, Shuri and Ramonda apologise and appeal to Hunter who also apologize and make up.
Hunter discards his human form accepting who he is as an alien realising that the constant outsider feeling he always felt was his sub-conscious wrestling against the facade of his life and appearance... but he retains the subdermal bio-hologram implants(sdbhi) as part of his gear for spy activities. Tchalla created tech that enables Hunter to have control and use the sdbhi.
BP and Shuri alongside Hunter now use this Wakandan/alien kingdom unity to develop the Intergalactic Empire of Wakanda (IGEW) of course written in Priest n Hickman type fashion political intrigue, scheming, scifi thriller, action and character introspection.
In such a story, I would make Shuri and Alien Hunter lovers. Alien Hunter becomes a King with Shuri as Queen on this alien kingdom making Shuri royalty of two kingdoms.
Sorry for the lengthy synopsis but that's just my idea for Hunter.....use this character to expand the BP mythos and give both Hunter and Shuri more agency. It gets Hunter out of that semi- "The Phantom" "John Carter" -in waiting archetype. Hunter will now have his own nation albeit
This an opportunity to put BP on the Intergalactic stage as a political, socio-economic and battle tactician which also cements (and frankly verifies) BP as Earth's rep on the council of worlds were we get to see BP, Wakanda and Shuri engage on a cosmic level.
Several spin off titles can result...whew....sorry again for being over-verbose.
Thoughts?