Needless to say, the following contains spoilers for Black Panther and Avengers: Infinity War. Stop reading now if you'd like to go into the upcoming blockbuster knowing next to nothing.
At the conclusion of Joe and Anthony Russo's Captain America: Civil War, Steve Rogers (Chris Evans) and King T'Challa (Chadwick Boseman) put Bucky (Sebastian Stan) on "ice" until the Wakandans could figure out how to deprogram the lethal assassin. We then learned in the end-credits scenes of Ryan Coogler's Black Panther that the Winter Soldier has been thawed. So, how do the Wakandans feel about having this stranger in their sacred land? We posed the question to Black Panther and Avengers: Infinity War co-star Danai Gurira when we visited the set of the latter thriller last year, and she explained that her character, Okoye, has deep reservations:
She hasn't been excited about outsiders. You'll see more [of] that. You'll see that in a very clear way in the movie. Outsiders, they threaten what they've built up, but that's the big question: Do we isolate, or do we open up? It's an interesting thing that's highly relevant to what we're dealing with in various parts of the Western world, but it's from an African perspective, so it's really interesting. He's one guy, so he's manageable. She's thought it through. She knows how to disarm that arm.
The weird part about our conversation with Danai Gurira on the set of Avengers: Infinity War was that it happened long before Black Panther had opened in theaters. So we didn't know, at the time, that the border debate about how Wakanda should treat that outside world would be so important to Ryan Coogler's narrative. Nor were we fully aware of the fact that Wakanda would play host to a massive battle between Thanos (Josh Brolin) and the Avengers, led by Captain America (Chris Evans) and T'Challa (Chadwick Boseman).
But we saw Sebastian Stan on set with that new arm, courtesy of some sexy Wakandan tech. It has ben hidden in the trailers, but it looks pretty amazing. It's funny to know that Okoye (Dana Gurira) knows how to disable it. We'd expect nothing less from the head of the Dora Milaje.
See Wakanda as the backdrop for some massive Marvel action in the latest Avengers: Infinity War trailer that dropped:
Our exclusive coverage from the set of Joe and Anthony Russo's Avengers: Infinity War continues all week. While you wait, bookmark our Upcoming Marvel Movies guide to stay up to date on all of the latest Marvel happenings.
