After the juggernaut success of 2018’s Black Panther, director Ryan Coogler and the Marvel team had the insane task of recreating the magic, power, and culture of the Oscar-winning original.  

Then beloved star Chadwick Boseman died. It thrust Marvel and Coogler in an even more impossible position of either having to callously recast the role quickly after his death or honor Boseman's legacy while making a movie that appeals to the masses looking for escapism and thrills. 

Last Saturday, Coogler and the Black Panther cast took to Hall H at SDCC 2022 to unveil the first teaser trailer for the highly-anticipated sequel, Black Panther: Wakanda Forever, and, while they opted for the latter, it's the best movie trailer in MCU history.

After seeing Avengers: Infinity War, this fangirl is shaken, stirred, emotional and a little angry that I have to wait a year for the next installment.  In the Anthony and Joe Russo's hands, this movie is a budget-less spectacle that not only exploits the talents and chemistry of its sprawling cast, but seamlessly integrates characters from more than a half-dozen franchises and nearly 20 films.  Marvel Studios celebrated their 10th anniversary with an intense, emotional, universal adventure that dazzles as much as it demolishes.

I'd love to review this film, but I'm so terrified of spoiling the fun and the horror, so I will can say that this movie will go down in cinematic history as one of the best of its genre.  I do have some spoiler-free takeaways that I HAVE to share. 

Attending a screening of Black Panther is nothing short of a celebration.  I went to two separate screenings and it was pure superhero pandemonium. The largely black audience was decked out in vibrant African dashikis, headwraps, Black Panther shirts, and even full-fledged costumes of the characters themselves.  The theater had even hired African drummers to entertain the crowds as they waited in line for food and flooded into one of six theaters playing the film. 

When I was growing up, I worked at that very theater which is situated in an small, affluent white suburb.  It took a black Oscar-winning actor moving within driving distance before they began to regularly screen black movies.  So to witness it imbued with the spirit of Wakanda—for capitalistic gain or not—is just one of the reasons why Marvel’s Black Panther is so revolutionary.   

However, the most important question remains: does film itself hold up to the bombastic hype from fans who have waited more than a decade for Marvel to finally make a movie about a black superhero?

I would bet that work productivity ground to a halt around 8am Wednesday morning, because that's when Marvel Studios dropped the much-anticipated trailer for Avengers: Infinity War. I hope you stretched because watching, even this professional and veteran blerd sprained her fangirl. I am shook!

Avengers: Infinity War stars a boatload of celebrities, pulling in fan favorite characters from all their franchises. Chris Evans, Chris Hemsworth, Chadwick Boseman, Robert Downey Jr., Mark Ruffalo, Chris Pratt, Zoe Saldana, Don Cheadle, Tom Holland and more all join forces to defeat the supremely evil Thanos.

According to Marvel, Thanos, a intergalactic warmonger, is closer to reaching his goal of collecting all six infinity stones (a running theme throughout the Marvel Cinematic Universe), which threatens the universe's very existence.

Such high stakes requires a bleaker tone and plenty of facial hair, and the Russo brothers did not disappoint. "There was an idea to bring together a group of remarkable people...so we could fight the battles," Nick Fury and Tony Stark begin, citing the beginning of the Avengers themselves with a marked and pearl-clutching finality. The trailer (below) is mind-blowingly fantastic, and as usual, I have questions.

T'Challa, I'm really happy you're finally getting your own movie and Entertainment Weekly cover, and I'mma let you finish, but the women of Marvel's Black Panther are the fiercest thunder-stealers of all time!  

They aren't just worthy of being this week's Women Crush Wednesday, but for the entire month for July!

Featured in Entertainment Weekly's Comic-Con Preview currently on stands, the gorgeous members of the Dora Milaje--the King of Wakanda's all-female Secret Service--and the royal family can do pretty much everything.  Flawlessly.  

Here are the women who are wholly redefining Black Ops and Black Excellence.  

If you're one of the many sweating your 'do out this weekend, you can blame it on the release of the teaser trailer for Marvel's most-anticipated new franchise, Black Panther because it is straight fire.

​Two distinctly important things happened during my first viewing of Marvel’s record-breaking blockbuster, Captain America: Civil War.  First, Civil War—part Jason Bourne thriller, part superhero movie finery—didn’t just live up to the hype, it annihilated it.  Second, I may have gone in a shield-carrying member of Team Cap, but I left purring for Black Panther.