With everyone salivating for the Black Panther Movie coming in just a few months, there may be something to hold everyone over until February.

It’s the Black Panther Animated Series originally released in 2011 starring Djimon Hounsou as Tchalla “The Black Panther”, Kerry Washington as Princess Shuri, and Jill Scott as Storm.

Black Panther and Storm voice by Jill Scott

The Series takes place at the end of 2009 with many of the themes of global politics in 2009 at play. Wakanda is a country in Africa that has never been conquered by any colonial power and has managed to develop and thrive independently. They are light years ahead of the rest of the world both technically and spiritually. The Black Panther serves as both the political and spiritual leader of the country, which is a leadership model derived directly from Ancient Africa in kingdoms such as ancient Khamit and Kush, Benin, and the Asante.

Famous Bronze Statues from The Kingdom of Benin

They are sitting on a sea of oil that they do not harvest, and have an abundance of a rare mineral called “vibranium” which has this rare ability to absorb extreme vibrations and stop harsh impacts such as bullets. Due to these advantages, all of the world powers are clamoring to destabilize the country.

The main culprit leading this charge is a Belgium assassin by the name of Klaw. When T’Challa was a child, Klaw was hired by the United Nations to kill the Black Panther (T’Challa’s father T’Chaka) if he did not agree to trade vibranium with the world powers. During a UN general assembly, T’Chaka denied them that access due to the west “being like teenagers that think they are older than they really are”. Due to this stance, T’Chaka was assassinated in his hotel room in front of his wife and kids (including T’chala) by Klaw. Klaw was going to kill the whole family, but young T’Chala picked up a gun the Klaw dropped during a struggle with his father and shot Klaw and forced him to escape by jumping out of the window of the hotel.

The world powers thought this would destabilize the country but it did not. T’Chaka’s Brother S’Yan toke over as Black Panther and ran the country extremely well until T’Challa gained the throne by non-lethal combat when he became of age. Once T’Challa became the Black Panther, his Uncle S’Yan became his top advisor.

*Uncle S'yan and T'Challa, Courtesy of Marvel Comics*

This type of leadership, and leadership transition is a completely foreign concept to the western mind in real life and in this animated series. In fact, it almost mirrors the Divine Kingship model laid out in books like Metu Neter Volume 1 by Ra Un Nefer Amen, and Divine Kingship: A Model for Sustainable Development of Self and Community by Dr. Ur Aua Hehi Metu Ra En Kamit; to a “T”.

In the series, this level of function has made the rest of the world powers extremely envious, especially the United States of America.

In one scene a top US Advisor refers to Wakanda as a “rouge” state. A buzz term used in the past to justify the invasion of a country.

So Klaw, is hired to re-vamp his plans to kill the Black Panther, by gathering a team, which include The Juggernaut, the Vatican’s Black Knight, and the army of a neighboring African country Niganda, led by corrupt puppet leader, M’Butu.

M'Butu From Niganda, Courtesy of Marvel Comics

The philosophical justification for the invasion, is to “Bring God to Wakanda”, since Wakanda is a nation guided by traditional African Spirituality. The Black Knight drives this justification home in his speech to galvanize the troops before they invade.

The interesting thing about the animated series is that, it manages to capture all of the problems and solutions to the current state of black people globally.

There are black people in neighboring countries getting paid under the table to undermine the success of the country. There are issues internally with T’Challa’s cousin compromising the nation by trusting a white woman, who is really a secret agent. Blacks in the US being disconnected from Africa and therefore helping the US undermine Wakanda. And Despite this, Wakanda is a stable, competent, spiritually and technologically advanced black nation, that is totally independent without any of the Western Ideology influencing their government or society. This is probably why the existence of the animated series has been suppressed at large. It originally aired in the US on BET November 2011, but hasn’t aired in the US since.

One must wonder why?

Well in the meantime, let’s just hope they don’t water down the movie with European saviors and “stuff” like that.