Over the last several years, Marvel has managed to have a run of solid, mostly single player games starring heavy hitter comic book characters like Spider-Man, the Guardians of the Galaxy, and so on. Last year, the news broke that Marvel had another game in the works from Skydance New Media, run by Amy Hennig, the writer behind Legacy of Kain and Naughty Dog’s Uncharted trilogy. And the game in question has finally turned out to be...a WWII action-adventure starring Black Panther and a young Captain America, of all things.
Revealed at Disney’s games showcase during D23 on Friday, the currently untitled game has both heroes working together and going on a globetrotting adventure to fight HYDRA, and by extension Nazis. Notably, the man donning the Panther mantle in this game isn’t T’Challa, but rather his grandfather Azzuri, created in the comics by Roy Thomas and Dave Hoover. For comics fans, the setup here will sound familiar to the 2010 miniseries Black Panther/Captain America: Flags of Our Fathers by Reginald Hudlin, Klaus Janson, and Denys Cowan. In it, the heroes, along with Cap’s Howling Commandoes unit, fought Hitler and the Nazis, who wanted the Wakandans’ Vibranium to help win the war.
Joining Cap and Azzuri on their adventure is Gabe Jones, a Black Howling Commando created by Stan Lee and Jack Kirby; and Nanali, the leader of the Wakandan Spy Network, and presumably the precursor to the present day Dora Milaje. MCU heads may remember Jones as played by Derek Luke in the first Captain America film. Meanwhile, Nanali, who was also created by Thomas and Hoover, is a character that hasn’t really gotten any play in the comics since Flags of Our Fathers.
Captain America and Black Panther have had a fairly friendly relationship in media; setting aside Cap’s Vibranium shield, the two have been on the same Avengers team multiple times in the comics, and has each Panther has had a deep respect for the Captain. In Square Enix’s Avengers game, T’Challa and Steve were good friends before Steve was presumed to be dead and was held captive in space (it’s complicated). And who could forget that time in the Ultimate Marvel universe that Steve was Black Panther?
Will it be a strictly single player affair or feature co-op? That remains to be seen, but it’s certainly an interesting pitch for a game!
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