‘Black Panther’: What the Post-Credits Scenes Mean For ‘Infinity War’ and Beyond

Kim Taylor-Foster
Marvel MCU
Marvel MCU

This article contains SPOILERS for Black Panther.

There are two sequences as the end credits roll during Black Panther. Both have a great deal of significance for the Marvel Cinematic Universe, and ramifications for Infinity War. Here’s what each sequence means.

The First Post-Credits Scene

The first involves King T’Challa giving a speech in front of the United Nations. It’s a rousing oration in which he talks about working together as one tribe.

The main significance of this speech is T’Challa’s confirmation that his country of Wakanda, a secretive nation previously concealed from the world, is now prepared to be open and share its considerable knowledge and resources with the rest of the globe. With Vibranium and Wakanda’s incredible advanced technology — developed by T’Challa’s brainy sister Shuri — now available to the world, we can expect this to become significant as Marvel tells future stories and leapfrogs into its next phase. But just as it might prove useful in the war against Thanos in Avengers: Infinity War, so it might pose a threat to the good guys should villains appropriate it for nefarious ends.

It could even mean that we see a story revolving around the development of Reverbium, a man-made version of Vibranium created in the comics by a character named Sajani Jaffrey, a colleague of a certain Peter Parker. The flawed substance has opposing properties to Vibranium. Instead of absorbing kinetic energy from impacts, bullets and so on, it repels it. This makes it extremely powerful and dangerous, and very problematic in the wrong hands.

In the comics, Kingpin — a character we’ve seen in Marvel’s Daredevil  gets his hands on some. Black Panther villain Ulysses Klaue — who we see die in the film — is also involved in the manufacture of the artificial metal in his comic-book incarnation. It’s possible, if unlikely, it could signal a return for Klaue, or Klaw as he’s known in the comics. As we know, death is never final in the Marvel universe.

In fact, after comic-book Klaw is converted into sound energy and blasted into space, he’s restored to his regular form by Doctor Doom and survives to fight another day.

The Second Post-Credits Scene

shuri_Black Panther
Letitia Wright as Shuri.

The scene opens with three children with tribal paint daubed on their faces looking down towards the camera. We can’t see what they’re looking at. They run out of the tent they’re in, and not far behind emerges Winter Soldier, Bucky Barnes. It appears we are in Wakanda.

“Good morning, Sergeant Barnes,” says Shuri.

“Bucky,” he corrects her.

“How are you feeling?” she asks.

“Good. Thank you,” he replies.

Shuri’s closing words: “Come, there’s much more for you to learn.”

The last time we saw Bucky was in Civil War, and before that was another post-credits sequence at the end of Captain America: The Winter Soldier. He was talking with Captain America as both decided that the best thing for him was to go into cryostasis until such time as they were able to decode his brainwashing. Black Panther also appears in the sequence, and it’s revealed that they’re in Wakanda.

Since then, we’ve seen the Avengers: Infinity War trailer, which allowed us a glimpse of Bucky up and at ‘em. Clearly fighting fit again, this new look at Bucky bridges the gap, allowing us a look at the early days of his re-awakening. It could signal that we’ll see some of his training and more of his story in Infinity War — and find out exactly how they’ve managed to cure him. Vibranium will no doubt play a part.

Shuri will very likely be providing him with a new Vibranium cybernetic arm — since he’s armless here, but all tooled up with a posh new limb in the Infinity War trailer. Interestingly, Shuri signals the post-credits sequence earlier in the film when Everett Ross is wheeled in for treatment to a bullet wound and she says: “Another white boy for me to fix.”

White Wolf

Black Panther
Lupita Nyong'o as Nakia (centre), a Wakandan War Dog.

The scene is also notable for the fact that they call Bucky ‘White Wolf’. White Wolf is a character from the comics, so named because he is white-skinned. Real name Hunter, he’s adopted by King T’Chaka when his parents are killed in a plane crash. In the comics, White Wolf was jealous of T’Challa, his adoptive brother, because he knew he wouldn’t be the one to ascend to the throne.

In the comics, he also became a leader of a covert ops group known as the Hatut Zeraze, or Dogs of War. In Black Panther, we learn that the War Dogs are a network of international spies. It seems likely, then, that these parallels exist to signpost that he’ll be working closely with that team in Infinity War, especially considering his skills and training.

Black Panther goes on wide release in the UK on February 13 and hits US screens on February 16.

Kim Taylor-Foster
Kim Taylor-Foster is Entertainment Editor for Fandom in the UK. She was raised on an unsteady diet of video nasties and violent action flicks.