On par with the rest of the writing of Phase 4 of the MCU, Wakanda Forever wanted to put a callback to a previous, better written, movie and just change it up hoping nobody would notice the absolute ridiculousness of it. The scene I’m talking about is Shuri sparing Namor in the final battle. The setup was similar situation to Civil War, where her brother T’Challa spared Zemo in the end and essentially made peace with him, to an extent.

Now let’s take a look at why T’Challa’s act of mercy made more sense. In Civil War, Zemo came up with the plan to take the Avengers apart because he was upset that they caused the death of his family in Age of Ultron. He planted a bomb during a massive political meeting and framed Bucky for the blast. In the collateral damage, King T’Chaka was killed.

Afterwards, T’Challa sought revenge on Zemo and even paired up with Iron Man and others to ensure that. T’Challa finally got Zemo alone and you can clearly see he’s moments away from killing this man, the only reason he didn’t was because he let Zemo monologue. The movie does a fantastic job of showing T’Challa’s face as Zemo explained how his family died. You can see the man seething for the beginning of it and then he looks down, almost ashamed that he wanted revenge on a man who has lost everything. I consider this scene the greatest acting performance of the late Chadwick Bosman’s career and he was even blurred out for most of it and the rest he stood there silent.

This wasn’t a personal attack on Wakanda, on T’Challa or King T’Chaka. As bluntly put, it was simply collateral damage and Zemo even apologizes to T’Challa for his actions before trying to kill himself. T’Challa didn’t kill Zemo for that simple fact. And it wasn’t worth it. He didn’t kill Zemo, but he didn’t let him escape either, why? Because it was the right thing to do.

Now take Wakanda Forever. When Namor killed Queen Ramonda, it wasn’t by accident. He MEANT to kill her. He stabbed the glass with his spear with her on the other end. It didn’t break and you can see the frustration on his face. Then he throws some water grenades at her and she drowns.

Shuri then wants to get revenger on Namor. She defeats him, puts a spear to his neck and then she steals T’Challa’s line about vengeance has consumed you line and she doesn’t kill him. Shuri spares his life and even offers peace between the two nations in the hopes to working towards a better future.    

T’Challa spared Zemo because his father’s death was a product of collateral damage and grief.

Shuri spared Namor after he waged war against the surface world and Wakanda, tried to drown it and tried to kill her mother twice and succeeding.

It is hilarious to think that these two scenes are seen as similar by fans. Shuri sparing Namor wasn’t an act of mercy, but one of stupidity alone. Namor is one of the most powerful beings we’ve seen in the Marvel world, a man whose strength and abilities can even rival those of Ronan, Hela and even Thanos. Namor even tried to kill Shuri by stabbing her through the stomach with his spear. The only reason he walked away was because he thought she was dead and not of mercy. This man does not deserve mercy in the slightest.  

Zemo was sitting on a rock when T’Challa approached him, moments away from killing himself. He didn’t attack T’Challa, he didn’t try to escape, he was just sitting there ready to end it all. And it was after T’Challa heard Zemo’s backstory and his apology, that T’Challa deemed it the right thing to do to spare him so he can face justice for his actions.

The writing in Marvel has taken a massive step back and the writers are so desperate to make something good that they are taking previous scenes and butchering them. Some people say its “fan service”, but I see it as laziness. and you could’ve achieved the same result by having Namor “accidentally” be the cause of Queen Ramonda death. Maybe he attacked a plane that crashed into the tower killer her. Maybe he was holding a water grenade and it came loose and into the tower, and still drowning her. Whatever the way, accidentally killing a Queen is a better arch for redemption than trying to flat out kill her.

Marvel, why are you terrible at everything now? Spider-Man 3 did revenge and redemption so much better and that movie came out God knows how long ago. Recycling similar story arches is just lazy and you can’t even do it right anymore.

Everything that Marvel did right died when Tony Stark snapped his fingers. No Way Home was the brightest part of Phase 4, even though it was essentially Member Berries the Movie. Not saying that Marvel can’t find success recycling previous story arches and reinventing old characters, but if you’re not going to bother to put in the work and remember why these characters were great to begin with, then what’s the point.

 Wakanda Forever is thankfully the final product of the disastrous Phase 4 of the MCU. I only hope since most upcoming Marvel products are being massively delayed, that the studio has heard our complaints and is trying to reinvent themselves, plan their stories out and do right by the fans who have watched these movies for over a decade.

Simptastic Joe