Black Panther has managed to achieve a level of popularity and pop culture currency far beyond what other Marvel movies have achieved. It is no longer seen as simply a superhero film, or yet another chapter in the MCU. It has gone beyond being 'that film about a black superhero'. The movie has expanded the horizons of the kind of social commentary and depth that is possible in superhero films, actions films, and blockbuster filmmaking in general.

In the year to come, Black Panther will be viewed and reviewed endlessly, and fresh aspects of the film discussed enthusiastically on online forums devoted to comics and movies. What must be remembered while enjoying a viewing of the film is that it has been built on the back of Black Panther comics that have been published for more than 50 years. Additionally, director Ryan Coogler looked for inspiration beyond the US, to the far-flung reaches of the African continent to design the Afro-futuristic city of Wakanda that has so enchanted viewers of the movie.

Let's take a look at some of the more obscure details in the movie, details that you may have missed after watching the movie once. There is a reason Prince T'Challa and his superhero alter ego are considered game-changers within the MCU, and why we will no doubt get to see many of the supporting cast from Black Panther make an appearance in future Marvel movies. Here are 25 Black Panther mysteries and plots holes that we're still wondering about:

25 The Events Of Civil War And Black Panther Don't Match Up

The biggest problem with Black Panther, for people who see every MCU movie as giant pieces in a much larger narrative, is that it does not seem to follow the story beats laid out in Captain America: Civil War.

As we know, Civil War was when the world was first introduced to T'Challa and his various motivations, most significantly the death of his father. At the end of Civil War, T'Challa comes back with Captain America and The Winter Soldier to Wakanda, ruling as king of his country and providing a safe refuge for Steve Rogers and Bucky Barnes.

But then in Black Panther, we see T'Challa return to Wakanda alone, and is immediately engulfed in problems concerning Klaue and Killmonger. So where and when exactly do Steve and Bucky fit into the events of Black Panther?

24 How Is Wakanda Still Surviving?

So the whole deal with Wakanda is that it is a severely isolationist society. Wakandans work very hard to keep their vibranium-rich resources a secret from the rest of the world. This has allowed them to avoid the horrors of 'colonization' that the rest of Africa experienced. The fact that they have vibranium makes Wakanda the secret most powerful country in the world.

But how exactly did they become so powerful? In the real world, countries that have rich natural resources gain wealth by selling those resources to other countries, like oil. But it is specifically stated that Wakanda has deliberately kept their resources hidden, and also cultivated the image of a third-world agrarian nation in front of the rest of the world. In the real world, such ultra-isolationist practices result in failed states like North Korea, not the world's most powerful countries.

23 Why Was Killmonger Allowed To Fight For The Throne?

So Killmonger arrives at Wakanda, declares himself of royal blood and stakes a claim to the throne, challenging T'Challa to a fight to defend his kingly title. T'Challa clearly doesn't want the fight to take place, but then very reluctantly takes up the challenge in recognition of Killmonger's legitimate claims.

Except that Killmonger clearly didn't have any legitimate claims. Sure, he may share T'Challa's bloodline, but he knows nothing of Wakanda's history and tradition aside from what his father may have told him. You'd think the super-advanced Wakandans would have a mechanism in place to avoid the throne falling into the hands of random distantly-related outsiders.

And let's not forget that T'Challa knows Killmonger was colluding with Wakanda's most hated enemy: Klaue. Wouldn't mentioning that fact pretty much nullify Killmonger's demand for trial by combat to become king?

22 How Exactly Does Vibranium Work?

So Vibranium wasn't just some cool magic maguffin created specifically for Black Panther, but one of the most famous minerals in the Marvel Comics. It has a long history of use, and through its many iterations, it's basic property remains the same: It can only be shaped while in liquid form, and once it solidifies, it becomes the most unbreakable substance on the planet, perfect for crafting armor.

But in Black Panther, Vibranium does so much more. Seemingly anything the movie requires it to, in fact. Wakandans can apparently use Vibranium to make cars that fly, armor that can grow large or shrink down and even skin tattoos! It seems strange that some of the brightest minds on the planet, from Howard Stark to his genius son, had access to Vibranium, but never used it for anything more than making Captain America's shield.

21 Why Leave One Of The Suits Behind?

In the end, the fight for the whole of Wakanda comes down to T'Challa and Killmonger donning Black Panther suits and slugging it out man-to-man, because underneath all the political and racial commentary this was still a superhero film.

But did the fight have to take place at all? It is revealed that Shuri took the necklace containing the Black Panther suit from her lab before going to her brother's aid. So why didn't she also take the other Black Panther suit, the one that was kept right next to the other? Instead of Killmonger getting a suit, T'Challa's side would have had both suits, giving them a massive advantage.

Even if she didn't want to take both suits, it should have been a simple matter for Shuri to damage the suit and ensure Killmonger wouldn't be able to use it.

20 The Confusing Case Of Jabari Diet

So the Jabari are a tribe of... non-Wakandans in Wakanda? We're still not sure how they fit into Wakanda's political landscape. Suffice to say the Jabari are hostile towards Wakandan's, which is why their leader M'Baku states that he might feed T'Challa's ally Ross Everett to his children.

But then M'Baku reveals he's joking, and that the Jabari are actually vegetarians. It's a cool little inversion of the common tropes that often get trotted out.

But how can the Jabari be vegetarians when M'Baku states his tribe's fishermen found T'Challa floating down the river. Also, those are clearly animal pelts that M'Baku is wearing so proudly. So the Jabari hunt fish and skin animals, but draw the line at eating them? And they somehow manage to grow enough vegetation in their frozen lands to feed the whole tribe?

19 Why Are War Rhinos Even A Thing?

So Wakanda has war-rhinos. Armor-plated behemoths that serve as battering rams for their riders, easily able to toss aside every opposition in response to a simple command from their masters.

It's the kind of concept that would seem incredibly cool to twelve-year-olds... and no one else. There's a reason modern warfare has no place for animals in the battlefield. Everything the rhinos did could have been done better by tanks, and without the added worry of a rhino suddenly refusing to obey its rider, which is exactly what happens in the movie as well. We see a rhino charging forward towards a female guard, only to stop at the last second upon recognizing her.

So Wakanda had time to make flying cars and fighter jets, but somehow drew the line at making tanks? Or did they just really like riding rhinos?

18 Why Was T'Challa's Final Decision Considered So Shocking?

So the whole of Black Panther essentially deals with one question: Should Wakanda come out of its centuries-old self-imposed isolation and join the rest of the world by sharing its knowledge and technology?

It is this question that T'Challa constantly wrestles with, and which causes great conflict within Wakanda itself, with some people violently opposing the move to be more open with the world, and others insisting that they continue to have no contact with the outside world.

But in Civil War, we clearly hear T'Challa's father King T'Chaka telling the UN about Wakanda's decision to end their self-imposed isolation. We also hear about a Wakandan aid mission in Lagos that was destroyed. Clearly, the decision to bring Wakanda out of the shadows had already been taken before Black Panther rolled around. So what was all the conflict about?

17 How Come Everyone Can Speak English?

This is another issue that we have with the rules relating to Wakanda's world building. In the movie, we see Wakandans quickly and easily switching from their native tongue to English, even when talking to each other. Of course, this was done to make the movie intelligible to its English-speaking audience.

But in-universe, it raises the question of how Wakandans are so comfortable with English but seem to be immune to other effects of globalization. Language is shared using pop culture and shared economies. Since Wakanda clearly has neither of that, it raises the question of how its natives grew so fluent in a language that they have had nothing to do with for centuries. You have to wonder if Wakanda was really as isolationist as the movie made it appear, or they just didn't care for outside influences on their culture.

16 Why Are The Jabari Shown Practicing Hinduism?

So the Jabari are a pretty confusing people in terms of what they preach and practice. In one of the scenes, we hear them chanting Hanuman's name, the Hindu monkey god of strength native to the South Asian continent, particularly India. In the movie, the Jabari are a part of the severely isolationist Wakanda, yet have cultural practices (the worship of Hanuman, vegetarianism) that more closely resemble the few African tribes that reside in India, which is a continent away.

There is also the fact that there are plenty of African gods that the Jabari could have chosen to worship, like the Ghekre, whom M'Baku actually does worship in the comics, or the baboon-like god Thoth. Maybe it was simply a case of the writers taking inspiration from the more obscure and far-flung places of the world to create Wakandan tribes.

15 Killmonger's Whole Plan Was Pretty Stupid

Erik Killmonger may have been driven primarily by revenge, but it has been repeatedly shown that he also possesses a keen mind, able to form strategies and master plans... except when it came to the future of his people and Wakanda itself.

Killmonger's whole plan was to supply rebellion groups around the world to help them carry out terrorist activities. So basically he was willing to fund outfits like ISIS. Such dealings would have put Wakanda on the watchlist of the UN as the primary source of terror for the free world, meaning every nuclear-weapons-backed military in the world, and the Avengers themselves would have come gunning for Wakanda.

It is implied that Killmonger even knows his actions will surely lead to Wakanda's demise. So was Killmonger some kind or mastermind, or just a demented madman who wanted Wakanda to burn?

14 Why Are The Jabari Suddenly On Board With T'Challa?

The whole problem the Jabari tribe and their leader M'Baku had with T'Challa was that they felt he was moving Wakanda away from their nation's traditional roots. The Jabari opposed any outside influences on Wakanda and were even willing to kill T'Challa to stem the flood of changes taking place in their country.

At the end of the movie, M'Baku agrees to help T'Challa defeat Killmonger and regain the throne. The movie ends with the Jabari apparently living in peaceful coexistence with Wakandans for the first time in their history.

The question is, how long will the Jabari continue to support T'Challa once they realize he plans to open Wakanda up completely to the rest of the world? M'Baku would have to be pretty furious after learning about TChalla's final speech at the UN announcing a more open Wakanda.

13 Wakanda Was Hardly The Paradise It Was Made Out To Be

A lot of noise was made about Wakanda being not just powerful, but the most advanced nation on the planet. But we can't help but notice that for such a powerful and seemingly advanced nation, Wakanda seems to have a lot of the same problems that less advanced nations do.

For one thing, Wakanda still functions as a monarchy, in spite of most of the rest of the world having moved on to some form of democracy. This antiquated ruling by royal bloodlines causes the main problem in the film when Killmonger uses his family ties to lay claim to the throne despite being completely unsuitable for the position.

Also, Wakanda is still split into a fractured caste system, with some tribes living a superior life to others, and people are still shown living in wooden huts.

12 The Trailer Showed A Different Story Than The Film

In the final trailer for Black Panther, Ross Everett is shown to be highly skeptical when Klaue tells him about T'Challa's indestructible battle suit. But... why did he have such a hard time believing the Black Panther suit exists? He and the rest of the world had already seen T'Challa in action during the events of Captain America: Civil War. It should have come as no surprise to Everett that T'Challa was in possession of a suit whose capabilities almost exceed those of the Iron Man armor.

The discrepancy between the events of the trailer and the movie clearly point towards the fact that the movie script underwent some heavy rewriting after Civil War came out. Some of the storylines that unfolded in the earlier movie were deliberately pulled back and unfolded from a fresh angle in Black Panther.

11 Why Did T'Chaka Have To Say Good-Bye To His Brother?

The entire conflict of Black Panther is set up not at the end of Civil War, but actually more than two decades earlier. That was when T'Challa's father King T'Chaka went to the US to visit his brother, the leader of the Wakandan war dogs. T'Chaka discovered that his brother was preparing to use Wakandan technology to supply rebel movements across the African continent and beyond. In the same scene, T'Chaka kills his brother and abandons his half-Wakandan nephew there, who would later grow up to become the hungry-for-revenge Killmonger.

So the question is, was there any need for T'Chaka to kill his brother at all? He was wearing the Black Panther suit at the time, which gives complete protection even against bullets! Also, T'Chaka had his bodyguards with him at the time to imprison his brother at his command.

10 Did T'Challa Learn Nothing From Civil War?

The events of Civil War were a great learning experience for T'Challa. He started out consumed with the desire for revenge for the murder of his father. His whole arc in the movie was learning to let go his anger. He proved he could do this by sparing the life of his father's murderer (Zemo), and even preventing him from committing suicide so he could be tried for his crimes.

But at the end of Black Panther, T'Challa was willing to let Eric Killmonger die instead of forcing him to get medical care and standing trial for his crimes after getting healed. So did the events of Civil War and his actions back then mean nothing to T'Challa now? Or was this another example of a disconnect between the characterization of King T'Challa in Civil War and later in Black Panther?

9 The Meteor That Should Have Destroyed The Earth

If you remember the plot of Avengers: Age of Ultron, it had to do with a city that was supposed to rise up in the air and crash back to Earth, obliterating humanity as we know it and setting off a cataclysmic chain of events that would have left only the machines alive.

The Avengers managed to avert such a catastrophe, but according to Black Panther, such an event had already occurred 10,000 years ago! The Vibrainium found in Wakanda is mined from a meteor that crashed to Earth. Considering how long the Wakandans have been mining the meteorite, it must've been truly massive.

Add to that the fact that Vibranium has the ability to absorb all the force of an impact and send it back with explosive strength, and Earth should literally have crumbled after getting hit by the meteorite.

8 How Did Killmonger Get His Tattoo?

The reason Wakandans immediately gave credence to Killmonger's claim to the throne was because he showed them the Vibranium lip tattoo his father gave him as a child. Now the question arises, how did his father manage to give him the tattoo in the first place?

Keep in mind that this is a Vibranium tattoo, made from the most volatile substance on the planet that can only be handled and crafted by expert Wakandan ironsmiths, which Killmonger's father definitely wasn't. Also, Killmonger's birth was a secret, meaning he had never gone to Wakanda where his father could have gotten his hands on the tools needed to fashion his tattoo properly.

Also, this would be a good place to point out a simple DNA test is a far better and more reliable method of determining someone's genetic ancestry than clumsily-applied Vibranium lip tattoos.

7 T'Challa's Decision Might Spell Wakanda's Doom

At the end of the movie, T'Challa finally decides to listen to his gut instinct, and open Wakanda up to the rest of the world. No more pretending to be a primitive agrarian country. No more hiding the fact that they possess the most precious mineral on the planet. No more denying they carry technology that is far beyond anything the rest of the world possesses.

And that... might very well be the end of Wakanda, if the MCU Earth is anything like the real one. Wakanda's revolutionary tech will be hugely disruptive in pretty much every commercial space, making every powerful company on Earth Wakanda's competitor. Their military prowess will be coveted by every powerful government. And every superhero, supervillain and shadowy government agency like S.H.E.I.L.D will be gunning for their Vibranium. It's a long and difficult road ahead for Wakanda.

6 Where The Heck Is The Soul Gem?

So not to take anything away from the cultural significance of Marvel's first black superhero movie, but most of the hardcore fans came to the theatre hoping to find out the location of the final infinity stone: The Soul Gem. Marvel has been strategically planting the stones throughout their universe in most major movies, and Black Panther is certainly as major as it gets.

But fans were disappointed when the movie got us no closer to finding out the Soul Gem's location and/or identity. All that Wakanda has to offer the world is lots and lots of Vibranium, which quite frankly isn't as cool as guarding one of the most destructive forces in the universe hiding within the Soul Gem.

Now we're back to square one, where we're forced to assume the final gem belongs to Heimdall from the Thor movies.