Let’s start with the disclaimer: spoilers. Spoilery spoilers that will spoil the movie like three-week-expired whole milk.

Still here? Cool. Let’s begin.

Black Panther is a movie that I had been looking forward to since it was rumored the character might make a cameo in Captain America: Civil War. As a longtime comic nerd, Black Panther has been among my favorite Marvel characters, and even though the MCU movies have been on the “meh” side lately, I had high hopes for this one.

It did not disappoint; Black Panther sets the new standard as the best damn superhero movie ever.

It opens with an oral history of Wakanda, a region in east-central Africa that had been hit by a meteor made of vibranium: a metal with sound and energy absorbing properties not found anywhere else on Earth. Five tribes go to war over the meteor until a man ingests the heart-shaped herb—a local plant affected by the vibranium meteor—and gains enhanced strength, agility, senses, and other abilities. That man became the first Black Panther, and four of the five tribes united under his leadership into the nation of Wakanda. Together, they develop an advanced technological civilization based on the metal. They choose to remain isolated and pretend to be a Third World, preventing the outside world from stealing the metal and the technology it inspired for less-than-honorable purposes.

The story jumps to Oakland, 1992, where N’Jobu—the king’s brother and a Wakandan spy—is accused of stealing and selling vibranium to a South African arms dealer, Ulysses Klaue, and is seemingly spirited away, leaving behind a young son. Fast-forward to the present day, where after the events of Civil War, T’Challa is coronated via ritual combat, officially assuming the joint mantles of Black Panther and King of Wakanda, and alongside the Dora Milaje—Wakanda’s elite all-female military unit—they defend the country against all threats, foreign and domestic. Internally, T’Challa must deal with the growing desire in his ruling council to use Wakanda’s advanced tech to save the world from itself via conquest. Externally, he must track down and apprehend Klaue, who knows the truth about Wakanda and the vibranium. Klaue is not alone, however; his partner is Erik “Killmonger” Stevens, a ruthless American Special Forces Operative with a mysterious tie to the Wakandan royal family, and together, they try to hunt down and harness vibranium for their own ends.

I don’t know where to begin praising this film. Like I mentioned before, I’m a comic book fan, and I’m happy to see T’Challa done such beautiful justice. The suit is gorgeous and works perfectly for the universe it inhabits. T’Challa is written both brainy and badass; Chadwick Bozeman sells it masterfully, continuing and elevating the unsung work he did in Civil War. This time he is tapped as the star, and he has risen to the challenge. His Black Panther is at once authoritative and considerate, both regal and respectful, and it is easy to believe him as a newly crowned king. Speaking of regal, Angela Bassett is awesome as Ramonda, the queen mother. She is used sparingly, but her presence is undeniable. Letitia Wright steals the show as Shuri, T’Challa’s genius baby sister. She’s bratty, brilliant, and loves to flaunt it.

The women of Black Panther are represented incredibly well from top to bottom. Besides Bassett and Wright, the film is populated with strong Black women, specifically in the form of the Dora Milaje,

Wakanda’s elite military. They are believably portrayed as an unbeatable fighting unit, and abundant credit for that goes to Danai Gurira (The Walking Dead’s Michonne) as Okoye, the Doras top general. She plays less a soldier and more an intelligent weapon at the service of her king, and any doubt of her badassery is put to rest in a fight scene in an illegal South Korean casino. Also impressive is Lupita Nyong’o’s Nakia, T’Challa’s ex-girlfriend, and the one person who makes him freeze. Nakia is a spy for Wakanda who is torn between her duty to her country and king and her desire to help people in need, a divide that possibly caused her breakup with T’Challa (it’s never explicitly stated, and by the end, it doesn’t explicitly matter).

Much ink has been deservedly spilled in praise of Michael B. Jordan’s turn as Black Panther’s foil, Killmonger. He brings a relateable edge to the movie, and you even have to sympathize with his viewpoint: Wakanda could do so much to alleviate the struggle of African descendants worldwide, but T’Challa does nothing. He brings a focused pain to the character, and delivers the coldest—and best, in my opinion—line of the movie.

Also noteworthy is the character M’Baku, who in the source material is Black Panther’s second most prominent enemy behind Klaue. The challenge with the character was to make him credible and relatable while removing the racist stink. In the comics, M’Baku goes by Man-Ape and is a one-note villain with a questionable gimmick. In the film, he leads the Jabari, the mountain tribe who did not fall in line under the first Black Panther’s leadership. He is portrayed as somewhat less antagonistic than in the comic books (although our introduction to him is through ritual combat for the throne), and ultimately, he’s quite noble. The movie version has nuance, soul, even a little humor. It is sure to be an example of how the movie version influences the source material. Credit for that is to smart writing and an excellent performance by Winston Duke. Props also go to Forest Whitaker as Zuri, Daniel Kaluyya as W’Kabi, Martin Freeman as Everett Ross, and Andy Serkis as Ulysses Klaue.

Director Ryan Coogler knocked this one out of the park. His vision of Wakanda is a breathtaking technological and natural jewel, untouched by the centuries of colonialism and slave trading that plagued and stunted the rest of the continent. The culture is a blend of traditional and futuristic, and it’s a type of high-concept science fiction that is sadly not seen anywhere else. In the process, Coogler proved several long-accepted notions of film and audience completely wrong. You can have a crowd-pleasing, big-budget movie with an Afro-centric cast. You can have a Black-helmed, Black-crewed, Black-cast movie make a whole lot of green. The impact of that in today’s entertainment culture and today’s political climate cannot be ignored. Black Panther’s success is proof positive that the world is ready for heroes that don’t look, think, or speak like the white American male, and that there is a craving for Black inclusion in sci-fi.

And, you know, it’s a damn good movie.

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