World of Wakanda Analysis

 The introduction of the Black Panther movie into the Marvel Cinematic Universe in 2018 and its 2021 

sequel was the subject of much debate in the queer community because of both its manifest and latent 

queer relationships, queer relationships that are explicitly explored in the 2017 sequel to the Black Panther

comics: World of Wakanda. World of Wakanda follows two members of the Dora Milaje, Ayo and Aneka, 

as they interact with the power structures that bind them as Wakanda’s protectors and understand their 

feelings towards one another. World of Wakanda captures the intersection of race, gender, and sexual 

orientation as well as the effects of colonization on our understanding of queerness and blackness through 

an afrofuturistic lens. Afrofuturism allows queerness to be viewed in a way that is free from the 

conventions of modern Western civilization concerning gender roles, images of blackness, and sexuality.

First, I will define Afrofuturism and queerness and speculate on how they can intersect. Second, I will 

look at queerness in Africa and how it differs pre-colonization and post-colonization. Finally, I will 

explain how the depiction of Ayo and Aneka aligns with pre-colonial queerness and disrupts 

heteronormative ideals present in comics. 

In World of Wakanda, elements of Afrofuturism and queerness work together to shape a whole representation of a black sapphic relationship. To understand how these two aspects interact, we must first define them. In the context of sexuality, queer refers to any sexual attractions, romantic attractions, and gender identities that do not correspond with attraction to the opposite sex and assigned gender at birth. The definition of Afrofuturism varies from scholar to scholar, but for this analysis, I will refer to Mark Dery’s definition of Afrofuturism to form my definition. Mark Dery defines Afrofuturism as, “Speculative fiction that treats African-American themes and addresses African-American concerns in the context of twentieth-century techno-culture, and, more generally, African-American signification that appropriates images of technology and a prosthetically enhanced future (180).” In the context of World of Wakanda, I broaden the definition that asserts that Afrofuturism is speculative of African-American issues in the context of twentieth-century technocultures and define Afrofuturism as a method to imagine Black futures without the limitations placed on Black narratives by oppression and hegemonic power structures; to put it simply, Afrofuturism allows for the imagining of idealistic Black futures. How queerness and Afrofuturism can intersect is affected by the fact that in these idealized Black futures, the laws of heteronormativity do not apply; therefore, queer relationships are not required to adhere to gender norms and other cultural expectations. World of Wakanda exemplifies this because it takes place in Wakanda, an African country that has never been colonized and is the most technologically advanced country in the world. It is the exclusion of systems put in place by colonization, an exclusion which is afforded by the genre of Afrofuturism, that allows a holistic depiction of a black sapphic relationship. 

Social categorizations and connotations of queer identities were formally introduced to Africa by colonization. Queer people have always existed in Africa, but their presence wasn’t labeled or contested until they were under western Influence. Current conventions and understandings of queerness were solidified and put in place in Africa by oppressive systems like colonialism and slavery when Europeans introduced Western religions like Christianity. Not only that, but the European understanding of African culture as savage resulted in the categorization of Africans as inherently heterosexual. However, there is evidence of male and female same-sex relationships or homo-eroticism present in pre-colonial periods, according to Dlamini, “long-term loving, intimate, and erotic relationships between women were normative in rural Lesotho at that time and were publicly acknowledged and honored” (131). In addition, Dlamini mentions the “boy-wives” in the mines of South Africa who served as interim spouses for one another due to a lack of female companionship as another example of normalized homosexuality in Africa (130). In modern Africa, such relationships are prohibited seeing that the continent is dominated by two Abrahamic religions, Christianity and Islam, which both consider homosexuality a sin; consequently, there are a few countries in Africa where homosexuality is punishable by death and a majority of countries in Africa that consider homosexuality to be a criminal offense. It is important to note that since Wakanda exists in the Marvel universe as the only African country untouched by the effects of colonialism, excluding Ethiopia, there is no influence of the Abrahamic religions in the shifting of Wakandan culture. The Wakandans actually follow multiple religions that are mentioned in the movies and comics and are based on ancient Egyptian, African, and Hindu gods such as Bast or Hanuman. Because the Wakandans follow their own religions that are not congruent with the concept of sin, homosexuality is not something that is implied to be taboo or abnormal in Wakandan society. This is also implied to be the same in pre-colonial African and Black societies, “There are strong indications that the Western categories of ‘homo’, ‘bi, and ‘hetero’ have insufficient justification in some black situations” (Wekker 152). In traditional African society, communities are very tight-knit and labels such as those mentioned by Wekker are not in use. As a result, Africans could engage in homoerotic behavior and have it not be labeled as such. It is less about the categorization and admission of these people that they are queer and more about their actions and lifestyle that functions as confirmation of their queerness, “Africans would rather speak of acts and emotions rather than categorizing people (Dlamini 130).” These romantic and sexual actions that appear without a categorization are present in the Black Panther movie and especially in the World of Wakanda comics and help define Ayo and Aneka’s relationship outside the confines of heteronormativity and colonialism.

Picture of Tomb painting of Egyptian royal servants rumored to be lovers. This is visual proof that queer relationships existed pre-colonization in Africa. 

In talking about the relationship between Ayo and Aneka and how it challenges heteronormativity, I have to acknowledge that Marvel Comics under Marvel Entertainment is owned by Disney, a Western media company. For this reason, this depiction of an African queer relationship cannot be completely free from the influence of the oppressive systems it challenges because it is packaged for a Western audience in order to make a profit. Yet, the queer relationship between Ayo and Aneka still pushes boundaries considering that it is the first Black queer relationship in both Marvel comics and the MCU. World of Wakanda first subverts the dominant markers of lesbian women in society through its illustration of both Ayo and Aneka. Lesbianism is often associated with masculinity and black women have been historically masculinized when it comes to family dynamics and romantic relationships as demonstrated by stereotypes like the mammy and jezebel. Scott describes Black women in comics as transformed into, “a cultural resource especially evident in the visual tropes routinely deployed to represent them” (191). 

Picture of a Mammy caricature. Her hair and bodily figure are obscured so as to not draw sexual attention. 

Aneka and Ayo are both warriors in Wakanda’s military and, through a Western lens, are occupying traditionally male roles, but their depiction differs from the expectations of Black women in these roles set in place by caricatures like the mammy. The two warriors are often pictured wearing flowing, feminine clothing with many of their physical features, including their hair, on display. Despite this, their illustration still avoids playing into routinely deployed visual tropes because there isn’t an overt focus on the more sexual aspects of their physicality as typically seen in superhero comics and representations of black women other than the mammy like the Jezebel. This shift in focus aligns with the pre-colonial understandings of queerness and gender roles as showcased by the boy-wives of Lesotho and women of Southern Africa who rejected the traditional man and wife roles prescribed to them by today’s society.

Alternative World of Wakanda  Cover Art by Jen Bartel that depicts Ayo and Aneka holding their spears while wearing jewelry and feminine-coded clothing. 

Ayo and Aneka’s relationship also mirrors pre-colonial concepts of queerness because they express their love through actions rather than just verbally. This aligns with the Dlamini quote mentioned before about Africans expressing love through action and emotion. In today’s popular media, “...to be read as queer requires an active performance of some kind or an explicit oral or visual statement; therefore an individual must choose to reveal herself as queer” (Faucheux 569). Marvel is prone to having their queer characters be verbally or aesthetically queer rather than visually queer causing fans to have to come to conclusions as demonstrated in Spiderman: Across the Spider-Verse. 

Still of Gwen Stacy’s bedroom where the Trans flag is seen above her door.

Both the Black Panther: Wakanda Forever film and World of Wakanda go further than verbally expressing that their characters are queer. In fact, labels are never ascribed to both Aneka and Ayo. In the movies, likely due to Marvel wanting to reach a broader audience, Ayo and Aneka share a short tender moment where Ayo refers to Aneka as “my love” as Aneka kisses her head. In the comics, the target audience isn’t as broad and is tailored mostly to avid Marvel and Black Panther fans which explains why Ayo and Aneka were illustrated as having a clear romantic relationship throughout the comic book. 

 Aneka confesses her love for Ayo.

Marvel’s World of Wakanda comics and Black Panther movies allow queerness to be viewed without the societal limitations of heteronormativity, anti-blackness, and other oppressive structures because of its employment of Afro-futurism. Utilizing the earlier definition of idealized black futures to describe Afro-futurism, Afro-futurism functions in World of Wakanda to create a future where a queer relationship that is reminiscent of queerness in Africa prior to colonization can exist without being bound by the expectations brought about by western gender norms and perception of queerness. The comic even goes a step further by deviating from common oversexualized illustrations of women in superhero comics, yet, still portraying its titular characters as desirable contrary to caricatures of Black women. Although colonization and oppressive forces have influenced the creation of modern works, World of Wakanda manages to offer queer representation that challenges these forces and offers a more complete look at what Queer relationships can look like in superhero media. 

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