Black Panther Cosplay Celebrating The Memory Of Chadwick Boseman

The amazing Chadwick Boseman died yesterday at the age of 43 after a four-year struggle with colon cancer. Forgive me if the article part of this post is a bit rambling — in 1967 my father died of colon cancer at 42, after a five-year struggle with the horrific disease. I am, as the saying goes, in a state.

Chadwick Boseman was best known to us nerds for his role in the Marvel Cinematic Universe as T’Challa, the new king of Wakanda, and the new Black Panther, after his introduction to audiences in Captain America: Civil War. That introduction, as one of the most important secondary characters in the film, was the gateway to Boseman’s starring role as Black Panther in his own solo movie.

So much has already been said about the significance of that movie, but some of it bears repeating, particularly during this time in which the ugly misshapen head of institutional racism dares to screech loader than it has in decades. Black Panther was a movie with an almost entirely Black cast (kudos to the producers for picking Martin Freeman and Andy Sirkis as the token white actors). It was made by an almost entirely Black team, led by relative newcomer Ryan Coogler as the director and co-writer. It looks African. It sounds African (and huge kudos to Boseman for fighting for an authentic-sounding African accent after he was cast for Civil War).

Perhaps most importantly, these relative unknowns were given a huge budget of $200 million for Black Panther, and it paid off more than even Disney/Marvel could have hoped for, taking in $1.34 billion. It proved that a movie set in Africa (albeit a fictional country) with an almost completely Black cast, could connect with nearly all audiences.

But Boseman should be remembered for his complete body of work, even though it was cut short so abruptly. I first saw him in a lead role in Get on Up, in which he captured every bit of both James Brown’s charm and dark side. As soon as I saw what an amazing actor Boseman was, I quickly sought out the movie 42, another biopic he made just a year before Get on Up, this time portraying Jackie Robinson.

Think about his career arc up to that point. Boseman went from playing minor roles on TV shows (I re-watched the series Justified last year and I was shocked that I never noticed Boseman played a drug dealer in one episode) to two feature films in which he wasn’t the lead, to starring roles. Two films under his belt before he was asked to play Jackie Robinson. Yes, he was that talented.

People have already expressed concern on social media for what Boseman’s death will mean for the Black Panther sequel and the future of the MCU — and they have been roundly vilified for it. As a writer focused on nerd culture, I have those same concerns. As someone with a few decades of experience under his belt, I also know decorum says that bringing up such concerns less than 24 hours after the notice of Boseman’s death is pretty tone deaf. But I guarantee executives at Marvel are already having this discussion — assuming they haven’t before. Boseman kept his cancer from the public, but I doubt very much that he kept it from the top brass at Marvel.

That, however, is a discussion for another day. This is a look back at Black Panther cosplayers over the years, including pre-movie comic book versions and the movie versions. These photos were used in a gallery in June, when we posted a series of galleries with the lead “Black Lives Matter:” following the killing of George Floyd. I never imagined I would be repurposing many of those photos for this reason.

Rest In Power, Mr. Boseman.

Cosplayers in this gallery include Chocolate Ninja Cosplay, vixenjay_, GiveWave Studios, Everyone’s Hero Cosplay, phillyblackpanther, urbanenigma, Scorpking Costuming, uptownbill007,  Everybody Loves Tony Ray, oniuno, iam.ororo, miles_kicks, and many more.

We now use Smugmug to present cosplay photo galleries and will post all photos there, with a link to each gallery in its own gallery article. This will allow us to give you higher resolution images to download — still for free.

To view the entire gallery, just click on the image below. If you are pictured in any of our galleries, feel free to download the images and use them non-commercially on social media, with appropriate credit.

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