Erik Killmonger

With 2017 now firmly in our rearview mirror, it’s time to turn our attention to the things that excite us most about the future: movies. And as any moviegoer worth their salt knows, a new year brings with it new Marvel movies! We won’t even have to wait all that long to pay our first visit to the Marvel Universe in 2018, as ‘Black Panther’ – the first of three Marvel releases due this year – will arrive in February.

Of course, Marvel is being customarily tight-lipped about the film, but as the marketing push gears up, we’re beginning to gain precious early insights into the various new characters that the hotly anticipated film will introduce. Among those is Erik Killmonger. While our expectations of Killmonger and the other new characters have until now largely been informed by their comic book counterparts, a character bio on the Toys R Us website, of all places, has given us a clearer picture of just what to expect from this version of Killmonger:

“Erik Stevens was an American black-ops soldier who earned the name “Killmonger” while in the field. However, after disappearing off the grid, he has reemerged with a plan that threatens to put Black Panther and all of Wakanda at risk. Using his charisma, considerable skills in combat and his surprising knowledge of Wakandan customs, Erik Killmonger is a dangerous threat to all that T’Challa holds dear.”

That’s not entirely dissimilar to the character’s comic book history. A Wakandan native, Killmonger was exiled alongside his family after his father assisted Ulysses Klaue in a failed invasion of the country. From there, Killmonger was raised in Harlem, where he took the name Erik Killmonger and nursed vendettas against both T’Challa (the king who exiled his family) and Klaw (for his role in the affair).

‘Black Panther’ stars Chadwick Boseman, Michael B. Jordan, Lupita Nyong’o, Danai Gurira, Martin Freeman, Daniel Kaluuya, Letitia Wright, Winston Duke, Angela Bassett, Forest Whitaker, and Andy Serkis. The film, helmed by ‘Creed’ director Ryan Coogler, will hit theaters on February 16, 2018.