There are many reasons why “Black Panther” is the Marvel Cinematic Universe movie with the best Rotten Tomatoes score, from the late, great Chadwick Boseman to the intricate world-building of Wakanda and … well, everything. Still, even the best movie requires a great villain to truly work, so it’s a good thing “Black Panther” has one of the best MCU movie villains, Erik Killmonger (Michael B. Jordan), at its disposal.
An orphaned boy who turned into a powerful soldier with a mission to overcome the faraway country that killed his father and use its powers to fight racists, Killmonger is one switched viewpoint and some overly cruel and dominating tendencies away from being the hero of the story, and the film wisely allows him to make enough convincing points to underline where he comes from. His final line after his defeat to T’Challa (Boseman) brings things to a level no one in the movie can truly answer.
“Bury me in the ocean, with my ancestors that jumped from the ships, because they knew death was better than bondage,” Killmonger tells T’Challa, defiant to the end and invoking the dark history of slave trade as he dies. Some other lines on this list make it possible to say something back, regardless of whether the characters actually choose to do so or not. T’Challa doesn’t even try, because how can you reply to a curtain call like that?
It’s worth noting that while T’Challa has been aware of Killmonger’s backstory before this moment, he may not have fully understood just what kind of man his enemy is. By the time he witnesses Killmonger utter that line and deliberately draw the blade out of his chest to die as a free man, it’s safe to say that he does.
