Black Panther Gives Wakanda a New Leader With a Shocking Backstory

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Christopher Priest and Joe Quesada have been working on their new series, Marvel Knights: The World to Come, for a number of years now, and the two star creators likely knew that their story was going to be a big deal upon its release, and sure enough, the comic book world was thrown for a loop when the first issue ended with the reveal that, in the future, T'Challa (the Black Panther) would be battling his son for the role of the King of Wakanda, but that his son, Ketema, would be WHITE!

This week's Marvel Knights: The World to Come #2 reveals the conclusion of that battle, and sure enough, Ketema takes over as the leader of Wakanda in the future, and it is his taking over the role of his adopted father that sets everything into motion in this decades-spanning adventure. But how did T'Challa come to adopt Ketema? And who is Ketema's biological parents?

Who are Ketema's biological parents?

As we learned in Marvel Knights: The World to Come #2, Ketema's father is Black Panther's old friend, and government liaison, Everett K. Ross, who was a State Department attaché who was meant to be King T'Challa's escort while the Wakandan king was visiting the United States (Martin Freeman played the character in the Marvel Cinematic Universe). Christopher Priest introduced Ross to the world of T'Challa during Priest's iconic Black Panther run of the late 1990s/early 2000s as both a POV character, and a comic relief character.

Ross had been in love with another state department employee, Nicole Adams, who had previously dated T'Challa when he was living in the United States and using a secret identity (he briefly taught in New York City under the name Lucas Charles). Nicole was later killed in an attempt to kill another one of T'Challa's exes, Monica Lynne. As it turned out, Ross later married Nicole's sister, Lynne. Both she and Ross were seemingly killed during a battle (a piece of the Washington Monument crushed their car).

How did Black Panther come to adopt Ketema?

As it turned out, Nikki had survived the attack just long enough to deliver her and Ross' son, but she died soon after delivery. Nikki's mother, thinking Ross and Nikki were both dead, blackmailed T'Challa and, in effect, sold her grandson to T'Challa, whose wife, Monica Lynne, had just miscarried. T'Challa adopted the boy, naming him Ketema.

And as we see, years in the future (and eight years before T'Challa dies), Monica Lynne gets Ross to see if he can help stop the fight between T'Challa and Ketema. Instead, Ketema threatens to kill Ross (who had only just now learned that his son had lived), and instead, T'Challa yields to his son, and Ketema becomes the King of Wakanda...

This, of course, appears to cause some major problems, which we will see in future issues of Marvel Knights: The World to Come!

Source: Screen Rant