12 Azari T'Challa Facts To Prepare Marvel Fans For The Next Black Panther Movie
The ending of "Black Panther: Wakanda Forever" has everyone talking about the future of Black Panther and the MCU. The reveal in the film's mid-credits scene has the potential to change the course of Wakandan history forever, but fans who are hoping to find clues for the MCU's future in Marvel's comics are likely going to find themselves frustrated.
In the comics, Azari T'Challa is the son of Black Panther and Storm. He inherited a combination of their powers, which makes him an unbelievably formidable foe. Luckily for the world at large, Azari finds himself fighting for the forces of good more often than not. In fact, his debut story has him fighting against a version of Ultron who's managed to kill almost all the Avengers in his quest to rule the world.
Over the years, Azari has only made a handful of appearances in the comics, but his limited time on the page hasn't stopped him from becoming a major hero in his own right. Azari has saved the world on multiple occasions. He's traveled through time, and different versions of him have gotten up to heroic business across the multiverse. He's not nearly as well-known as some of Marvel's other heroes, but now is the perfect time to get up to speed with everything that fans need to know about Black Panther's son.
Azari and Miles Morales share a comics heritage
Azari T'Challa is one of those rare comic book characters who actually got his start in a movie, but we'll get into all that a little later. When it came time for Azari to begin his comic book career, the character ended up in the hands of Brian Michael Bendis, one of Marvel's most prolific creators.
Brian Michael Bendis has had a lengthy career as a comic writer, and he's been responsible for creating some of the most iconic comics of all time. He was the writer behind Marvel's incredibly successful "Ultimate Spider-Man" series, which ran for about a decade and helped to redefine Spider-Man as a character. Of course, "Ultimate Spider-Man" didn't just give Peter Parker an updated story — it also led up to "Ultimate Fallout" #4, the book that introduced the world to Miles Morales.
With his proven track record for creating incredible characters and storylines, Bendis was the perfect pick for bringing Azari T'Challa into the Marvel Comics fold. Azari first appeared in 2010's "Avengers" #1, a book that kicked off an all-new Avengers plotline that included outrageous action, a healthy dose of time travel, and alternate universes galore. In the years since Azari has been used in other stories by other authors, but nothing has quite lived up to the shocking moment he first splashed onto the page.
He's the son of two major heroes
In some ways, Azari T'Challa is a mysterious figure in the Marvel universe who tends to be a figure on the sidelines in most stories. Due to his age, he's often hidden away while the adult superheroes do their best to protect the children. In the years since his initial introduction, he's yet to be the star of his very own book, so the details that fans know about his life have had to be gleaned from other stories.
One thing that's been made clear, though, is that Azari has a weighty heritage. "Avengers World" #9, in particular, discusses Azari's parents, and if he hopes to someday live up to them as a superhero, he's got some big boots to fill. Azari's father, of course, is the king of Wakanda himself. On the maternal side of things, Azari's mother is an equally impressive figure in Marvel history — Ororo Munroe. Better known as Storm, she has not only been a longtime member of the X-Men but she's also been a leader at the Xavier Institute for Higher Learning.
When Azari grows up, he'll have some big responsibilities placed on his shoulders. With Black Panther as a father, Azari will have royal obligations to fulfill, but he'll also need to split his time with the X-Men. After all, without them helping mutants around the globe and addressing the occasional cosmic threat, the world would be in a much worse place.
He's stronger than either of his parents
Azari T'Challa actually has more in common with Miles Morales than just a comic book writer. In the Marvel universe, it's not uncommon for second-generation superheroes to have a bit of an edge over their first-generation counterparts. Miles took over as Spider-Man after Peter Parker died in the "Ultimate Spider-Man" comics, and though he had all the same powers as Peter, he also ended up with a couple of extra abilities, like his Venom Blast and being able to turn invisible.
In a similar way, Azari will presumably need to take over as Black Panther someday while also filling in for Storm's place in the X-Men. Looking at Azari's list of powers reveals that he's more than prepared to do both jobs at once. Azari has all of the superhuman abilities that T'Challa originally gained from Heart-shaped Herb, and it's impossible to say how much his strength, speed, and awareness will increase when he eventually takes the Herb himself. At the same time, Azari has all sorts of lightning abilities from his mother, Storm.
Altogether, that means that Azari as a child is basically a Black Panther who can fly and shoot lightning. He's also added his own spin on the powers, using his mother's electricity to form force fields and taking inspiration from his father to create a giant panther out of lightning. He's truly a force to be reckoned with.
He's from the future
There's an in-universe reason why Azari hasn't gotten all that much time to shine in the Marvel comics. In the Brian Michael Bendis story that first introduced Azari, "Avengers" #1, a war with Ultron in the distant future ends up killing almost all the superheroes and villains in the world. The present-day Avengers are called on to help stop the war and potentially save their timeline from going through the same tragedy.
Azari lives in this future world, where Ultron reigns supreme. He works alongside an aged Bruce Banner, helping to keep the remaining heroes and civilization from being destroyed entirely. Azari isn't the only super-child aiding Bruce in the fight, but things aren't going particularly well for anyone until the present-day Avengers intervene.
When the dust has settled from the fight, the Avengers are able to return to their own timeline, leaving Azari and his comrades to try and rebuild everything that Ultron's war destroyed. Back in the main timeline, he hasn't been born yet as T'Challa and Ororo aren't even together, so it will likely be a long time before Azari is around to help everyone's favorite Marvel heroes fight the forces of evil.
Azari exists in multiple universes
Keeping track of characters across Marvel's decades of continuity is a serious challenge. In some ways, the Marvel multiverse simplifies matters by letting all varieties of side stories take place without upsetting the canon of the main universe, but on the other hand, making sense of dozens of different universes is no simple matter.
Azari T'Challa stepped into the world of Marvel Comics in a 2010 issue of "Avengers." The Avengers featured in that story all exist in the main Marvel universe -– that's Earth-616 for true believers -– but Azari himself exists in a future timeline that eventually gets changed when the Avengers intervene in the war taking place there. That means Azari's first appearance technically takes place in an alternate universe.
Azari's other appearances also get mixed up with the multiverse. He's a side character in Jonathan Hickman's "Avengers World" series, but that timeline gets undone to a certain extent by the events of Time Runs Out. Another alternate Azari makes a fleeting appearance in "Generations: Iron Man & Ironheart." While Azari has yet to get his time to shine in the Earth-616 universe, he's already become a multiversal hero, and his appearance in so many different realities means his prospects for an Earth-616 appearance are good.
He's usually from a world controlled by Ultron
Azari T'Challa must have some cosmic-level bad luck. We've already discussed how he keeps appearing in multiple versions of reality across the multiverse. Unfortunately, usually when Azari gets to exist it ends up being in the midst of war and devastation.
In his "Avengers World" appearance, multiple threats are descending on planet Earth. The Avengers are spread thin confronting multiple riots and global uprisings while trying to stop plans put in motion by A.I.M. and the Hand. Azari and his friends are caught in the crossfire, but that particular set of global conflicts might actually be a nice change of pace for Azari.
Usually, Azari's existence goes hand-in-hand with large-scale attacks from Ultron. In the animated film "Next Avengers: Heroes of Tomorrow," Azari and other children of Avengers team members are forced to battle Ultron and his robot army. They come out on top in the end, but Azari's comic book counterpart is not so lucky. In 2010's "Avengers" #4, Azari's parents are killed and his world is destroyed by Ultron. A team of Avengers from the past end Ultron's reign of terror, but that doesn't repair all the damage he caused. Any time Azari and Ultron come face-to-face, chaos is sure to follow.
Azari worked for the Hulk
In the timeline where Ultron takes over the world, Azari T'Challa's parents are killed, and he has to grow up without either of them there to teach him how to be a hero. In "Avengers" #2, an elderly Hulk is shown to be the only person who is really guiding the orphaned children of the Avengers. After so many years of violence and destruction, however, Hulk has lost his way and intends on using the children to gain total control of the world.
Azari and his friends are loyal to their version of the Hulk, and when the Avengers from the past show up to try and help the situation, the kids attack them on Hulk's orders. The differences between Hulk and the past Avengers get settled, and the chaos of the world gets partially fixed by the end of the storyline, but Azari and the other children still don't have the moral center that their parents would have given them.
In "Avengers" #6, Hulk and some other heroes get killed by Immortus, who objects to them ruling the world. Azari, along with his remaining friends, quickly murders Immortus for what he's done, showing that Azari has a very different sense of justice than what T'Challa would have taught him.
He joined an Avengers team
In the comics, Azari T'Challa was part of a pseudo-Avengers team that worked for the Hulk in the distant future. The kids were grouped together by necessity, and they took orders from the Hulk more or less because he was the only one giving orders. It wasn't until the Hulk was killed by Immortus that they became a real team on their terms.
The Next Avengers, as they became known, reappeared in "Avengers World" #9. The team consisted of Azari, James Rogers, Francis Barton, Torunn, and Henry Pym Jr. This time, they are the ones doing the time traveling, as they arrive in the past to try and stop A.I.M., hoping that they would be able to prevent some of the horrors of their future reality. In "Avengers World" #14, they do just that and decide to stay in the past, but they don't get to spend much time there.
That timeline was rewritten during the events of Time Runs Out, but there's another timeline where Azari became a part of a team known as the Next Avengers. In a much more optimistic reality, Azari helps form the Next Avengers just as Ultron is attempting to gain power, and the team manages to stop him before he takes over the world.
There's already a movie about Azari
Anyone interested in getting to know more about T'Challa's son doesn't necessarily have to dive into Marvel's comic vaults. Azari actually made his film debut in September 2008, just four months after "Iron Man" kicked off the MCU.
Of course, Azari hasn't yet been introduced in the live-action Marvel world, but his animated film is well worth watching for any comic book fans. "Next Avengers: Heroes of Tomorrow" is an animated film by directors Jay Oliva and Gary Hartle. In the film, Azari is voiced by Dempsey Pappion, who's been particularly active as a voice actor for a wide variety of video games.
The film has a handful of similarities to Azari's introductory comic book story, but it has a somewhat lighter tone to the tale Brian Michael Bendis told in the "Avengers" comic. In the film, Ultron has defeated most of the Avengers and taken over the world. Tony Stark survives, and he takes the children of the Avengers into hiding. He begins training them to one day become superheroes, and over a decade later they finally get the chance to take on Ultron and his forces. With the help of Clint Barton's son and the Hulk, the Next Avengers manage to defeat Ultron.
He could fight the Avengers
On more than one occasion across the multiverse, Azari T'Challa has had the chance to fight the Avengers or their equals. In his first comic book story, Azari and the other members come face-to-face with a group of Avengers who traveled forward in time to their location. In "Avengers" #4 the Next Avengers manage to defeat Wolverine, Captain America, Noh-Varr, and Iron Man, though they later explain that they only attack the group of Avengers in an attempt to get them away from Ultron's raging war.
All the way back in 2008, Azari and his friends faced an Avengers-level threat in the "Next Avengers: Heroes of Tomorrow" animated film. There, the Avengers themselves have already been defeated, but Ultron reprograms a group of robot Avengers replacements and sends them into battle against the kids. Azari and the others handily destroy the Iron Avengers before teaming up with the Hulk to defeat Ultron himself. Azari might be just a kid, but with the combined powers of Black Panther and Storm, he can single-handedly take on almost any of the Avengers. That said, he'd probably be well-advised to avoid a confrontation with the Hulk.
Azari saved the world as a child repeatedly
Some of Marvel's best heroes, from Spider-Man to Ms. Marvel, got their start as teenagers. Time and time again, the kids of the Marvel Comics universe have proven that they should be taken seriously, but Azari has really gone above and beyond in the superhero department. He doesn't even have his own comic series, but he's already saved the world on more than one occasion.
In "Heroes of Tomorrow," Azari and his friends help to defeat Ultron after the robot has already destroyed the main Avengers, and they do the same thing in the 2010 "Avengers" storyline. After that, Azari could have called it a day, but later he decides that saving the world in his own timeline just isn't enough. In the "Avengers World" series, Azari and his team travel back in time to take on the global threat that is A.I.M., and in "Avengers World" #14, they're able to put another save on the scoreboard.
Azari will undoubtedly return to the Marvel Comics universe, and chances are good that he'll be saving the day once again when he does. The young superhero has a long life and career ahead of him, and any Marvel villains who cross his path should think twice about attacking.