Black Panther's out - and it is AWESOME! But there's so much more to the character than we saw in the film. Find out everything there is to know about T'Challa, Shuri, the rest of the characters and Wakanda here!

Black Panther first appeared in a Fantastic Four comic!

King T'Challa's first appearance ever was in Fantastic Four #52, aaaaall the way back in 1966! That's before humans landed on the moon!He was the first superpowered black superhero to appear in comics, and was created by artist Jack Kirby and writer Stan Lee. If that name sounds familiar, it's because Stan Lee ALSO created Spider-Man, the Hulk, Doctor Strange, the X-Men and loads more!

'Black Panther' wasn't his original name!

It took Stan Lee and Jack Kirby a long time to come up with the character. In fact, when Kirby did the first design for his costume, he was a lot more colourful and was called 'Coal Tiger'! That name would later be used for T'Challa's SON, who is also a superhero in the comics!

He's been a member of The Avengers!

Like most Marvel superheroes, T'Challa has been a member of the Avengers in the comics! He's ALSO been a member of the Ultimates, the Fantastic Force, the Defenders, the Secret Avengers and the Illuminati (lots of teams in the Marvel comics!)It's amazing he finds the time to do that AND be king of Wakanda!

He was married to Storm from the X-Men!

In the comics, T'Challa has been married to Storm, the weather-changing mutant from the X-Men! Even though they're not together now, she's been a key member of his teams on lots of occasions. Makes sense - in the comics Storm is also the princess of a royal family, so it's natural that she should marry a king!

He's not the only Black Panther!

In the film, T'Challa is a latest in a long line of Black Panthers, all of who have been King of Wakanda. That's true in the comics, too, but lots of other people have been the Black Panther when T'Challa is injured or too busy.Probably the most famous of the other people who have been the Black Panther is... his sister, Shuri! 

He's one of the strongest characters in the Marvel universe!

You can tell he's PRETTY strong in the films, but the comics version of Black Panther is one of the strongest characters ever! In the Secret Wars series, he's even strong enough to use the Infinity Gauntlet - that's the Infinity Stone-powered glove that Thanos is seen wearing in the Infinity War trailer. Wow!

The movie is his second appearance in the Marvel Cinematic Universe...

Even though this is first film where we really get to see Wakanda and meet the rest of the Black Panther cast, T'Challa was one of the main players in the last Captain America movie, Civil War.In that film we got to see that the Black Panther is at least as strong and as good a fighter as any Marvel superhero to date - and it also explains the last post-credit scene in the Black Panther movie...

...and it won't be his last!

We already know that T'Challa, Shuri and Nakia will be back later this year in Avengers: Infinity War, fighting Thanos' invasion of Wakanda (can't wait!). But the actor who plays T'Challa, Chadwick Boseman, has a contract that means he'll be in at least 5 movies in the MCU! And since Black Panther has already made SO MUCH MONEY, we'd say it's more than likely we'll see a Black Panther 2 sometime soon...

The movie's director is a geek too!

Just like his star, the film's director Ryan Coogler is a bona-fide fan of the comic books! Not only that, he's also a big fan of the Nintendo Switch! At the film's premiere, he was asked what his favourite game was, and said that he'd been playing a lot of Stardew Valley on his Switch! What a cool guy

And so is the actor who plays the movie's bad guy!

Michael B. Jordan, who plays Killmonger in the Black Panther movie, isn't shy about his love of comics! He's happy to talk about how much he loves them - his favourite character is Black Bolt - and anime whenever he can.And he played another Marvel superhero - the Human Torch - in the last Fantastic Four movie (which was pants)!

Wakanda has a lot of history in and out of the movie

In the comics and movie, Wakanda is the most technologically-advanced country in the world! In the comics, it even has a whole space empire that expands to other planets!But it has a lot of cool details in the film, too. Each of the five different tribes has a slightly different accent, based off other countries in Africa, and the name 'Wakanda' comes from the Osage word for 'god', which is Wah.Kon.Tah.

The film's awesome album is by Kendrick Lamar!

Only a few of the songs on Kendrick Lamar's 'Black Panther: The Album' appear in the film, but the whole album is just amazing. You don't even need to appreciate the film or like superheroes in order to love this movie!

Black Panther has been in video games too!

Even though he's made small appearances in other games before now, his first big appearances were in Marvel vs. Capcom Infinite, where he was the ruler of 'Valkanda' as a result of the two universes being merged, and Lego Marvel Super Heroes 2!