King in Black Showed Black Panther is Ready to Fight the Symbiote Panther
Black Panther's fight against the King in Black shows that he can defeat Emperor N’Jadaka in the upcoming conclusion to Ta-Nehisi Coates' run.
Warning! Spoilers ahead for King in Black: Black Panther
The victory Black Panther achieved against the King in Black was a preview for his showdown against the symbiote panther threatening the galaxy. T’Challa’s trip into the far reaches of space prepared him for battle with symbiote gods.
Sometime before the events of King in Black, Black Panther finds himself in the far reaches of the cosmos, alongside the Maroons, rebelling against a time-displaced bastardization of his nation’s legacy. In Ta-Nehisi Coates’ yet-to-be completed run on Black Panther, T’Challa repeatedly faces off against the forces of Emperor N’Jadaka, a tyrant wielding the combined abilities of a powerful symbiote and the panther god Bast, who also eventually bonds with Killmonger. While Knull and Emperor N’Jadaka offer vastly different threats, T’Challa has succeeded against both of them where everyone else has fallen.
The win Black Panther secured for Wakanda over Knull could have been aided by T’Challa’s history and experience fighting Emperor N’Jadaka. King in Black: Black Panther, by Geoffrey Thorn, Germán Peralta, and Jesus Aburtov, provided the rare bright spot in Earth’s defense. Initially, Wakanda’s shields failed to repel the symbiotes and Knull’s dragons. Repurposing the weapon of Ulysees Klaw, Black Panther uses those shields to amplify the sonic blast, and rid the entire nation of symbiote corruption. In Black Panther #21, T’Challa torments Emperor N’Jadaka with the same creativity that bests Knull. Black Panther’s forces eliminate an entire armada by having Storm use her weather manipulation to tap into the artificial ecosystems of opposing spaceships and compromise their life support systems. These unorthodox tactics hand powerful enemies their most significant losses thus far.
Although the conclusion to Ta-Nehisi’s space epic is impending, chronologically, King in Black takes place after to The Intergalactic Empire of Wakanda. This means T’Challa can draw upon his war with N’Jadaka during Earth’s response to Knull. During the King in Black’s attempt to invade Wakanda, T’Challa and Shuri have many countermeasures and contingencies in place, anticipating the symbiotes' abilities to adapt to attacks. Memory is an important aspect of Wakanda's spirituality and ideology, and it would be foolish to believe T’Challa’s plans to resist Knull wouldn’t have been influenced by his battle with another symbiote god-figure.
Earth’s hopes to defeat the King in Black certainly include the contributions of Black Panther. The fact that he’s fared so well against Knull provides some assurance that whenever he does have his yet-to-be-revealed final confrontation Emperor N’Jadaka to decide the fate of Wakanda’s space empire, T’Challa will be prepared.