12 Strongest Black Panther Enemies [Ranked]
Black Panther has become one of the most popular Marvel superheroes in recent years. Thanks to the late Chadwick Boseman’s brilliant interpretation in the MCU and the rising awareness of African-American rights made Black Panther an icon of modern comic book culture. We have written several articles on Black Panther here on Fiction Horizon but today’s article is going to be a bit different, as we are going to bring you a list of the 12 strongest Black Panther villains.
This article is going to be a list of the 12 strongest Black Panther enemies, as they have appeared in the comics. They are going to be ranked from 12th to 1st, thus giving you an overview of Black Panther’s lore. You’re going to find out a bit about these characters and why we have ordered them as we have. Let’s see who the strongest Black Panther enemies are!
12 strongest Black Panther enemies
12. T’Channa (Earth-2301)
Alias: T’Channa
Debut: Marvel Mangaverse #3 (August 2002)
The sister of the King of Wakanda, T’Challa, T’Channa, and the rest of her siblings was beaten by her brother in the battle for the throne (a rather brutal one, in fact). Defeated, she left Wakanda and, intending to improve her magical skills, traveled so she could eventually defeat her brother.
She quickly found her way to Latveria, where she became the pupil of her ruler Victor von Doom. She trained under him and hid her true potential from him until the time was right. She killed Doom, took his armor, and adopted his cloak as the ruler of Latveria.
11. Morlun
Alias: Morlun
Debut: The Amazing Spider-Man #30 (June 2001)
Morlun is a mystical being who is part of a sibling called the Heirs whose goal is to feed on totemic forces, that is, any being with animal attributes, like Spider-Man. Morlun is the brother of Daemos, Jennix, Verna, Karn, Brix, Bora, Thanis, Malos, and Mortia.
He is the favorite child of the patriarch, king, and god Solus. One day, he meets Peter Parker and chases him, playing with the young man like a cat with a mouse. The hunt lasted a few days, and Spider-Man narrowly escaped death, thanks to Ezekiel’s help.
Spider-Man succeeded in taking a DNA sample from Morlun and discovered that Morlun carried within him every gene of the animal kingdom. He lured the being into a nuclear power plant and injected himself with a massive dose of radiation that made him very weak but did not kill him.
Morlun attempted to vampirize Parker but was burnt by radiation. Injured, he begged Spider-Man for mercy, swearing he was just trying to survive. But Morlun’s servant shot him, and the hunter turned to dust.
10. King Cadaver
Alias: Unknown
Debut: Jungle Action #10 (July 1974)
A classic Black Panther villain who’s been dead since 1975, King Cadaver was a bug-eyed horrific monstrosity created after being exposed to severe radiation.
He had the power to cause severe pain in his enemies while also creating delusions in their minds as mind control; he also like mirrors. A lot. He later joined Erik Killmonger so that they could kill Black Panther but perished himself.
9. Reverend Achebe
Alias: Reverend Doctor Michael Ibn al-hajj Achebe, PhD
Debut: Black Panther #3 (January 1999)
Achebe’s past is vague, but the United States government believes he was a Ghudazan farmer nicknamed “Bob” who tended to the leftist rebels from neighboring Ujanka. The soldiers repaid Achebe’s kindness by leaving him for dead after they seduced his wife, razed his farm, and stabbed him thirty-two times.
According to urban legends, Achebe survived by selling his soul to Mephisto and then killed everyone who had interacted with his wife, destroying the houses of his victims and stabbing them thirty-two times.
After attending Yale Law School, Achebe returned to Ghudazan, where he helped instigate an ethnic war. While Black Panther is preoccupied in the United States, Achebe leads an uprising in the African refugee camp and is appointed head of the interim government that overtakes Wakanda.
As Achebe prepares to be crowned king of Wakanda, and begins to converse with a puppet named Daki, Black Panther works to unravel the conspiracy that helped Achebe instigate the Ghudazan conflict that allowed him and his followers to achieve power in Wakanda.
Achebe unleashes the reprogrammed Prowlers, covers himself in explosives, and forces Black Panther and Ross into a death trap, from which they then escape, as he flees Wakanda.
8. Zenzi
Alias: Zenzi
Debut: Black Panther #1 (April 2016)
Up next on our list of Black Panther villains we have Zenzi. Zenzi was a Nigandan woman who was able to amplify and bring to light people’s deepest emotions. As she was about to be killed at the edge of a mass grave by the troops of the late Erik Killmonger, she succeeded in influencing her future executors and having them killed.
Zenzi became the head of the Nigandan army and allied with Tetu, the leader of the Wakanda rebel movement known as the People, and used his skills to provoke riots. The Black Panther has found her twice.
The first time, in the border region of Niganda, Zenzi managed to escape while the Black Panther fell victim to her skills. The second time around, Black Panther and his Hatut Zeraze attacked Zenzi, Tetu, and several Nigandan soldiers in southwest Wakanda.
During the brawl, Black Panther knocked out Zenzi, causing her to fall into a coma. Tetu retired with her and managed to wake her up a few days later. Zenzi then used his skills to empower members of the Nigandan military and have them march towards the Golden City in their final act to topple the Black Panther.
7. Tetu
Alias: Tetu
Debut: Black Panther #1 (April 2016)
Tetu was a former student of Hekima Shulē, a Wakandan academy in Birnin Azzaria. He left civilization in search of knowledge beyond the physical world. After finding no one to give him answers, Tetu retreated to the Wakanda Desert.
He came back changed, with the ability to manipulate the forces of nature, and decided to use this power to punish the colonialists who exploited the people. In his search for a better Wakanda, Tetu rallied a group of rebels known as the People and allied with Zenzi to overthrow King Black Panther.
Zenzi’s skills were used to stir up unrest among Wakanda’s miners and the military. Shortly after Zenzi reported to Tetu, the mystic traveled to Hekima Shulē to visit his former teacher, Changamire, to whom Tetu owed most of his beliefs.
The Black Panther managed to track down and intercept Zenzi along with Tetu in southwest Wakanda. The king and his Hatut Zeraze succeeded in subduing them and the Niganda soldiers, but Tetu used his dominance over nature to uproot them and flee.
6. Ulysses Klaw
Alias: Ulysses Klaue
Debut: Fantastic Four #53 (August 1966)
Ulysses Klaue is the son of a Nazi war criminal, Colonel Fritz Klaue, of the “Blitzkrieg Squad” led by Baron Strucker. Fritz Klaue was sent by Adolf Hitler to Wakanda to learn their secrets. After World War II, Fritz returned to Belgium.
He later anglicizes his name to “Klaw” and raises his son Ulysses with tales about Wakanda. Later, Ulysses set up a team of mercenaries to seize the Wakandan vibranium. But, the young son of the king of Wakanda, T’Challa, manages to scare them away.
In wrestling, he loses the use of his right hand. He then replaces it with a hook-shaped prosthesis which is also a sound wave cannon. Ten years later, he launched a new attack on Wakanda but was defeated by T’Challa, who had become the Black Panther and the new king of the country, helped by the Fantastic Four.
Enraged, Ulysses Klaue throws himself into his sound wave converting device, in the hope of acquiring superhuman powers allowing him to defeat his enemies. The experience then transforms him into a being made entirely of “solidified sound”, and gives him the power to control sound waves. He then calls himself Klaw.
5. N’Jadaka
Alias: Erik Killmonger
Debut: Black Panther #2 (June 2018)
As a warrior, N’Jadaka became the hero of the Intergalactic Empire of Wakanda. However, the then-emperor feared N’Jadaka would overthrow him, so he sent N’Jadaka and his team on a secret suicide mission. When they arrived on a planet, they were attacked.
Trying to survive, he and his team hid in a cave where N’Jadaka encountered a symbiote he was able to bond with, as the two shared a mutual hatred for the Emperor of Wakanda. After they returned to the Empire, they killed the Emperor and he became the new ruler of the Intergalactic Empire of Wakanda.
Later in his reign, N’Jadaka discovered that T’Challa had arrived from Wakanda Prime after passing a test, and he feared T’Challa would join the rebel group called the Maroons. After his daughter Zenzi defected to the Maroons and joined T’Challa, the rebel commander manipulated the planet’s core to explode in order to stop N’Jadaka.
This resulted in the sacrifice of thousands of lives and the apparent death of the emperor; however, the symbiote survived and carried the soul of its former host. As the Empire’s army attacked Wakanda, the symbiote, along with Tetu and Zenzi, recovered the coffin containing the body of Erik Killmonger, the original N’Jadaka.
At the Altar of Resurrection, the symbiote bonded with Killmonger, which enabled Emperor N’Jadaka to possess the body of the man whose name he is named after. As their invasion continued, Captain Nakia Cabral betrayed the Empire and used his ship to destroy the Emperor’s, seemingly killing him.
4. Man-Ape
Alias: M’Baku
Debut: Avengers #62 (March 1969)
M’Baku, one of Wakanda’s best warriors and heir to the Jabari tribe, was the brutal bodyguard of young King T’Challa (the Black Panther). He followed the rival path of the cult of the Panther by following that of the White Gorilla (forbidden, because only that of the Panther is allowed in Wakanda) in order to steal the throne.
He bathed in the sacred blood of a white gorilla, after eating its flesh. He then received new strength and secretly revived the cult of the White Gorilla, becoming the mighty Man-Ape. Taking advantage of the king’s absence, who had gone to work at the United Nations, he had new laws enacted and many foreigners killed.
He sent three of his agents to assassinate the king in the United States, but this plan failed. The Black Panther returned to Wakanda with his Avenger allies. Upon arrival, they were greeted by M’Baku, then drugged and captured. Eventually, Ape-Man was beaten and left for dead. In fact, he left the country and joined the Lethal Legion of the Grim Reaper.
3. Namor
Alias: Namor McKenzie
Debut: Motion Picture Funnies Weekly #1 (uncirculated, retroactive) / Marvel Comics #1 (October 1939)
Up next on our list of Black Panther villains we have Namor, who is set to appear in the new Black Panther movies as well. Namor and Black Panther already clashed in the comics, so let’s take a look at their history. Namor is the son of a human and an Atlantean, a member of a race of amphibian humanoids inhabiting the ocean floor, called Homo mermanus. Besides being a hybrid, he is also a mutant. Namor is seen appearing in the team of the Axis forces, the Invaders who fight with Captain America during the Second World War. After the war, Namor disappears.
It is Johnny Storm, the Human Torch who finds him while he has amnesia and lives as a homeless man; he makes him recover his memory by throwing him into the ocean. For a long time, it has been thought that Namor was Marvel’s oldest mutant, but that has since been refuted in the comics.
Alias: Hunter
Debut: Black Panther #4 (February 1999)
After the death of his parents in a plane crash in Wakanda, Hunter was adopted by King T’Chaka. Being foreign and white, Hunter was viewed with suspicion and even contempt by the wary Wakandans.
However, he developed a true love for Wakanda as one of the most faithful patriots in his adopted country. After the birth of T’Challa, Hunter knew that he would never ascend to the throne. Feeling cheated, he developed deep envy for his foster brother.
In an attempt to get to T’Challa’s place, Hunter became the best Wakandan possible. It was this fervor that led T’Chaka to appoint Hunter as the leader of Wakanda’s secret police, the Hatut Zeraze, where he became known as the White Wolf.
When T’Challa became king, he dissolved the Hatut Zeraze due to his brutality. Hunter and his loyal subordinates left Wakanda to work as mercenaries. Although resentful of this situation, Hunter still had a great love for his adopted home country, and thus tempered his resentment towards T’Challa to help his country when necessary, and served as an ally of Kasper Cole.
1. Erik Killmonger
Alias: N’Jadaka
Debut: Jungle Action #6 (September 1973)
The number one spot on our list of strongest Black Panther villains goes to Klimmonger. Originally from Wakanda, Killmonger was born under the name N’Jadaka. When supervillain Ulysses Klaw and his mercenaries attack Wakanda, they urge N’Jadaka’s father to help them. Once Klaw’s defeat is over, N’Jadaka’s father dies and his family is exiled.
N’Jadaka ended up in Harlem in New York City. He harbors hatred against the supervillain and T’Chaka, the king who exiled him. He changes his name to Erik Killmonger and studies at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT), desperate to avenge his father’s death.
He eventually contacted King T’Challa (son of T’Chaka) and was repatriated to Wakanda, settling in a village that would later change its name to “N’Jadaka Village” in his honor. He becomes a partisan fighter, cherishing the hope of ridding Wakanda of what he calls “white colonialist” cultural influences and returning the country entirely to its old ways.
He then takes advantage of the frequent absences of the Black Panther (T’Challa) in America with the Avengers to organize a coup, with the help of Baron Macabre. Killmonger is defeated and slain until the Mandarin claims his body.
