After spending most of her time as a secondary or even a background character in the MCU, Shuri was the focus character of Black Panther: Wakanda Forever, especially now that her brother is dead. The movie allowed us to see how Shuri evolved from a happy-go-lucky young girl with a lot of jokes to a young woman who now has to be responsible for the safety of an entire country. As such, Shuri has grown a lot ever since she first appeared. But how old is Shuri in Black Panther: Wakanda Forever?
Shuri, born in 1998, was confirmed to be 18 during the events of the first Black Panther movie. She spent five years dead due to the snap by Thanos but returned back to existence in 2023 at the age of 20 years old. Since Wakanda Forever potentially takes place in 2024, Shuri should be around 21 years old.
The timelines in the MCU aren’t exactly that clear, especially because not all of the movies happen right after the other. So, with that said, the only clue why we believe that Shuri is 21 years old is Nakia, who said that she had been gone for six years since the snap. As such, Wakanda Forever probably takes place in 2024. That said, let’s look at what we know about Shuri’s age.
How Old Was Shuri In The First Black Panther Movie?
During the first Black Panther movie, the entire nation of Wakanda was the focus of the storyline as we got to meet a lot of different people who were able to contribute to the overall success of the movie. While we have already met T’Challa during the events of Captain America: Civil War, it was in the first Black Panther movie that we met his younger sister named Shuri, who was already a great genius at such a young age and was already the head scientist and inventor of Wakanda.
In that regard, she was showing her promise as a great mind in the field of science and technology, as she was even smart enough to heal what was potentially a fatal and life-changing wound that Everett Ross suffered. She was also responsible for inventing the different tools that T’Challa and the other warriors of Wakanda use. But as smart as she has always been, how old was she in the first Black Panther movie?
There are a lot of different problems in relation to Shuri’s age in Black Panther, as we know for a fact that there are different things that the people who worked on the film said about her age. Nate Moore, who was a producer for the movie, said that she was just 16 at that time. However, the novelization of the movie and Letitia Wright (the actress playing Shuri) said that Shuri was already 18 in the first movie.
Of course, Shuri’s year of birth is also listed as 1998, and we know that the events of the first Black Panther movie happened in 2016. That means that Shuri was indeed 18 years old during the first movie.
The next appearance that Shuri made was during the events of Avengers: Infinity War when she was the one who was working on getting the Mind Stone out of Vision without affecting him so that they could destroy the stone after. We know that she failed in that regard because Thanos used all of the Infinity Stones to snap half of the universe from existence. This happened in 2018, and that means that Shuri, who was also “killed” during Thanos’s snap, was just 20 years old at that time.
In 2023, the Hulk used the Infinity Stones to snap half of the universe’s population back into existence in the event known as the Blip. No time passed for Shuri and the rest of the victims of the snap when they were blipped back into existence. As such, in 2023, Shuri was still just 20 years old as she lost five years of her life while she was erased from the universe.
How Old Is Shuri In Black Panther: Wakanda Forever?
While the timeline of the first Black Panther film was clearly established, as the movies that happened in Phases One to Three all followed a straight and direct timeline, we can’t say the same for the Phase Four movies because several projects were delayed due to the pandemic. As such, not all Phase Four movies happened one after the other. That is why we can’t say for certain where Black Panther: Wakanda Forever falls in the timeline. But we do have a clue that was given in Wakanda Forever, and that involved Nakia.
Nakia was clearly absent from the MCU during the other times that T’Challa and Shuri appeared. Of course, we know that she has always been an undercover agent for Wakanda, and that explains why she wasn’t around during the Avengers movies that T’Challa and Shuri were in. However, she was also visibly absent during the earlier part of Wakanda Forever.
It was only when Queen Ramonda visited Haiti that it was made clear that Nakia had been there the entire time and had lived a different life from the one she lived when she was in Wakanda. But while she worked as a school principal there, no one was quite certain why she decided to live in Haiti and never returned to Wakanda, even during T’Challa’s funeral. After that, she told Okoye that she had to step away from Wakanda after T’Challa disappeared in 2018 and that she had spent six years away from her home country.
This would imply that Black Panther: Wakanda Forever takes place in 2024. Of course, Nate Moore also commented on the timeline of this movie, as he said that it took place right after Spider-Man: No Way Home and Eternals, which happened just after the events of Avengers: Endgame, which occurred in 2023.
As such, it would be safe to assume that Black Panther: Wakanda Forever takes place in 2024, even though some of the newer Marvel Studios, like She-Hulk, take place in 2025. And that means that T’Challa died in the same year he returned from the Blip in 2023, as the meat of Wakanda Forever took place a year after the former Black Panther’s true death.
Considering that only a little more than a year has passed since Shuri came back to life at the age of 20 during the events of Endgame, that would mean that she would just be around 21 years old during the events of Black Panther: Wakanda Forever.
