It seems like every time a little more information about Ryan Coogler’s Black Panther dribbles out, it gets a little harder to wait for its July 2018 release. And that’s certainly the case today, as we learn that Winston Duke will be joining the cast as the evil master warrior M’Baku, otherwise known as Man-Ape, according to Variety. By our count, that makes at least three villains in the comic book adaptation, after Michael B. Jordan and Lupita Nyong’o as Erik Killmonger and Malice respectively.
It should be pretty interesting to see how co-writer-director Coogler handles the character, as he’s traditionally prone to wearing an ostentatious white gorilla suit and trying to overthrow King T’Challa in order to restore the African nation of Wakanda to a state of primitive technology. These attributes were probably somewhat less racially charged when the character M’Baku was introduced by in 1969. For modern audiences, he’ll probably require a little tinkering.