2018's Black Panther pulled back the curtain on Wakanda, taking audiences deep into the Marvel Cinematic Universe's version of T'Challa's home. The MCU will continue to explore the people and practices of the technologically advanced African country in the forthcoming Black Panther 2, along with a newly announced Disney+ spinoff series being developed by Ryan Coogler. And while there are several potential directions the Wakanda show could take, perhaps the best one would be to focus on Nakia's undercover spy missions.
T'Challa's love interest and a member of Wakanda's central intelligence service, aka the War Dogs, Nakia has gone on covert missions around the world, believing Wakanda has the resources and reach to help all manner of people in need. The first Black Panther movie provided a glimpse at one of Nakia's operations, with T'Challa and Okoye, the head of Wakanda's Dora Milaje, extracting her while she was undercover with other women who had been captured by human traffickers in Nigeria. On a separate mission, Nakia similarly infiltrated and confronted a group of ivory smugglers operating in South Korea.
In light of T'Challa actor Chadwick Boseman's tragic death in 2020, Marvel Studios President and Marvel Chief Creative Officer Kevin Feige has confirmed Black Panther 2 will shift its focus to exploring other characters and "different subcultures" of Wakanda. This could mean the sequel will aim to flesh out the members and customs of the Dora Milaje or examine Lord M'Baku and the traditions of the Jabari Tribe in greater depth, if not a combination of the two. Still, while there's nothing to prevent the movie from also shining a brighter light on Nakia's covert ops, that most likely wouldn't be a major subplot in Black Panther 2.
A spinoff series, on the other hand, would give Nakia's missions the attention they deserve while at the same time better developing her as a character outside of her relationship with T'Challa and his family. It would also give Oscar winner Lupita Nyong'o a chance to really flex her acting muscles outside of the richly talented Black Panther movie ensemble and carry an MCU project on her own. Frankly, Nyong'o appears more than ready to kick her career as an action hero up a notch, having already boarded the upcoming globe-trotting secret agent action/thriller The 355.
Indeed, a show about Nakia's mission would basically be a full-blown spy story, which is something the MCU hasn't explored before. Of course, the first Black Panther movie offered a taste of just how exciting a project like that could be in the James Bond-style sequence where T'Challa, Nakia and Okoye infiltrated a South Korean casino in order to find and capture Ulysses Klaue. A spinoff show along those lines could build on the film's post-credits scene -- with T'Challa revealing Wakanda's true nature to the United Nations -- while providing what sounds like a fresh take on Wakanda and its inhabitants.
On top of all that, a series about Nakia's spy work lends itself to a more stripped-down approach and shouldn't be quite as expensive as the MCU's costlier projects so far. Obviously, the Black Panther spinoff will be an easy sell no matter what it's about. Still, a relatively grounded style would set the show apart from the MCU's more resplendent streaming series, such as the upcoming Loki. Plus, if the idea behind the Wakanda series is to tell a smaller and more intimate MCU story, it makes sense to zero in on the efforts of a non-superhero like Nakia and her personal efforts to improve the world.