Board Thread:Fun and Games/@comment-25692211-20160513172142

As most of you know, Lupita Nyong'o is currently in negotiations to play a character in Black Panther. While I am ecstatic about this, several websites say that she's playing a "love interest", presumably Monica Lynne. Um, I have two major gripes with this. One is that Marvel isn't the best with love interests. Seems as if Tony/Pepper and Cap/Peggy are so far the only relationships to be genuinely believeable. I will say Quill and Gamora have something, but it's too early to tell if they will or won't. Plus, just like Star Wars, they ruined Natalie Portman's character when they reduced her to this, so I'd rather they not do this with Lupita.

But my major problem with this is, as Greater Good pointed out on the Black Panther (film) page, it would make much more sense for her to play Shuri, T'Challa's younger sister who later succeeded him as the Black Panther.

Considering Lupita Nyong'o is probably the most popular actress around right now, having won an oscar with her first feature film and starring in both Star Wars and Jon Favreau's Jungle Book movie(which also featured a ton of MCU actors, by the way.) it seems like kind of a d**k move to treat her as a love interest who T'Challa probably won't even mention in the ensemble movies.

Not to mention even before she was even involved with this, people have been saying that Lupita is basically what Shuri would look like in live action. 