Panther Habit

"Your suit, it's vibranium?"

- Steve Rogers

The Panther Habits are a set of vibranium suits used by the Black Panther, the protector of Wakanda.

History
"So you like cats?" "Sam..." "What? The guy shows up dressed up as a cat. You don't want to know more?"

- Falcon and Captain America to Black Panther

The Panther Habit was worn by the King of Wakanda for many generations, who would then take the mantle of "Black Panther" to be Wakanda's protector. T'Chaka was the latest owner of the suit during his youth. His son T'Challa was trained most of his life to be the next user of the Habit.

After T'Chaka perished in a terrorist attack believed to have been committed by the Winter Soldier, T'Challa became the new king and donned the Panther Habit to avenge his father. Tracking Bucky Barnes to Bucharest, Black Panther fiercely hunted him down to a traffic tunnel, facing off against Winter Soldier, as well as Captain America and Falcon, where he proved to be a match for all three. However, Black Panther's attempt was prevented by Captain America and the arrival of War Machine and an entire police squad, to whom he removed his mask and revealed his identity.

Seeking revenge against the escaped Winter Soldier, T'Challa would don the Panther Habit again, fighting on Iron Man's side in the Clash of the Avengers against Captain America and Winter Soldier along with their supporters. However, he was stopped short of capturing the pair by Black Widow, who held him back with her Black Widow's Bite as they escaped in a Quinjet. Later, planning to finally find and kill the Winter Soldier, T'Challa followed Tony Stark to the Winter Soldier laboratory in Siberia where he discovered that the terrorist attack that killed his father was actually orchestrated by Helmut Zemo. Seeing the effects of revenge on Zemo, Black Panther chose to spare him to the point of preventing Zemo from taking his own life.

Capabilities
"It is lighter, and completely bulletproof!"

- Shuri

The Habit's Vibranium composition makes the user completely bulletproof and near-indestructible, able to withstand two explosive arrows from Hawkeye's arsenal at point-blank range without any noticeable injury. Despite being made of metal, the suit doesn't seem to inhibit the wearer's mobility in the slightest. Due to the vibranium absorbing and redirecting force, the user becomes physically superhuman, enough to outmaneuver and vault over moving cars, lunge across several feet in a quadrupedal fashion, land on their feet from several stories unphased, and send humans flying with attacks, as well as overpowering the likes of Winter Soldier. The suit also has retractable Vibranium claws on the fingers that could pierce through almost anything, even scratching Captain America's Vibranium Shield. The gloves have vibranium-laced knuckles built in, while the toes are also laced with vibranium, both of these are meant to enhance strike attacks.

Second Suit
Presented upon his return to Wakanda, the latest version of the Habit was highly upgraded by Shuri to be lighter than T'Chaka's version, as well as entirely bulletproof. Most notable, the Habit was outfitted to harness a powerful energy field, greatly enhancing its offensive capabilities.
 * Advanced Technology: Upgraded by Shuri, the Habit houses an advanced array of sophisticated technology to greatly enhance T'Challa's capabilities as the Black Panther.
 * Energy Generation: A feature of the suit was displayed when T'Challa was able to make a car flip over using a kinetic energy pulse, using the propelling force to launch himself further into his pursuit.
 * Suit Manifestation: T'Challa can allow the suit to manifest around himself, with the same energy it gives off shown to be capable of shredding the clothes worn above it.

Behind the Scenes

 * Ryan Meinerding, Head of Visual Development of Marvel Studios, said “I tend to like to design the ‘men-of-action’ of the Marvel Cinematic Universe. I find the ones I’m drawn to are the more physical ones, the ones who specialize in hand-to-hand combat. Panther’s silhouette throughout the comics has always been lithe, and because the costume was primarily black with muscle shapes, the challenge with this one was trying to find a way to translate something that’s simple to a real-world setting with enough texture and detail to not just be a man in a black leotard. I was trying to come up with ways of having he suit constructed that the audience wouldn’t understand - it’s meant to be woven together in ways that are nearly impossible to achieve in a practical setting, and therefore make it feel like it’s from a culture that’s way more advanced than ours. The overall concept is that it’s a woven suit - on a more granular level, there is Vibranium woven into the fabric. This Vibranium would provide a silver sheen so that when it catches the light, it would glisten a bit. From there we tried to create a design language for patterns to fit very subtly into the hard Vibranium pieces that are woven through the suit.”