The Ancestral Realm
There’s always a mystical edge to Black Panther’s powers in the comics and, to its credit, the movie doesn’t shy away from this. From the beginning, it introduces the idea that a meteorite containing an alien metal crashed into Africa millions of years ago, making Wakanda home to – amongst other things – the heart-shaped herb that grants the Panther his powers.
Something that isn’t really explained in the film, though, is the “ancestral realm” that the incumbent king of Wakanda is able to visit when they drink a special potion and are buried in sand as a kind of sensory deprivation. In the comics, this realm is known as Djalia, an astral plane created from the collective memories of the Wakandan people.
There’s an intriguiing fan theory that the sand is key to this trip to the afterlife – and for a good reason. Some think it could be derived from the Soul Infinity Stone, which we know will be coloured orange. Is this, perhaps, how the final Stone will factor into Infinity War?