The Attainable Wonders of Wakandan Transit

Among the many dazzling technologies in the new Marvel superhero film Black Panther—self-healing catsuits, holographic self-driving cars, indestructible woven capes—one technology is bittersweet to behold, at least for one subset of sci-fi nerd. That would be the trains. (Spoilers ahead.)

In the opening shot of the capital city of Wakanda, the fictional African nation ruled by the pantherine sovereign/superhero T’Challa, levitating trains zip along ribbons of track through dense Afrofuturist high-rises and low-slung commercial corridors tufted with parks and forests. Later, T’Challa and Nakia, an elite Wakandan spy and his former lover, catch up as streetcars hover through the trendy neighborhood of Steptown. An extensive freight network for transporting vibranium, the mythical metal found only in Wakanda, also lines and connects its cavernous mines.