Oh Snap, There’s a Black Panther Easter Egg Hidden in Avengers: Age of Ultron

Avengers: Age of Ultron was a giant-size set up for future MCU movies, but with the impending release of the Blu-ray, we’re just getting started.

Do you remember Ulysses Klaue? The African arms dealer who lost an arm to Ultron? Given his comic book roots, we assumed he would tie into Black Panther’s MCU story in some way, but now we have a big confirmation on that.

There’s a scene in Age of Ultron where a file on Klaue is briefly visible. It moves way too quickly to read, but an MCU fanpage was recently able to take a screengrab. Check it out:

Here’s what the text reads:

Ulysses Klaue was an assassin hired to take down T’Chaka at the Bilderberg conference in the case that he refused to negotiate Wakanda’s resources including Vibranium. But, Klaue was also there personally, as the Panther killed his great-grandfather in the 19th century while this one was trying to annex Wakanda. He was paid ten million dollars for the kill.

So basically, Klaue was hired to kill T’Chaka, Black Panther’s dad, for the very pretty pricetag of $10 million. It seems the powers that be wanted T’Chaka to share his nation’s Vibranium resources, and were willing to assassinate him if he wouldn’t make a deal. Beyond the money, Klaue’s motivations were also personal, as Klaue’s great grandad was killed by T’Chaka after trying to annex Wakanda in the 19th century.

By the way, nice Bilderberg namedrop (although I’m pretty sure they don’t appreciate it). The Bilderberg group is a real life, and highly secretive, annual meeting of about 150 of the world’s most powerful figures (politicians, financiers, media heads, etc). It probably isn’t an important detail, but is a neat real-world tie-in nonetheless.

One thing the file doesn’t state is whether or not Klaue was successful in his assassination attempt, but he didn’t strike me as a man with $10 million in Age of Ultron. Kevin Feige has previously hinted that T’Chaka is still alive as well, although rumors still circulate that Black Panther’s role in Civil War is directly tied to his father’s death.

In any case, all of this is pretty easily retconned, so don’t take it as gospel. Still, it’s cool to see that they’re laying the groundwork for Klaue’s return, either in Captain America: Civil War next year, or the Black Panther solo film in 2018.