In Black Panther: Wakanda Forever, Ryan Coogler has crafted a film that is both a classic (and inventive) superhero movie and an exploration of the process of grieving.

The latest Marvel feature opens in Black Panther‘s T’Challa’s (Chadwick Boseman, shown in flashbacks) dying moments, as his scientist sister Shuri (Letitia Wright) spends his last moments not with her brother, but in trying to craft a cure. She fails, and is visibly affected by not getting to say goodbye to the fallen king of Wakanda.

Romonda (Angela Bassett) resumes control of Wakanda after her son’s death, and must fight to keep other countries from taking, either by force or by more diplomatic means, from acquiring her nation’s valuable supply of vibranium, the most important mineral on the planet. Romonda asserts that the metal, used for weapons and other tech, can only be found within the borders of Wakanda, but the United States decides to search for it elsewhere: on the floor of the Atlantic Ocean.

Unfortunately, that vein of Vibranium is heavily guarded by the blue-skinned denizens of the underwater city of Talokan, and their winged-foot leader Namor (Tenoch Huerta Mejia). The Talokan army is massive and deadly; they take out the underwater expedition crew with a combination of spears and siren songs, which drive the ship’s crew to throw themselves into the ocean.

With no witnesses left behind, the United States government concludes the perpetrators were Wakandans, which doesn’t endear them to the feds, already stinging from the nation’s refusal to share Vibranium. Shuri and Okoye (Danai Gurira) call in a favor from Everett K. Ross (Martin Freeman) to locate the scientist who created the technology that detected Vibranium on the ocean floor.

That scientist is college student and scientific prodigy Riri Williams (Dominique Thorne), who will play Ironheart in future Marvel projects, and the two Wakandans go to MIT to try to convincer her to help them. Unfortunately, Namor and his minions are also after her, as is the FBI, and there’s a spectacular chase scene through Boston where Riri employs her flying metal suit that’s very much like Tony Stark’s Iron Man costume.

Shuri and Riri are captured by the Talokans, and Okoye must go home in disgrace to Wakanda. Namor courts Shuri’s cooperation in resisting the entire world in their attempts to steal Vibranium, but before she can decide, she and Riri are rescued by Nakia (Lupita Nyong’o), who has come out of self-imposed exile to help Romonda find her only living child.

Of course, this means war, and Wakanda Forever features some incredible fight scenes that aren’t your normal Marvel fare: battles under water, in the air, and on battleships that are great fun to watch. It’s also great to see a movie that has this much female presence: this is superhero movie has perhaps the greatest number of women characters and they are all complex individuals with complex and contradictory motives. No one woman is forced to represent the entire gender here.

Another plus: there are a few casting callbacks: Julia Louis-Dreyfus returns as Valentina De Fontaine and Winston Duke once again steals scenes as tribal elder M’baku. Newcomers like Thorne and Micaela Cole as Aneka are also welcome additions to the Marvel universe. But it’s Shuri’s emotional journey that raises this movie above pure popcorn flick fun.

Shuri spends the first year after T’Challa’s death insisting she is coping, but grief denied is only grief delayed, and eventually she must come to terms with her loss. Wright’s performance is subdued but powerful, as she channels profound sadness, guilt and rage into her experiments. She is protecting her homeland in her brother’s absence the only way she knows how, but always feels called to do something more.

Despite a run time of 2 hours, 41 minutes, Coogler and Joe Robert Cole’s Wakanda Forever story never drags. There are quiet moments, and we see a moving elegy to actor Chadwick Boseman, whose death in 2020 of colon cancer could have sidelined the Black Panther franchise forever. But life, in Wakanda and elsewhere, goes on, and there are always new heroes waiting to be called into action.