I think we’re missing the forests for the trees. I don’t think what’s significant is that it’s wish-fulfillment fantasy instead of revenge fantasy. It looks like it’s racist wish-fulfillment fantasy. If someone wrote an alternate setting where a pagan Europe developed super science because Christianity was averted by having the Jews never return from exile and eventually assimilate like so many other exiled communities, there’d be no doubt this person was writing racist wish-fulfillment.
I actually brought that up before. I just think it's important to make a consistent argument is all.
To a certain extent its just sad that Wakanda and stuff like it became such a massive racially charged cliche.
Like holy hell, this sort of story was a cliche in 1961 when Wakanda was first written:
Black Panther: 'To me he was more than a father, he was like a god!'
Ben: 'Look kiddo, why don't you save yourself the trouble? I know the rest of the story by heart! Everything was hunky-dory until the greedy ivory hunters made the scene!
Wakanda wasn't actually secreted away, hidden utopia through all of history. It was revolutionized by the Black Panther after foreign invaders were driven off by him and he reverse-engineered their technology (Klaw). Also, the black panther was a genius who revolutionized his nation by his very words 'For a lark'. And they made money by TRADING vibranium. Its not the core technology for everything in the friggin world. And then at the end of the story he becomes a superhero in the service of all mankind.
It was an anti-colonialism story to be sure, but it was one with a twist and a whole lot less bitterness that was attributed to it later to fit our more bitter times.