Black Panther Appreciation 2019

[DigiCom]

Don't forget Priest did not want to do the book and did not CARE for Panther. He was slated to do a Falcon book (thus that ending we saw in Cap America & Falcon).
If that is what he does with something he hates-I would be scared to see what he does with something her loves.

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I will never understand why people keep acting like Priest's reluctance to write Black Panther is a bad thing.

As he's said before, he was tired of being the 'Black writer', with his employers assuming that he could/should only write black characters. A black man tired of being pigeon holed? Madness!

And his reluctance was a great aid in his writing. A good writer is the character's worst enemy, and Priest was a great writer. He developed a long neglected character into a convincing bad ass, standing shoulder to shoulder with Dr. Doom, Namor and Magneto among others. Priest was objective with T'Challa, and that's what allowed him to develop the mythos that he did, a mythos that still stands.

Now it's my turn to drop some truth.

Who was the first African-American editor at BOTH Marvel & DC?

Who was the editor of Spider-Man for some of his best runs?

Who hired Peter David?

Who gave Joe Quesada one of his first jobs in the Big Two?

Who was one of only two writers considered good enough to do a fill-in during the Simonson THOR run?

And who had TWENTY YEARS in the industry before he even touched Black Panther?

Christopher Priest was a comics writer before most of his fans (myself included) were out of primary school. He experienced overt (and covert) racism and stuck to his guns. When given a character who was, frankly, C-list at best in the '90s, did he phone it in?

No. He did the best job that he possibly could, inventing new villains and ideas to flesh out the character, making him one of the coolest and smartest heroes in the Marvel U.

And what did he get for it? Where once he wrote Green Lantern & Unknown Soldier, now he was a "black writer" who only was assigned African-American characters.

One of the things that finally broke the camel's back? Like the esteemed Mr. Coates, he was actually given the main Captain America title, which he decided would be a team-up with Falcon. ... but when a "hot" artist wanted to do a Cap book, he was sidelined... but he was told he could keep Falcon.

Because, after decades in the business, he was a "black writer".

Did he not want to do Black Panther? Damn right he didn't. No professional writer wants to be given a character that won't sell. But he MADE the character worth buying. If it wasn't for Priest, there would be no Hudlin. No SWAD. No $3 billion dollar movies. And (I'm pretty sure) nobody in a Black Panther Appreciation thread.

So show a little gratitude. Priest is the reason why we're all here.