Black Panther Appreciation 2019

[Ezyo1000]

Yes I'm not on the train of giving some type of boost to T'Challa to protect him from telepathy. We already have showings and scans of him being strong against mental attacks. Emma, Cable resisting Shadow king tonsome extent. Dude doesn't need any help. He should have one of the most disciplined wills in the MU

[Marvell2100]

Yes I'm not on the train of giving some type of boost to T'Challa to protect him from telepathy. We already have showings and scans of him being strong against mental attacks. Emma, Cable resisting Shadow king tonsome extent. Dude doesn't need any help. He should have one of the most disciplined wills in the MU

Hate to beat a dead horse but somebody needs to tell someone at Marvel about this cause they don't know.

Whether tech based or just his will alone, Marvel has been very inconsistent with it along with a lot of other abilities T'Challa has.

Age of Ultron -Falls and breaks neck

No One Man - Easily manipulated by Zenzi.

No One Man -suit gets ripped by ordinary bullets.

Secret Empire -Gets captured by Stevil's goon and beat by Zemo. C'mon man.

Secret Wars-Dude has the Infinity Gauntlet but no creativity in fighting Doom. He's faster than Doom, better tactical fighter and a good strategist but all he can do is get in a fist fight. And not even use his better skills and fighting acumen while wearing the freaking Infinity Gauntlet. A little creativity here please?

[LastManStanding]

As long as it's more than a cool named attached to ill-defined abilities. Shadow Physics sounded good, but nobody could ever adequately explained what it could actually do. I suspect that's the primary reason why it dropped from favor. It's a lot easier to justify a new toy when there's at least some sort of definition of its strengths & weakneeses.

(As for the Nowhere Room... intergalactic teleportation doesn't come in handy THAT often. )

I saw what you did there.


Now regarding the current topic T'Challa could use anti telepathy tech to battle Xavier's sister but lower level telepaths should not get beyond his mental training.


I would imagine story wise that when Jean Grey was based in Wakanda she gave him some added tips on psi- shields/blockers.

[Dboi654]

Hate to beat a dead horse but somebody needs to tell someone at Marvel about this cause they don't know.

Whether tech based or just his will alone, Marvel has been very inconsistent with it along with a lot of other abilities T'Challa has.

Age of Ultron -Falls and breaks neck

No One Man - Easily manipulated by Zenzi.

No One Man -suit gets ripped by ordinary bullets.

Secret Empire -Gets captured by Stevil's goon and beat by Zemo. C'mon man.

Secret Wars-Dude has the Infinity Gauntlet but no creativity in fighting Doom. He's faster than Doom, better tactical fighter and a good strategist but all he can do is get in a fist fight. And not even use his better skills and fighting acumen while wearing the freaking Infinity Gauntlet. A little creativity here please?

It is what I have been asking for but nothing. Hickman has been somewhat creative in adding to BP's gear but since then not much or previous feats are often disregarded except for the force push which is currently overused.

[Blind Wedjat]

For Shadow Physics to actually stick it we need to know two simple things: what it does and how it can be used. All of the big science guys and their fields have this benefit. We know what Tony's repulsor tech can do. We know how Hank Pym used Pym Particles. We understand how Bruce Banner understands and uses gamma radiation.

Additionally this makes their own thing specific and unique. Shadow Physics isn't unique. Sure I guess you could say rendering Vibranium inert was a pretty cool feat but teleporting isn't that big of a deal. Vb also is an extremely versatile metal that almost all of T'Challa tech can just be explained using Vb's properties or just with general Wakandan science.

Honestly I just don't think Shadow Physics was well thought out. It's described as a mix of quantum physics and ancient alchemy. Let's think about that for a little bit.

- Quantum physics is all about molecules, atoms and subatomic particles like photons and stuff like that. This part of the universe is supposed to be random and unmeasurable. Quantum physics is therefore all about predicting the behaviour of these particles. Everything we know is made of these particles, including a metal like Vb.

- Alchemy is/was a mix of philosophy and ancient science that was focused on transmutation (changing one metal into another metal through experimentation), achieving immortality, curing all diseases and increasing knowledge and understanding how the world works. It has roots in religion as it came from Ancient Egypt and Greece and their beliefs in their gods shaped their principles.

The biggest problem is putting these two things together in a way that makes sense. And really, it doesn't. There's not much alchemy in anything we know Shadow Physics has done, except for maybe transforming Vb into something enert. But that can also be a quantum physics thing by understanding how Vb works at a molecular level. T'Challa did use alchemy with the shaman that restored and amplified his powers and with the symbols that protected him from magic but I don't think it was combined with any science. It was alchemy on its own. And alchemy itself isn't completely understood. It could be a pseudoscience or it could be straight up philosophical stuff.

I'm not a very creative person so really I don't think there's anything you can do with Shadow Physics that you can't do with Wakandan tech already, and as it is the description doesn't make much sense. I do wish someone creative could have really thought it through, but since that hasn't happened and it hasn't been touched upon again, I think it's best to abandon it altogether.

If we want T'Challa to have a science of his own, I think it should be related to kinetic energy. You can argue that he's got enough stuff for that. Vb absorbs energies like sound, vibrations and kinetic energy. He's got a suit that absorbs, stores and repels kinetic energy. The energy dampening soles of his boots rob the momentum off incoming objects and silence his steps. Though they're not always clearly defined I have read somewhere that energy daggers are Vb blades that can vibrate as specific frequencies. You can keep them as that or just pure energy. You can have him create vehicles like cars, trains, aircrafts and spacecrafts that move and are powered by kinetic energy. Wakanda can have a unique energy and electricity grid that is powered by the kinetic energy of Vb. All of their stuff like their computers, Kimoyo beads, Prowlers etc can all be powered by that instead of conventional batteries. Even the tech in his suit can work like that. And Vb is supposed to get stronger and harder the more energy it absorbs until it reaches its limit and releases a powerful explosion. Imagine the dangerous weapons he can create from that.

[Cville]

Did Tchalla do anything noteworthy during his time with not empire? Not counting anything off-panel.

Only thing I can think of is defeating Eden?

[XPac]

Did Tchalla do anything noteworthy during his time with not empire? Not counting anything off-panel.

Only thing I can think of is defeating Eden?

You can argue the space bridge thing is a descent tech feat.

[Klaue's Mixtape]

How the MCU Was Made” is a series of deep-dive articles that delve into the ins and outs of the development history, production, and release of all the Marvel Studios movies.

When the Marvel Cinematic Universe began in 2008 with Iron Man, the folks at Marvel Studios probably were not thinking about the Academy Awards. Sure, it would be nice to be recognized, but clearly the films that were in the works at the time—Iron Man, The Incredible Hulk, Thor, and Captain America—were a bit more less “serious” in nature than Christopher Nolan’s Dark Knight trilogy. And if even The Dark Knight couldn’t land a Best Picture nomination, surely a nod for a movie about a Norse god superhero was a long shot.

But as the MCU matured and went on to become the most popular and consistent film franchise around, Marvel Studios—under the direction of president Kevin Feige—got bolder and more ambitious with its storytelling, and suddenly Oscar recognition didn’t seem like a complete pipe dream. Indeed, despite many naysayers, 2018’s Black Panther not only became the first Marvel movie to win an Oscar and the first superhero movie nominated for Best Picture, it was also one of the most successful, best, and most thematically ambitious movies Marvel Studios had ever released. This is the story of how Marvel found its greatest success by embracing one filmmaker’s complete creative freedom.

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Image via Marvel Studios

Development on a Black Panther movie predates the creation of the Marvel Cinematic Universe, as an adaptation of the Marvel Comics property was previously in the works throughout the 1990s with Wesley Snipes attached to the title role. Snipes remained a possibility when Marvel Studios forged ahead with its own adaptations, but his involvement become a non-starter when the actor went to prison for failing to file a tax return.

While the Phase 1 films were the priority for Marvel Studios in the studio’s early development, Black Panther was pondered as a potential film quite early on. In 2007, John Singleton surfaced as a possibility to direct, and in January 2011 the film entered official development with its first writer, documentary filmmaker Mark Bailey (Pandemic). Around this time, Nate Moore—the head of Marvel’s now-defunct writers program which churned out scripts for potential projects—boarded Black Panther as lead creative producer.

Marvel considered introducing Wakanda—the secretive home nation of Black Panther—as early as Iron Man 2, and again in Avengers: Age of Ultron, but decided to hold off until they had a more firm idea of what the world of Wakanda was going to look like. Things finally progressed to a point where Marvel was ready to take the leap when Captain America: Civil War rolled around, as the team decided they would use that film to introduce the character of T’Challa and the idea of Wakanda.

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Image via Marvel Studios

In October 2014, as pre-production on Civil War was underway, Feige announced that Chadwick Boseman would be playing the role of Black Panther in a standalone film to be released in November 2017. Boseman was offered the role outright, and as preparations got underway for his introduction in Civil War, Marvel began meeting with directors and writers.

In May 2015, news broke that Selma filmmaker Ava DuVernay was meeting with Marvel about potentially directing Black Panther or Captain Marvel. She nearly agreed to tackle Black Panther, seeing the superhero film as a grand opportunity:

“For me, it was a process of trying to figure out, are these people I want to go to bed with? Because it’s really a marriage, and for this it would be three years. It’d be three years of not doing other things that are important to me. So it was a question of, is this important enough for me to do?



At one point, the answer was yes because I thought there was value in putting that kind of imagery into the culture in a worldwide, huge way, in a certain way: excitement, action, fun, all those things, and yet still be focused on a black man as a hero — that would be pretty revolutionary,” she continued. “These Marvel films go everywhere from Shanghai to Uganda, and nothing that I probably will make will reach that many people, so I found value in that. That’s how the conversations continued, because that’s what I was interested in. But everyone’s interested in different things.”

Ultimately, however, in talking with Marvel, DuVernay came to the conclusion that there would be too much compromise involved to commit three years of her life and career to the film, and she declined the gig in July 2015:

“What my name is on means something to me — these are my children,” she said of her body of work. “This is my art. This is what will live on after I’m gone. So it’s important to me that that be true to who I was in this moment. And if there’s too much compromise, it really wasn’t going to be an Ava DuVernay film.”

black-panther-movie-cast-images-lupita-nyongo-nakia
Image via Marvel Studios

DuVernay further explained that she and Marvel disagreed on the direction the story should take:

“I think I’ll just say we had different ideas about what the story would be. Marvel has a certain way of doing things and I think they’re fantastic and a lot of people love what they do. I loved that they reached out to me.”

It’s worth noting, as I mentioned in How the MCU Was Made: Thor: Ragnarok, that at the time that DuVernay was courted for Black Panther, the sometimes troubling Marvel Creative Committee was still in effect and Feige was still reporting to Marvel Entertainment CEO Ike Perlmutter. Which means the creative freedom of the filmmaker involved would be limited.

So it may or may not be a coincidence that Feige successfully changed things up in August 2015, shortly after DuVernay’s exit, reorganizing the way Marvel movies are made by reporting directly to Disney studio head Alan Horn instead of Perlmutter and dissolving the Marvel Creative Committee altogether.

By October 2015, F. Gary Gray (Straight Outta Compton) and Ryan Coogler (Fruitvale Station) were under consideration to direct, and that December—after the successful release of Creed—Coogler signed on to co-write and direct Black Panther. At the same time, Joe Robert Cole, who was part of the Marvel writers program and scripted movies for War Machine and Inhumans that never got made, signed on to co-write Black Panther with Coogler.

black-panther-ryan-coogler-rachel-morrison
Image via Marvel Studios

Coogler was hotly sought after by Marvel, and he got the studio to agree to letting him bring his own collaborators with him to Black Panther. Traditionally at Marvel Studios, movies were made with a lot of the same production designers, costume designers, composers, and cinematographers. This is one of the reasons the MCU films can feel a little same-y in their aesthetic. But with Black Panther, Coogler was given the freedom to bring onboard cinematographer Rachel Morrison (Fruitvale Station), production designer Hannah Beachler (Creed), costume designer Ruth E. Carter (Malcolm X), and composer Ludwig Goransson (Creed). All of these individuals were Marvel newbies, and all ended up landing Oscar nominations for their work with Beachler, Carter, and Goransson actually winning. Again, it’s not hard to draw a straight line between Feige’s restructuring at Marvel to the studio’s willingness to really shake up the way Marvel movies are made with Black Panther, given the timeline here.

collider.com/how-black-panther-became-marvels-first-oscar-winner/#marvel

[Klaue's Mixtape]

In writing the screenplay, Coogler and Cole drew inspiration from the comic book runs of Christopher Priest and Ta-Nehisi Coates, and Coogler aimed to make the film “deeply personal.” Coogler even sought screenplay advice from Donald Glover and Stephen Glover, who gave notes on the film.

Before he agreed to direct Black Panther, Coogler made clear that he wanted to explore important themes in the film:

“The biggest thing for me was the themes of the story – letting them know where my head was at and making sure they would get on board. I was very honest about the idea I wanted to explore in this film, which is what it means to be African. That was one of the first things I talked about. And they were completely interested.”

Coogler took a research trip to Africa to prepare for the film, which Feige said was just as important and vital to informing Black Panther as any of the comic books. It directly led to the expansions of the idea of exploring what it means to be African vs. what it means to be African-American in the characters of T’Challa and Killmonger (Michael B. Jordan):

He says he started thinking about “this concept of us as a people” – meaning African-Americans – “being marooned in this place that we’re not from. When people ask me where I’m from, I tell them the Bay Area and there’s a sense of pride there. But the truth is, we’re really from that place. The place that everybody’s from.”

black-panther-costumes-ruth-carter
Image via Marvel Studios

Since he was telling a story so intrinsically tied to the black experience, Coogler made it a point to hire an almost entirely black ensemble in front of the camera, but also behind the camera. Co-star Daniel Kaluuya found the behind-the-scenes representation most striking:

“It’s a work environment I’ve never really had in this industry before. The majority of the crew was black – or [certainly] a lot more than usual. For me, it was behind the camera that was the most revolutionary. Like, ‘Oh yeah, we can do this. This is a Marvel film, and we’re doing this.’”

Another noteworthy aspect of Black Panther that felt refreshing and different was its unabashed feminism, as Coogler and Cole filled out the cast of characters with capable, strong-willed women like Nakia (Lupiya Nyong’o), Shuri (Letitia Wright), and Okoye (Danai Gurira). That was not an accident, as Coogler explained:

“That’s African, man!” Coogler says, laughing. “That’s my tribe’s world. My wife is a black woman who’s incredibly strong and smart – and the more I get out of her way, the better my life becomes. I thought that’s one of the things that makes T’Challa brilliant. He knows how to get out of the way of amazing women in his life.”

The entire design of the film was meticulously planned out, with colors meant to underline the themes of the movie. For example, the PanAfrican flag is red, black, and green, and the covert looks of T’Challa, Nakia, and Okoye are red, black, and green. Coogler goes deep on the color themes in the video below:



Morrison, meanwhile, worked hard to distinguish Black Panther visually from other Marvel Cinematic Universe films, and the fruits of her labor not only resulted in a beautiful film, but her becoming the first woman ever nominated for the Best Cinematography Oscar.

Indeed, Oscars weren’t initially on the brain when Black Panther was being made—Feige and Co. simply hoped audiences would show up. This was a Marvel superhero movie, sure, but one in which the cast is almost entirely black, the themes tackle difficult issues like racism and violence in America, and the “villain” of the piece makes a lot of good points.

Filming commenced on January 21, 2017 and didn’t wrap until April 19, 2017, with production based mostly in Atlanta, Georgia. Black Panther was released in theaters on February 16, 2018 and opened to a much-higher-than-anticipated $201.7 million opening weekend. What was most impressive, however, was that the box office hold was strong week after week after week. People didn’t just see the movie and move on. They saw it, told their friends, brought their friends, and saw it for a second, third, and fourth time. Black Panther soared to $1.3 million worldwide when all was said and done, and its domestic total of $700 million made it the highest-grossing film domestically of 2018—yes, even higher than Avengers: Infinity War’s $678.8 million total.

Bolstered by this ridiculous box office performance and some of the best reviews in the history of the MCU, Black Panther seemed like it might have a legitimate shot at some Oscar recognition, especially in the crafts categories. But Marvel had its eyes on the big prize, and quickly hired one of the industry’s top awards strategists to spearhead the upcoming Oscar campaign.

It worked wonders, as Coogler, Feige, and Co. were regulars on the awards circuit throughout the fall of 2018. The industry as a whole embraced Black Panther to the tune of seven Oscar nominations in total, and three wins for Original Score, Costume Design, and Production Design. Oh yeah, and it finally became the first superhero movie nominated for Best Picture, scoring Feige his own personal first Oscar nomination.

black-panther-movie-cast-images-michael-b-jordan-erik-killmonger-chadwick-boseman-tchalla
Image via Marvel Studios

Black Panther is an unqualified success for Marvel and the superhero genre as a whole, but it’s important to note that its success is due precisely to the fact that a filmmaker like Ryan Coogler was allowed to make a deeply personal movie that was actually about something, while still delivering the thrills and spills fans expect from the superhero genre.

Black Panther is a complex, deeply involving film about the morality and cost of isolationism. Through the eyes of Michael B. Jordan’s Killmonger, the film dives into the specificity of the African-American experience, using Killmonger’s life of loss and hardship as a foil for T’Challa’s life of comparative privilege. Is it just for the African nation of Wakanda to stand idly by, in hiding, while those of African descent across the globe experience widespread hardship as an underprivileged minority? If one has the means of intervening for the betterment of one’s people, is one morally obligated to do so? These are big questions with no easy answers, and the fact that Coogler was allowed to pose these complex ideas in a Marvel superhero movie—in the same franchise as Thor: The Dark World and Iron Man 3—is still amazing to comprehend.

Again, it’s not hard to see that Feige being let off Perlmutter’s leash, so-to-speak, only improved the quality of the Marvel Cinematic Universe. Films like Black Panther and Thor: Ragnarok are singular visions. And then you have the boldness of The Infinity Saga, an epic two-part conclusion the likes of which we’ll probably never see again, which took nearly half a decade to put together.

collider.com/how-black-panther-became-marvels-first-oscar-winner/#marvel

[MindofShadow]

Did Tchalla do anything noteworthy during his time with not empire? Not counting anything off-panel.

Only thing I can think of is defeating Eden?

The "run he simulation in his brain" thing was cool except idk if we can properly define WTF was happening for rumble boards. Never really made clear what was happening. Was it happing in his head (so hes genius prep brain figuring out what to do?) or was it a pre-cog thing or a tech thing or what?

Other than that, he was very proficient in stomping goons.

Run was useless for the blog lol

[DigiCom]

The "run he simulation in his brain" thing was cool except idk if we can properly define WTF was happening for rumble boards. Never really made clear what was happening. Was it happing in his head (so hes genius prep brain figuring out what to do?) or was it a pre-cog thing or a tech thing or what?

Reminds me of the Midnighter over in Wildstorm/DC. His shtick is the ability to predict an opponent's moves:



Eventually, he got so tired of saying it, he put it on a business card.

[Marvell2100]

Reminds me of the Midnighter over in Wildstorm/DC. His shtick is the ability to predict an opponent's moves:



Eventually, he got so tired of saying it, he put it on a business card.

Kinda the same as X or Mr. X or whatever he was calling himself from Norman's Thunderbolts.

[DigiCom]

Kinda the same as X or Mr. X or whatever he was calling himself from Norman's Thunderbolts.

Pretty much, except Mr. X was much more annoying. =)

[Marvell2100]

Pretty much, except Mr. X was much more annoying. =)

Well I believe he was a mutant so that's one of their secondary mutations.

[Ezyo1000]

The "run he simulation in his brain" thing was cool except idk if we can properly define WTF was happening for rumble boards. Never really made clear what was happening. Was it happing in his head (so hes genius prep brain figuring out what to do?) or was it a pre-cog thing or a tech thing or what?

Other than that, he was very proficient in stomping goons.

Run was useless for the blog lol

It would be interesting if it was part of the kotd power, but I would also just be fine of it was a glimpse into how T'Challas brain works and why he is always prepared/two steps ahead