Black Panther Appreciation 2020

[Vibranium Weave]

And it was a well made point that would under normal circumstances be acknowledged as being such.

Unfortunately, some will choose to remain wilfully obtuse as to the the only answer worth considering as regards Coates sustained abuse of the BP Mythos.

The number of books T'Challa appears in, remains irrelevant if there is ZERO coherence governing the overall portrayal of his character across ALL of these books.

The above is all the more essential within a book that is supposed to be his ongoing SOLO.

That's the gold standard that has served as the foundation of every solo book Marvel has released for any and all of their major characters.

Unfortunately, it would appear that Marvel have decided to give Ta Nehisi Coates carte blanche in his ongoing sabotage of T'Challa as a compellingly assertive and dynamic protagonist and, his ghettoised portrayal of Wakanda.

As my good friend Ezyo has pointed out previously, if a Caucasian writer had written half of the stuff Coates has poured into the BP Mythos, said writer would be viewed in much the same light as Terry Gilliam.

But hey, iybiswhat it is.

There will always be some within the industry and readership, who continue to make excuses for Coates or even worse, mansplain on his behalf ad nauseum.

Let's just cut to the chase here.

A majority of the issues most contributers to this thread have regarding Coates treatment of the BP Mythos, revolve strictly around his wholesale undermining of the titular character within what's ostensibly supposed to be his SOLO book.

The fact that Coates has also injected his own a$$ backwards and highly questionable Ideologies upon an Afrofuturistic concept created by two Jewish creators, in response to the very stereotypical imagery Coates is currently peddling, remains one of the biggest ironies.

It's quite poignant that Stan Lee and Jack Kirby, had the open minded creativity to launch the introduction of an Afrofuturistic concept long before the term was phrased or ideology became a thing.

It's even more telling that a supposedly "woke" writer would be the 21st century architect of what remains one of the most concerted pushback against T'Challa's forward momentum and character trajectory post Jonathan Mabbery's Doomwar.

Thank you for both of these.

[Vibranium Weave]

Point of clarification:

BP was still shooting principal photography when we started work on BP's Quest.

No scripts were released to the us or anyone else on the TV side. We had no info on what Coogler planed to do, which characters beyond Shuri, Killmonger and T'Challa would be used.We had no idea how Coogler planned to use them.This is why our version is so radically different than the movie.

The reason our Killmonger's mask looks as it does is because the publicity folks from the movie released that one African mask photo and we thought, "Whoa, that looks cool. Let's use it."

Marvel had NO IDEA how big the movie would open and was pulled up short by the phenomenon even though hundreds of people on social media TOLD them for a YEAR what was about to happen. They were behaving as if they expected ANT MAN numbers.

We were not the result of BP's success because it hadn't happened yet.

That's interesting. I recently started re-watching the show. I really liked the politics with Atlantis & Attlian/Inhumans.

Questions:

If you didn't know how Shuri was going to be portrayed in the movie, what was the inspiration to make sure as mutch a tech genius in the show? Is that just based on Hudlin's original intent for Shuri?

The suit lights up in your show, but BP never uses the force push. What was the thought behind this?

Do you feel that Marvel is taking steps to improve BP's profile and the mythos? Or was the cartoon used more as a way to get people interested in the movie? I know this is the world wide web, so that will probably factor in your response.

Also, i did say the following post below previously:

I think the MCU's goal was to make Captain Marvel take center stage so they had the comics division push her hard. Right now it's paying off for Carol through Kelly Thompson.

BP movie doing as well as it did caught Marvel by surprise. It's hard to ignore the success of the movie and the spotlight the character has received, so they are coming from behind to capitalize on it.

[Redjack]

That's interesting. I recently started re-watching the show. I really liked the politics with Atlantis & Attlian/Inhumans.

THANKS!

Questions:

If you didn't know how Shuri was going to be portrayed in the movie, what was the inspiration to make sure as mutch a tech genius in the show? Is that just based on Hudlin's original intent for Shuri?

The inspiration I took was from LEE/KIRBY primarily, THEN Priest for some things and Hudlin for others. I've loved Shuri since she showed up so she was going in even if Marvel hadn't wanted her. They hired me to give them MY take, not to borrow from other people. That's why we got Yemandi, Bask, Zanda, T'Chanda, the Atlantean conflict, etc.

The suit lights up in your show, but BP never uses the force push. What was the thought behind this?

Personally, I'm not a big fan of the habit being a sleek version of Iron Man armor. I like the power to be in T'Challa, his brain and his training. Still, in the BP vs the Avengers eps, we definitely played around with our version of the "push."

Do you feel that Marvel is taking steps to improve BP's profile and the mythos?

No idea.

Or was the cartoon used more as a way to get people interested in the movie?

Nope. The movie didn't need our help. If anything I think they wanted some of the movie's shine to come our way.

I know this is the world wide web, so that will probably factor in your response.

I always tell the truth. Always. If I'm not allowed to say something because of legal stuff I say that.

[XPac]

Except the thing is you can't use Wakanda ad a allegory for the real world because Wakandas established history and creation was a direct antithesis to the real world viewed Africa and a what if there was a place in Africa to inspire hope because it resisted western influence.

Hudlin made it unconquered and spiritually and technologically advanced Utopia basically, and Hickman expanded on this at the end of tro by saying Wakanda will be the beacon of hope for humanity.

So for Coates to come in and say, actually Wakanda is not only the same as the rest of the world, but they sre worse because they enslaved and banished the natives of Wakanda, then when sent intk a wormhole enslaved 5 galaxies for 2000 years, worse then anything the West has done, on top of their nation falling into chaos (unexplained) full of rape, misogyny, gender inequality, and an uncaring government that goes completely against established continuity?

It's disingenuous at best and shoes a clear and biased agenda that has nothing to do with the betterment of tchalla abd his mythos or inspiration to new and old reader's and fans of black panther

Here's the thing... just because a nation is immune to western influence doesn't mean it can't have a lot of the same problems that the rest of the planet has. Things like rape, crime, and human trafficing occured long before the notion of "western" influence had any meaning.

Wakandans, despite however tall or advanced their sky scrappers are, still are human beings. In Priests run we had villages on the verge of warefare because Doras would date. So the notion that Wakanda is Utopia is itself a retcon... that went against established continuity just as much as anything any other writer has done. And quite honestly that's fine... in fiction you are allowed to do that. You can argue every single BP writer did to one extent or another.

The plus side of that being maybe the next writer will decide that Wakanda is better than the rest of the world all this realism and cynacism will just go away. Unless of course the next next writer decides to go the other way. For better or for worse, none of this is in stone ... which isn't necessarily a good thing, but it is what it is.

[Mr MajestiK]

Except the thing is you can't use Wakanda ad a allegory for the real world because Wakandas established history and creation was a direct antithesis to the real world viewed Africa and a what if there was a place in Africa to inspire hope because it resisted western influence.

Hudlin made it unconquered and spiritually and technologically advanced Utopia basically, and Hickman expanded on this at the end of tro by saying Wakanda will be the beacon of hope for humanity.

So for Coates to come in and say, actually Wakanda is not only the same as the rest of the world, but they sre worse because they enslaved and banished the natives of Wakanda, then when sent intk a wormhole enslaved 5 galaxies for 2000 years, worse then anything the West has done, on top of their nation falling into chaos (unexplained) full of rape, misogyny, gender inequality, and an uncaring government that goes completely against established continuity?

It's disingenuous at best and shoes a clear and biased agenda that has nothing to do with the betterment of tchalla abd his mythos or inspiration to new and old reader's and fans of black panther

Excellent post that further illustrates the utter hypocrisy and manifest, self hatred inherent in Coates treatise on the BP mythos.

[Mr MajestiK]

Point of clarification:

BP was still shooting principal photography when we started work on BP's Quest.

No scripts were released to the us or anyone else on the TV side. We had no info on what Coogler planed to do, which characters beyond Shuri, Killmonger and T'Challa would be used.We had no idea how Coogler planned to use them.This is why our version is so radically different than the movie.

The reason our Killmonger's mask looks as it does is because the publicity folks from the movie released that one African mask photo and we thought, "Whoa, that looks cool. Let's use it."

Marvel had NO IDEA how big the movie would open and was pulled up short by the phenomenon even though hundreds of people on social media TOLD them for a YEAR what was about to happen. They were behaving as if they expected ANT MAN numbers.

We were not the result of BP's success because it hadn't happened yet.

It's pretty unfortunate that Marvel apparently had such low expectations for the Black Panther movie pre-release.

[Marvell2100]

Coates should have never been on this book at all.

[Marvell2100]

Let's just cut to the chase here.

A majority of the issues most contributers to this thread have regarding Coates treatment of the BP Mythos, revolve strictly around his wholesale undermining of the titular character within what's ostensibly supposed to be his SOLO book.

The fact that Coates has also injected his own a$$ backwards and highly questionable Ideologies upon an Afrofuturistic concept created by two Jewish creators, in response to the very stereotypical imagery Coates is currently peddling, remains one of the biggest ironies.

It's quite poignant that Stan Lee and Jack Kirby, had the open minded creativity to launch the introduction of an Afrofuturistic concept long before the term was phrased or ideology became a thing.

It's even more telling that a supposedly "woke" writer would be the 21st century architect of what remains one of the most concerted pushback against T'Challa's forward momentum and character trajectory post Jonathan Mabbery's Doomwar.

Can't make it any plainer than this BCB.

Coates agenda on Black Panther has done nothing but ruin the character for a generation of readers imo. The only praise BP gets is from Storm fans and people who love the art.

[DigiCom]

Here's the thing... just because a nation is immune to western influence doesn't mean it can't have a lot of the same problems that the rest of the planet has. Things like rape, crime, and human trafficing occured long before the notion of "western" influence had any meaning.

Wakandans, despite however tall or advanced their sky scrappers are, still are human beings. In Priests run we had villages on the verge of warefare because Doras would date. So the notion that Wakanda is Utopia is itself a retcon... that went against established continuity just as much as anything any other writer has done. And quite honestly that's fine... in fiction you are allowed to do that. You can argue every single BP writer did to one extent or another.

The plus side of that being maybe the next writer will decide that Wakanda is better than the rest of the world all this realism and cynacism will just go away. Unless of course the next next writer decides to go the other way. For better or for worse, none of this is in stone ... which isn't necessarily a good thing, but it is what it is.

This reads like the country-scale equivalent of "ALL heroes must have flawed! People aren't noble! It's unrealistic! That kind of character doesn't exist... nobody can identify with a character like that!"

This is the EXACT same logic that informed the Man of Steel movie, which utterly rejected the premise that a hero can be aspirational. I reject it utterly. I prefer to once again recall the words of the late author (and professional a-hole) Harlan Ellison, who once wrote:

He is more than the fanciful daydream of two Cleveland schoolboys. He is the 20th-century archetype of mankind at its finest. He is courage and humanity, steadfastness and decency, responsibility and ethic. He is our universal longing for perfection, for wisdom and power used in the service of the human race.

With only minor tweaking of verbiage, that could describe Wakanda too. Something that the world can aspire too... if not written by a writer whose only idea is to drag it down into the muck like the rest of the world.

In fact, Priest even SAYS as much, in a classic scene where Ross testifies about T'Challa to Congress:




Why is it that the worst sides of our nature are considered just "human beings", but people volunteering their time to help in a natural disaster, or running into a burning building to save a stranger, or flying halfway across the world to rescue a handful of kids in a flooded cave never are?

Why do people hate altruism, optimism, and nobility so damn much?

[Crossfist]

Is "See Wakanda and Die" a good story?

[DigiCom]

Is "See Wakanda and Die" a good story?

Yes, although definitely more plot-centric than characterization-centric. A nice little self-contained done-in-four.

[Cville]

Is "See Wakanda and Die" a good story?

Yes, you'll need to know the broad strokes of Secret Invasion though. And the last issue before SWaD starts if I remember correctly.

[Agent Z]

This reads like the country-scale equivalent of "ALL heroes must have flawed! People aren't noble! It's unrealistic! That kind of character doesn't exist... nobody can identify with a character like that!"

This is the EXACT same logic that informed the Man of Steel movie, which utterly rejected the premise that a hero can be aspirational. I reject it utterly. I prefer to once again recall the words of the late author (and professional a-hole) Harlan Ellison, who once wrote:



With only minor tweaking of verbiage, that could describe Wakanda too. Something that the world can aspire too... if not written by a writer whose only idea is to drag it down into the muck like the rest of the world.

In fact, Priest even SAYS as much, in a classic scene where Ross testifies about T'Challa to Congress:




Why is it that the worst sides of our nature are considered just "human beings", but people volunteering their time to help in a natural disaster, or running into a burning building to save a stranger, or flying halfway across the world to rescue a handful of kids in a flooded cave never are?

Why do people hate altruism, optimism, and nobility so damn much?

Man of Steel didn't reject the idea a hero can be aspirational. It just showed such a thing isn't as easy as people believe.

Superman being the pinnacle of perfection has never really been the case. Every version of the character has had flaws.

And while I do understand the issues some have with Coates, Priest can be pretty damn cynical in his work too. Just read Deathstroke or his Justice League run or what he's said about Wonder Woman and Nightwing in the past.

[Ekie]

Is "See Wakanda and Die" a good story?

Fantastic story and would be GODLIKE in animation. A dc styled animated movie of See Wakanda and Doe with Tchalla in his true brilliant cold blooded glory

Redjack... ..

[Vibranium Weave]

Is "See Wakanda and Die" a good story?

"See Wakanda & Die" is a great Black Panther story. It has great action, a good plot, and is an enjoyable read.