Black Panther Appreciation 2020

[Ekie]

no idea. i'm not keeping up with the book. I checked out when the rape camps arrived and haven't been back.






One of the reasons I'll never be allowed to write this series is I would erase Doom War from continuity, along with a host of other things. Too many people sacrificed story and character to "break Wakanda."

Wakanda doesn't break. That's the point of Wakanda. Not only is it the most advanced society in human history, it is, by definition, the most SELF-RELIANT. If Wakanda can't solve something, it can't be solved. Jason Aaron got it right. Everyone who brings war to Wakanda gets sent home in a body bag with a message in their own blood, "THIS IS WHAT HAPPENS WHEN YOU TRY US."

That includes EVERYONE. Full stop. The only thing that could break Wakanda would be something from INSIDE. And not the sort of strife that plagues the rest of Africa. Wakanda is, by definition, untouched by all of that.

But I've said too much.

Wakanda is the most advanced, Tchalla is a very powerful and dangerous King. Ill make exception for thanos taking two tries with his full might plus an already impaired wakanda/side tracked Tchalla. But if there were no incursions... Tchalla should have cleaned house mentally and tactically

This. Is. Why. I. Read. About. Wakanda.

As far as im concerned, the next wtiter needs to first start with Tchalla holding the time stone after secret wars and appearing back in time, erasing doomwar and everything after. With the knowledge of Wakandan's fall in the future Tchalla goes all in on wakandan military build up and secrecy.

[XPac]

you're talking about these things as if they're real.

all of these were choices made by writers and editors. and, insofar as they've corrupted the intent and the ideal represented by Wakanda, they are poor examples of both.

Yes... whether or not Wakanda remained unconquered was always a choice by writers and editors. My point being, as more writers and editors are involved in telling more and more stories with Wakanda, the greater the likelihood that you would eventually find at least one who might not see it exactly the same way.

The fact that it's not real, and that it in fact that it all comes down to a simple choice any writer or any editor on a whim can make on any given day is why that status quo remaining unchanged was never going to be a complete certainty.

[Agent Z]

Sorry. Wrong thread.

[Ezyo1000]

Yes... whether or not Wakanda remained unconquered was always a choice by writers and editors. My point being, as more writers and editors are involved in telling more and more stories with Wakanda, the greater the likelihood that you would eventually find at least one who might not see it exactly the same way.

The fact that it's not real, and that it in fact that it all comes down to a simple choice any writer or any editor on a whim can make on any given day is why that status quo remaining unchanged was never going to be a complete certainty.

Here's the problem with your logic. See when Wakanda was never classified as never been conquered, that should hold. Straight up. Hudlin established this in his run in 2005.. how long did it take before that was broken? Wakanda didn't hold that title for even a decade before that was broken. All for the sake of a (ishtty I might add) Doom war story to start. It doesn't matter if it's Doom, or Thanos, or whoever. 10k years unconquered and now all of a sudden anybody just waltz in and beats Wakanda? Your use the excuse "it's freaking x character" well so what? Your have the most advanced nation on earth who's never been conquered, who's stacked body's for centuries, send would be conquers home in body bags. Fighting Wakanda directly should always end up on defeat. Straight up. Thanos should never have razed Wakanda. Secret empire was an even bigger example of writer/editorial laziness. Frakking Faustus, who was already in the BP solo and is a z list villain, defeated all of Wakanda.. solo.. with a completely bullSHIT ass pull power that was unexplained how he acquired it, how it worked and then surprise surprise, he couldn't use it again after Spencer's plot needed to move on. It's like Redjack said, if you aren't clever enough to think like TChalla, then don't write BP or include BP or Wakanda in the story. Also I will add, thee have been plenty of writers that, when. Writing a story about some villain taking over the world, there were pockets of unconquered areas they didn't control, and Wakanda has been mentioned plenty of times.

Laziness and Piss should not dictate Wakanda losing

[DigiCom]

This shouldn't surprise anyone, though. As soon as a writer determines that "this has never happened to $Character or $Nation", another writer will already start working on a way to change that, usually to make a new villain look dangerous. And then the next time will be easier... and the time after that... until it's basically a joke. I can think of examples from both Marvel & DC.

While it makes Wakanda cooler, saying she'd never been unconquered was one of Hudlin's few mistakes, IMO. It was just asking for trouble. It might have been better to say "Wakanda was so feared for her strength that great empires avoided her" or something like that. Keep it vague, so that future writers didn't have a pedestal to knock over.

[XPac]

Here's the problem with your logic. See when Wakanda was never classified as never been conquered, that should hold. Straight up. Hudlin established this in his run in 2005.. how long did it take before that was broken? Wakanda didn't hold that title for even a decade before that was broken. All for the sake of a (ishtty I might add) Doom war story to start. It doesn't matter if it's Doom, or Thanos, or whoever. 10k years unconquered and now all of a sudden anybody just waltz in and beats Wakanda? Your use the excuse "it's freaking x character" well so what? Your have the most advanced nation on earth who's never been conquered, who's stacked body's for centuries, send would be conquers home in body bags. Fighting Wakanda directly should always end up on defeat. Straight up. Thanos should never have razed Wakanda. Secret empire was an even bigger example of writer/editorial laziness. Frakking Faustus, who was already in the BP solo and is a z list villain, defeated all of Wakanda.. solo.. with a completely bullSHIT ass pull power that was unexplained how he acquired it, how it worked and then surprise surprise, he couldn't use it again after Spencer's plot needed to move on. It's like Redjack said, if you aren't clever enough to think like TChalla, then don't write BP or include BP or Wakanda in the story. Also I will add, thee have been plenty of writers that, when. Writing a story about some villain taking over the world, there were pockets of unconquered areas they didn't control, and Wakanda has been mentioned plenty of times.

Laziness and Piss should not dictate Wakanda losing

Whether or not Wakanda's unconquered SHOULD hold honestly is up to the BP writers and editors. Marvel ultimately allowed a BP writer to make that call, as opposed to it happening in an outside book or event... that's about as fair to the BP mythos as you can get. And it ended something that was really only a retcon which had been around for less than a decade, rather than something which had been a part of their mythos day one or whatever... so in a way that actually makes it easier. Wakanda existed for most of its history without that retcon, and I'm sure it'll be just fine without it moving foreward.

I frankly think establishing that its never been conquered (though technically it has but off panel) frankly creates the temptation to conquer it because suddenly there's a potential story to be told there. It's creating an artifical reason to have it conquered that wasn't there before, because suddenly its a much bigger deal to do it. Unintentionally, I think Hudlin ended up just painting a big target on Wakanda quite frankly.

[skyvolt2000]

This shouldn't surprise anyone, though. As soon as a writer determines that "this has never happened to $Character or $Nation", another writer will already start working on a way to change that, usually to make a new villain look dangerous. And then the next time will be easier... and the time after that... until it's basically a joke. I can think of examples from both Marvel & DC.

While it makes Wakanda cooler, saying she'd never been unconquered was one of Hudlin's few mistakes, IMO. It was just asking for trouble. It might have been better to say "Wakanda was so feared for her strength that great empires avoided her" or something like that. Keep it vague, so that future writers didn't have a pedestal to knock over.

Question how many times have Doom's kingdom been taken over?

Atlantis? Inhumamn's kingdom?

While we are at it Ral Ghul's kingdom? He has a pit to restore the dead-Funny Darksied seems to avoid that place while trashing Detroit.

Warlord's kingdom? Or Darkseid's planet.

Yet there is now a line to invade Wakanda. Those rape camps must have a great buffet.

[XPac]

Question how many times have Doom's kingdom been taken over?

Atlantis? Inhumamn's kingdom?

While we are at it Ral Ghul's kingdom? He has a pit to restore the dead-Funny Darksied seems to avoid that place while trashing Detroit.

Warlord's kingdom? Or Darkseid's planet.

Yet there is now a line to invade Wakanda. Those rape camps must have a great buffet.

Atlantis, Latveria, Asgard and Attilan have all been invaded, overthrown and/or destroyed multiple times in the last couple decades. Destroying fictional kingdoms has frankly become a pre-requisite for big stories. And in most instances it doesn't even really matter since they're all magically rebuilt overnight.

It's a slighter bigger deal for Wakanda because it's more rare. And in the a couple instances where Wakanda takes a hit (Infinity and Secret Empire) it took 2 or 3 tries to suceed. So there are efforts to at try and maintain some of Wakandas credibility before it gets beaten, so when it's finally beaten it's still a big deal. As opposed to say Atlantis, which gets destroyed so often no one really cares.

[dkrook]

Atlantis, Latveria, Asgard and Attilan have all been invaded, overthrown and/or destroyed multiple times in the last couple decades. Destroying fictional kingdoms has frankly become a pre-requisite for big stories. And in most instances it doesn't even really matter since they're all magically rebuilt overnight.

It's a slighter bigger deal for Wakanda because it's more rare. And in the a couple instances where Wakanda takes a hit (Infinity and Secret Empire) it took 2 or 3 tries to suceed. So there are efforts to at try and maintain some of Wakandas credibility before it gets beaten, so when it's finally beaten it's still a big deal. As opposed to say Atlantis, which gets destroyed so often no one really cares.

I find it peculiar that all the various writers that come thru doing DC property, all of them seem to get the memo that plain Jane Batman has to be THE guy for any story arc. Example....God of Tech, well we got a Cyborg here that is the perfect amalgamation of bio and A.I. tech. Naw, f that somehow Batman is the best fit....??? Look, it shouldn't be an issue for editors to tell writers that want to include BP mythos that they can be creative but that they can't arbitrarily wreck on Wakanda. Marvel heads do it all the time. Wasn't Hudlin planning on having BP trash Doom before he was off the book.

[XPac]

I find it peculiar that all the various writers that come thru doing DC property, all of them seem to get the memo that plain Jane Batman has to be THE guy for any story arc. Example....God of Tech, well we got a Cyborg here that is the perfect amalgamation of bio and A.I. tech. Naw, f that somehow Batman is the best fit....??? Look, it shouldn't be an issue for editors to tell writers that want to include BP mythos that they can be creative but that they can't arbitrarily wreck on Wakanda. Marvel heads do it all the time. Wasn't Hudlin planning on having BP trash Doom before he was off the book.

Again, this has to be taken in the context that every other fictional nation (Atlantis, Adgard, Latveria, Attilan, etc) get the same treatment. I don't think the issue is that editors can't ask writers not to trash fictional kingdoms so much as they don't really have an issue with it. Kingdoms get blown up in big events. It's a thing. Secret Empire even proved that non fictional places aren't immune as the US was conquered and Vegas was destroyed.

[DigiCom]

Question how many times have Doom's kingdom been taken over?

Atlantis? Inhumamn's kingdom?

Quite a few, actually. Nowadays, it's actually harder to find an exotic culture that HASN'T been trashed. But none of those cases were described as "unconquered."

Oddly enough, though, the Inhuman king, Black Bolt, IS an example. In the Jenkins mini, he was described as "undefeated in battle", but the very next story had his butt kicked by the Kree. And since then, he gets beaten up with depressing regularity.

[taozen]

In Avengers #33, why is it that Jason Aaron can write such great scenes with Black Panther that nail the character so much more than a dozen other writers put together?

[FLEX HECTIC]

The Black Panther should be written... Just... Like... This...





One move feeds into the next move so on and so forth in a precalculated agenda leading towards a satisfactory and exhilarating conclusion!


If just one thing is out of place...

[Ezyo1000]

Quite a few, actually. Nowadays, it's actually harder to find an exotic culture that HASN'T been trashed. But none of those cases were described as "unconquered."

Oddly enough, though, the Inhuman king, Black Bolt, IS an example. In the Jenkins mini, he was described as "undefeated in battle", but the very next story had his butt kicked by the Kree. And since then, he gets beaten up with depressing regularity.

I also find it interesting how it's just accepted that "hey for the next big event x place gets blown to hell" or "hey let's have x character blow up this place to show how dangerous they are" as it's been said, places get blown up so much that it means nothing. It's a problem. If a place gets razed, it should be a big deal. And there if there was such an issue with Wakanda then it could be a simple "Wakanda has never been been conquered on directly combat" as in, like Redjack said a few pages back, of you want to beat Wakanda, it's going to have to be from within. A direct all our assault is the SWaD treatment. 10k years unconquered means that they know war, and combat. They are a warrior nation for fraks sake. So you better come prepared to lose a isht ton of forces and pray that you can somehow get an in. SE should of been a deal that Hydra Cap should of never been able to get through Wakanda. So in order to get the shard he should of went a political route and tried political pressure

[XPac]

I also find it interesting how it's just accepted that "hey for the next big event x place gets blown to hell" or "hey let's have x character blow up this place to show how dangerous they are" as it's been said, places get blown up so much that it means nothing. It's a problem. If a place gets razed, it should be a big deal. And there if there was such an issue with Wakanda then it could be a simple "Wakanda has never been been conquered on directly combat" as in, like Redjack said a few pages back, of you want to beat Wakanda, it's going to have to be from within. A direct all our assault is the SWaD treatment. 10k years unconquered means that they know war, and combat. They are a warrior nation for fraks sake. So you better come prepared to lose a isht ton of forces and pray that you can somehow get an in. SE should of been a deal that Hydra Cap should of never been able to get through Wakanda. So in order to get the shard he should of went a political route and tried political pressure

I think that's what Coates tried to do in his first season. Rather than sweeping everything under the rug, he tried making the razing of Wakanda somewhat of a big deal. Some writers care about telling those sort of stories, while others were fine just ignoring it and moving foreward. Not sure there's a 100% right or wrong answer there... but I personally agree that if this sort of thing happens it should be a bigger deal. Otherwise what happened doesn't really matter.

I'll say Attilan actually tried to make what happened to them a big deal too as it created a new status quo for the Inhumans. But Atlantis being destroyed was pretty much ignored. Namor's city must have some sort of healing factor.