Lol to late I'm already hyped. I wanted to see this so bad before it was canceled. Black Panther + Pacific Rim what more could I ask for?
Honestly I think the reason we are getting a push to replace him with the opposite gender is because he has a legacy character who is the opposite gender. Hudlin created a sister for T'Challa rather than a brother, who he ended up giving the mantle to. If Shuri didn't exist, and T'Challa had a brother instead we'd be discussing whether or not T'Challa's little brother would end up taking the mantle instead.
That said, I DO believe it's entirely possible the push is louder for a female because female lead characters of color in the MCU are less represented than males. if there has never been a minority female lead in an MCU movie (and there quite possibly never will be aside from Shuri), I can sort of understand being a bit louder on the topic. T'Challa has become the target for those pushing for this because Hudlin was actually progressive enough to make a female legacy character of color. He created something they can viably champion.
So, Kasper saves the day?
In the comics.
In the comics.
In the comics.
Every single idea I've seen for BP2 is basically "They should retell the comics!" Despite the fact that the MCU has never done straight adaptations. The closest was probably Winter Soldier, and even that was drastically different.
Namor. Doom. Shuri. Every plot idea that I've seen rumored or claimed regarding them comes straight from the comics... and usually not good ones. Where are the theories involving M'Baku, Okoye, or Nakia? Nowhere, because "that's not what they did in the comics".
Pardon my French, but fsck the comics (RJ's upcoming story excluded). BP hasn't been treated well by the publishing arm for 10 years, and they don't deserve to get any input on the movies.
Last edited by DigiCom; 11-15-2020 at 07:01 AM. Reason: Math failure
I don't disagree, I've been vocal about my preference for T'Challa to get recast. I just don't think a desire to sideline black men is the primary motivation for why people feel differently. What I'm saying is that for some, Shuri being a female is a factor in them wanting to have her take the mantle.
It's not the only thing they consider, but to deny that there are many in the trades and social media pushing that narrative is just being willfully naïve to the current climate of our culture. So there's definitely an agenda but I don't think it's that pervasive, a lot of people like Blind Wedjat genuinely just don't want T'Challa recast and Shuri is the most immediate option in their minds.
King in Black: Black Panther is taking place in current continuity so I wonder how that affects the solo's battle with the symbiote Njadaka. Whatever Panther does to defeat the symbiotes in the tie-in should be used against the symbiote in the solo. If we see BP take out a symbiote invasion in KiB:BP but struggle against Simjadaka, Coates story will fall flat on it's face. KiB:BP is set for FEB release and still no word on the solo.
I know we've discussed and speculated on this for a minute but I'm to the point where I don't think it's going to get released or maybe they just do digital.
I think you're right in that you do see these bloated bloated ensemble casts for black male characters, especially in outside media nowadays. A lot of the times I think it's rooted in how prior to these projects there's not much diversity in the company so they see a black-led show/movie as a chance to shove it full of additional black people. Making up for lost time and all that.
Up until BP the MCU's black female representation on the big screen was trash. So when the film dropped, it didn't just have black women, they basically reconfigured the mythos and established lore to make them all relevant and cool. Which in some ways did detract from T'Challa and to a certain extent his male supporting cast, as they basically shaved off character traits and gave them to characters that were in some cases irrelevant to the mythos for years. Same thing happened with Black Lightning, which carries positive black (male and female) representation on its back, which has unfortunately led to Jefferson being a bit of a side character in his own show.
We'll see how many black side characters they have in Blade but I wouldn't be surprised if there's a lot and they all do a bunch of things. But on the topic of Shuri, I don't think Hudlin could've anticipated how the culture would evolve into a state where there's many people that'll want to sideline a male character if it means any ole female can take his spot. I disagree with her becoming BP when she did, but I think Shuri's existence is fine as long as they properly compartmentalize her.
Turning her into T'Challa-lite stunted her character and created permanent competition with her brother, no other way to say it. The best Marvel can do is manage it the way writers like Narcisse and Redjack did. She should've been competent in hand to hand combat and mature enough, but fast-tracking her development and turning her into a carbon-copy of her brother created certain expectations she'll never break out of rather than putting her on a more independent track.
And it's a more potent situation for the BP IP because unlike Spider-Man or Batman, having virtual clones running around means he's seen as more interchangeable. T'Challa doesn't have the brand strength to be seen as the definitive BP considering he wasn't on most fans' radar until very recently. Marvel will never fully displace T'Challa as BP, but there's a real chance of the BP book being turned into an ensemble or buddy cop book because Shuri never had a solid role and may very well be seen as "the" BP for millions of people in a few years.
So I blame Hudlin for poor planning, not the idea itself lol. Shuri should've been T'Challa's magic-using kid sister, not a power-hungry warrior queen waiting for her brother to be put in a coma.
This is not true. I've actually said multiple times that I don't know what I want yet. That's why I've been saying we should let Marvel and Disney lead the discussion all this time. I've also never said I wanted Shuri to take the mantle, only that I can see it happening because it makes logical sense for it to happen (regardless of the comics), and that I feel it's unfair to act like people who might want that for her are bad people who simply want to spoil our fun.
My reservations about recasting are that I think some of us are talking about it like it's an easy thing to do, when this situation is quite complicated and we're not acknowledging the nuances that exist in it because more T'Challa is what we (including myself) all want. If it was so easy we would have had someone picked by now. To tell you the truth, if Marvel is going to recast I don't expect to hear about it until late 2021, early to mid 2022. We have to consider that as far as we know, Coogler didn't finish writing the script. Obviously he had other things to do including being a father of a new born child, but I think we need to think about how Chadwick's death affected his process. I'm not saying I know what he'll do about it, but if he makes a decision some of us don't like, we shouldn't act like it's a bad decision and he's made some kind of agenda-ridden mistake. Likewise if he makes one that we do like and another group doesn't for their own reasons. We can't go around throwing accusations like that, is what I'm saying.
My other reservation is that at the moment I cannot think of an available actor that can do the role justice. John David Washington is the most popular choice but I don't see it for him, and I think Tenet hype and who his father is aren't enough to convince me. Aldis Hodge would have been a good choice but he's no longer available. Jonathan Majors is a good actor but doesn't fit the part (and is no longer available). In a perfect world I would have picked Mahershala Ali but he's no longer available too. Most other suggestions I've seen so far feel like downgrades. Atandwa Kani (young T'Chaka in the film) might be a decent choice but I have no idea about his acting ability and he may not have the name recognition or star power to carry the role.
So no, I never said I belonged to any camp. All I've asked for you guys is treat this thing with a little more patience and understanding. I'm not going to act like progressivism and feminism aren't a thing today but the most extreme of ot has hardly mattered to anything Marvel has done. We had some people try to accuse the first film of being homophobic because it allegedly cut out a scene referencing a lesbian scene. Some YouTuber later accused the film of sexualising Lupita and masculinizing the Dora Milaje. She also said the film's men didn't deserve support because they weren't with black women (untrue in Chadwick, Ryan and Sterling K's case). All of this 'controversy' for a movie that grossed 1.3 billion dollars and is beloved by millions all over the world. These people exist, but they only have power if you give them attention. I think we should all stop acting like they actually matter.
I don't know if many people checked it out but Okoye will be appearing in the Taskmaster mini.
https://www.cbr.com/taskmaster-1-review/
They should of already ended Coates run. It's being dragged out for no good reason other then to delay T'Challa being able to move on to a better creative team. He is a bust and unless the hold up is that there was a rewriting of the script to give it a not dog isht ending, they should just release it in digital like you mentioned. It's like stringing on a toxic ex. Just end it already. No one is talking about Coates anymore