T'Challa: The Black Panther Appreciation 2021

[Ekie]

Tech has been a part of the mythos because Wakanda is the most technologically advanced country in the Marvel Universe, not because T'Challa is the most technologically advanced superhero in the Marvel Universe (usually reserved for Tony Stark). That's kind of my point, because T'Challa will always play second fiddle to characters like Tony, Reed and Pym because they're far better suited for that niche than he is. But none of them rule an entire nation. None of them have to fight wars or navigate political tensions on a tribal and global scale. How T'Challa strategically maneuvers these is what makes him stand above the rest and what makes him interesting.

At least in my opinion.

But before their rectons wakanda is that because of t'challa.
So shaming the fans who know better vs the creators who dont makes no sense to me

[Marvell2100]

I’ve been telling y’all Ewing writes BP better than anyone else save Redjack lol. He writes literally every character better than the majority of writers, especially black characters. He’s been carrying good representation for black characters on his back for the last few years IMO.

He understands what people want out of BP and respects what came before while giving space to new ideas and concepts. The only issue his Ultimates had was being a bit slow, which is a subjective take I only see in this thread because everyone else considers it one of the best team comics published by Marvel in the last decade. He showed a T’Challa that was equal parts king, strategist, scientist, and warrior while alongside characters even smarter than Shuri and who have leadership skills equivalent to his own. Ridley will have no excuse if he can’t do the same in T’Challa’s own title.

Same goes for Narcisse, who wrote a good BP in the Avengers game but missed some things about the character. Though with Narcisse my issue had more to do with T’Challa’s weird sense of conservatism and him “delegating” rule of his kingdom. Same issue I had with Redjack’s cartoon as well.

Ewing does a great job with BP. Like you said it tended to drag along at a slow pace and also imo, Ewing had so many alpha characters trying to feed everybody
and then on top of that, the whole America Chavez thing, I thin it turned a lot of people off.

[Ekie]

There is a trope that I think may apply here: Informed Attribute.

There are several scenes in comics, going all the way back to FF #52, where we are TOLD that T'Challa is a genius inventor: The techno-jungle, Quinjet, and Sam's wings are all credited to him. But I honestly can't think of a major case where we are SHOWN him inventing something. It always seems to happen offscreen.

This is in contrast to folks like Richards, Stark, Pym, and Brashear, where their technical prowess is usually displayed on panel, often in place of their actual superhuman abilities.

This is why I don't consider it a big loss... sure T'Challa loses a "feat" (something I've never really worried about, as you know) but in terms of his actual character, little of note is actually lost. He's still the most dangerous man alive, the world's greatest poker face, and a consummate strategist & tactician (two very different skill sets, actually).

But what do I know... I've only been reading about the guy for 23 years.

Is he the most dangerous man without his intellect? If Tchalla was viewed as he is post Coats and Coogler with Shuri being the brains then Hickman and Liss couldnt have written the story they did. TChalla is unabpe to build bombs, analyze multiversal gates, and build the raft or in Liss' case whip up gene nulifiers and gadgets.

He calls Shuri for that now.

[Marvell2100]

Is he the most dangerous man without his intellect? If Tchalla was viewed as he is post Coats and Coogler with Shuri being the brains then Hickman and Liss couldnt have written the story they did. TChalla is unabpe to build bombs, analyze multiversal gates, and build the raft or in Liss' case whip up gene nulifiers and gadgets.

He calls Shuri for that now.

I think a lot of that is how he's handled outside his own book as well. If there is some kind of major event and they need some of the top geniuses in the MU, then T'Challa needs to be in the room along with Tony and Reed. If he gets left out of that circle and Shuri is standing in his spot then he loses a lot. It could be the case where other writers will start "dumbing" T'Challa down so they can show us how smart Shuri is.

It's always an either or, not both. T'Challa's genius should always be similar to reed where he's an expert in many fields while Shuri can specialize in certain fields.

[Ezyo1000]

Life boats was similar to what Digi is talking about... it was done off panel and Reed gave T'chalal credit for it on panel.

Yes, he worked on Doom's spy gear thing but Coates leaned into T'challa the scientist so it makes since.


T'challa the inventor is kinda interesting comic history wise. You had Kirby mention stuff (off panel again) that he did. And then there was not really a large part of his character for a long time. Just mentinos here and there (wings, quinjet and the like) but he wasn't really shown on panel to building stuff until like... Doom War. Then that transitioned into Liss building gadgets in hells kitchen then Hickman ran with the concept more hardcore and more apparent and it kinda cascaded a bit from there.

We see T'Challa an Reed working on the antimatter bombs we see T'Challa use his Wearable kimoyo turn Galactus into the Life bringer, we see T'Challa hack Tony's armor, we see him rewrite a dragons DNA. We see his light armor he designed and created at age 12, we see his Shadow physics creations used in Doomwar. We see him fry thanks brain with pieces of a destroyed cell. We see T'Challa rid Wakanda of Knulls forces with klaws Sonic Canon. We see him and Tony create the mech in Avengers. We see him adjust the frequency of his energy daggers to match carols energy signature and destroy a cosmic ghost. We see him and Reed and Tony and many others talk scientific ideas and concept's multiple times.

Again we don't need to see him tinker all the time. He is t that type of character generally. A prep character like him benefits by having it already done off screen and telling us about it when he snaps his trap OR we see him tinkering on the fly or in Redjacks KiB we have a quiet moment of him tinkering and having a heart to heart moment with Shuri. THATS how T'Challa works best. But we cannot pretend that T'Challa isn't the type of character that can't do that stuff. He is hands on in the moment creating and problem solving rather than on the safety of a lab. That's how he literally handles everything from tactics, to leading, to political Maneuvers, to prep etc. We just want all of this on full view as it's done. Let Shuri tinker in the lab, show us T'Challa springing his traps and making on the fly tech with the occasional tinkering when the story calls for it

[Ezyo1000]

I think a lot of that is how he's handled outside his own book as well. If there is some kind of major event and they need some of the top geniuses in the MU, then T'Challa needs to be in the room along with Tony and Reed. If he gets left out of that circle and Shuri is standing in his spot then he loses a lot. It could be the case where other writers will start "dumbing" T'Challa down so they can show us how smart Shuri is.

It's always an either or, not both. T'Challa's genius should always be similar to reed where he's an expert in many fields while Shuri can specialize in certain fields.

THIS THIS THIS. Right here. This perfectly sums up T'Challa. He literally can fit into any story from street level to cosmic. He has that type of potential he is a warrior polymath genius, ultimate prep, political super power, Master tactician. The most dangerous man alive because all those things he is master at. Prep, and tactics and political accumen he should arguably be the best at, but the rest? He is ATLEAST in the top 10 Possibly top 5 on other's. Let Shuri be THE smartest on a specific Field and let T'Challa be able to Converse with reed Tony pym banner and the rest without issue

[Ezyo1000]

David Liss is probably the last BP solo writer who actually incorporated all of T'Challa's skillset albeit on a smaller scale.

-Thinking on the fly.
-Long term strategy.
-Scientific ability.
-Fighting skills.
-His intangibles.

We really haven't seen the complete package since then.

I'd say Redjack did it in BPQ, which was large scale, and smaller scale on KiB. Honestly I think Redjack would be/is the best modern BP scribe of this time

[Marvell2100]

THIS THIS THIS. Right here. This perfectly sums up T'Challa. He literally can fit into any story from street level to cosmic. He has that type of potential he is a warrior polymath genius, ultimate prep, political super power, Master tactician. The most dangerous man alive because all those things he is master at. Prep, and tactics and political accumen he should arguably be the best at, but the rest? He is ATLEAST in the top 10 Possibly top 5 on other's. Let Shuri be THE smartest on a specific Field and let T'Challa be able to Converse with reed Tony pym banner and the rest without issue

That's another thing. While Shuri can specialize in certain fields, T'Challa can see the overall picture and knows how to apply knowledge and genius. Shuri maybe able to build a high tech machine, but T'Challa knows not only how to build the machine but how to best use the machine, how to apply it and even enhance it if he needs to.

T'Challa's genius is a creating and applied genius, not only can he build/create but he can apply and adapt.

[Marvell2100]

I'd say Redjack did it in BPQ, which was large scale, and smaller scale on KiB. Honestly I think Redjack would be/is the best modern BP scribe of this time

Yeah, I wanted to specifically mention solo BP writers because of the long term impact of what they do. But yeah, Redjack definitely hits it out of the park with Panther's Quest as well as his KiB one-shot.

It's just a shame he didn't get the shot at writing BP, especially given the positive response that he gets anytime he writes him. I think that Redjack could carry a second BP solo. Since they are determined to keep the IGEW around, maybe give him a shot at it if he's interested.

[chief12d]

That all being said, I do think that intelligence doesn’t ONLY needed to be linked to tech and science. When I say polymath, I’m thinking of your Renaissance men and 18th-19th century geniuses. Those guys weren’t just scientists, they were linguists, musicians, historians, and more. If writers found a way to make that play a bigger role in the BP comics I’d be even more ok with Shuri handling tech because I think that in terms of intelligence, the social sciences is where T’Challa really shines as a king.

You go and look back at those old Kirby stories and you see a guy who had an intimate understanding of other cultures and what made them tick. Even Priest played into this at times because T’Challa’s skills as a statesman and strategist are often directly linked to his ability to understand soft sciences (like economics or psychology). If they emphasized T’Challa the Renaissance Man and allowed social sciences to be more prominent in stories I think Shuri playing a bigger role would be even less of an issue.

[Marvell2100]

That all being said, I do think that intelligence doesn’t ONLY needed to be linked to tech and science. When I say polymath, I’m thinking of your Renaissance men and 18th-19th century geniuses. Those guys weren’t just scientists, they were linguists, musicians, historians, and more. If writers found a way to make that play a bigger role in the BP comics I’d be even more ok with Shuri handling tech because I think that in terms of intelligence, the social sciences is where T’Challa really shines as a king.

You go and look back at those old Kirby stories and you see a guy who had an intimate understanding of other cultures and what made them tick. Even Priest played into this at times because T’Challa’s skills as a statesman and strategist are often directly linked to his ability to understand soft sciences (like economics or psychology). If they emphasized T’Challa the Renaissance Man and allowed social sciences to be more prominent in stories I think Shuri playing a bigger role would be even less of an issue.

Lol, you mean like when Coates had T'Challa meeting with dictators to show off his social science skills?

Yeah, T'Challa should be well groomed but too often his intelligence feats are done off panel. If he had a history like, Reed, Tony or even Banner, then it really wouldn't be an issue. But there really isn't much to point to. He created the techno-jungle that no one ever uses. He created the quinjets that the Avengers don't use anymore. Now Shuri is creating all the tech stuff in the MU and MCU and leaving little to no room for T'Challa.

[MindofShadow]

I think a lot of that is how he's handled outside his own book as well. If there is some kind of major event and they need some of the top geniuses in the MU, then T'Challa needs to be in the room along with Tony and Reed. If he gets left out of that circle and Shuri is standing in his spot then he loses a lot. It could be the case where other writers will start "dumbing" T'Challa down so they can show us how smart Shuri is.

It's always an either or, not both. T'Challa's genius should always be similar to reed where he's an expert in many fields while Shuri can specialize in certain fields.

So far theyve kept tchalla around in "geniuses together" moments. Shuri pops in occasionally but hes always there.

So far, his geniuses hasn't been overshadowed in the comics. They simply both at geniuses.

So, comic wise, we are whining about stuff that hasn't hapoened... yet.

[MindofShadow]

I feel like we all agree on 95% of this discussion and keep talking in ciricles about the 5% lol

I coulda sworn we saw him working on the life boats on panel. Maybe he was just inspecting them or something lol.

Fun fact about this though... T'challa is so hated in the comic community, people gave this feat to Valerie because "she gave them the idea to not lose" lol

I think I started posting as it was ending but I don’t remember talking about it much. The book was slow but it pretty much got every aspect of T’Challa as a character right. Certainly better than pretty much any other recent depiction of the character, save Redjack’s cartoon and to a lesser extent Hickman (T’Challa wasn’t an actual king then). Nothing was ignored or downplayed and despite T’Challa being well rounded, a cast of characters more powerful and intelligent than from his own book got to shine too. I’m fine with some Blue Marvel soliloquies and talking heads if it pays off in the end.

Ewing was 100% on point with T'challa (and all the characters he touches it feels like). He did T'challa right in Empyre too.

I just didn't reallly like Ultimates story, felt too abstract to me. Especially in the middle. Not much of a cosmic abstract guy. And they really shoulda tweaked the cast to increase sales. No offence all 12 MAC fans, but having Dr Strange or Thor teleport them around woulda been more useful to keep sales up lol

ONe of these days Ewing is going to bring out the Tiger God stuck in T'challa's pokeball and break our brains lol

[Ekie]

I'd say Redjack did it in BPQ, which was large scale, and smaller scale on KiB. Honestly I think Redjack would be/is the best modern BP scribe of this time

I knew it the minute Panther told Captain America to remove his hand from his shoulder while two kings (he and Atuma) spoke in Panther's quest.

But instead of letting the RedJack's of the world handle the character they're Leasing him out to writers and directors who don't understand what makes the character cool but are atleast black

[Ezyo1000]

That's another thing. While Shuri can specialize in certain fields, T'Challa can see the overall picture and knows how to apply knowledge and genius. Shuri maybe able to build a high tech machine, but T'Challa knows not only how to build the machine but how to best use the machine, how to apply it and even enhance it if he needs to.

T'Challa's genius is a creating and applied genius, not only can he build/create but he can apply and adapt.

Heres how I would do it.

In a straight up science convention, Reed, Tony, Shuri, and T'Challa are tasked to make a Ray gun (for simplicity sake) the first 3 will make the most state of the art, advanced ray guns.on a score of 100 being the highest. The former 3 will have perfect 100s on terms of range, rate of fire, destructive power, design, and multi fire functions.

T'Challa would have a more simplistic design, the score for his would between 85-90 compared to the 100 of the other 3. However, while theirs are REALLY good ray guns, that's the extent of their functions. T'Challas would not only be used as a ray gun, but can track energy signatures, be used as an EMP gun, Anti gravity ray, paralysis ray etc.

It wouldn't be as powerful or as ADVANCED as the others, but it's functional use in the orthodox and unorthodox would be unparalleled to the others. That's where he sets himself apart, his isn't best, but it's the most versatile of all of them.

That's how I see T'Challa function. He isn't the best at everything under his umbrella (except prep, tactics, and political accumen) but he DOES keep up, and his overall package is the more versatile hero on the 616.