T'Challa: The Black Panther Appreciation 2021

[Marvell2100]

Finally read issue #1. Along with KiB:BP this is the best issue I've read in quite some time. I'm actually excited about a BP solo and look forward to the next issue.

spoilers:

I'm glad that Ridley is making it a struggle for Wakanda to become a democracy. It shouldn't be easy and there should be plenty of growing pains. I know some people have issues with T'Challa's characterization but to me Shuri's portrayal was the head scratcher. Just throw out Coates portrayal altogether and this Shuri is like someone we've never met. As ruler, she ordered the attack on Atlantis and engaged in black ops missions but she act's like having spies and assassins around to protect Wakanda is a major issue. I guess she's there to be the counterpoint to T'Challa. I'm loving Omolola and I hope she sticks around. I like that part where she mentions "try being celibate" to T'Challa. Dude could teach a class on that.

end of spoilers

[Marvell2100]

And the art was on point.

[Ezyo1000]

That’s actually the crazy thing. None of the people that were supposedly wiser than T’Challa actually agreed with any of his changes. Ramonda was the one pushing him to put the pressure on Changamire for his liberal beliefs. And she straight up told a member of parliament “Wakanda is not that democratic yet” when at the beginning of Avengers of the New World they tried criticizing T’Challa. Ramonda been with the shits, she’s the biggest autocrat in the entire damn family lol.

Shuri point blank said she’s fine with Wakandans getting raped and dying as long as the Golden City stands, at one point her entire character was based around her obsession with power and royal authority. Storm I can take, but she never actually advised T’Challa on policy matters, they just talked about the nature of godhood and slavery. The revisionist history with the Coates run is wild, people are really just projecting what they want out of the characters against what actually happened.

That's what I mean, so it's like, who was he deferring to? They mentioned Bast on there too but all bast did was cast blame onto T'Challa when he was like "Yo where were you when all this **** went down?" She tries to blame T'Challa for the empire even though she bounced and then tries to go "Lol no you"

So the person is so far from reality of what actually took place in the book, ontop of their... Description of how Coates weak ass T'Challa is supposedly a step on the right direction as opposed to what came before him with Priest a d Hudlin? The agenda is really obvious and for them to try and flip T'Challa behaving more in character and in continuity (which I remember when people TRIED to claim Coates whiny T'Challa was somehow in character) and acting like it's a bad thing, are going to be on for a rude awakening when they realize that fans enjoy actually rooting for the HERO of the franchise, not the side characters no one cares about

[Ezyo1000]

Speaking of Akili, I hope this is his time to shine in a supporting role. We’ve had like 3 different Wakandan intelligence agencies introduced since the Gillis run and it’s still not entirely clear what the HZ are besides special ops soldiers, which is a role already now occupied by the Dora due to the MCU. Are they now a special police force? Are they T’Challa’s regular spies? We need clarification on that and some kind of story that builds up T’Challa’s friendship with Akili. Because it’s gonna get old and lame really quickly if Ridley tries to manufacture emotional moments with underdeveloped OCs.

But overall I agree with your points, Coates did such a shitty job solidifying his concepts Ridley’s free to change them as they want without much argument that he’s going against the original story. Even that articles’ argument that T’Challa embraced democracy in the previous run is complete BS. He begrudgingly accepted democracy when it was clear the fighting wouldn’t stop unless compromises were made. And outside the scene with the parliament in Avengers of the New World there’s absolutely zero basis to suggest T’Challa was in complete support of the change in government. It’s never addressed after that story lol.

Another case of revisionist history by people who did not understand what was actually put on the page and are just projecting. They WANT T’Challa to accept a reduction in his own power and to blindly follow democracy but that’s not what actually happened or what was ever suggested in the book. Expect a lot of that nonsense as Ridley reinterprets what came before.

Yeah I mean W'Kabi is dead, Taku is still lost in the techno jungle, our boy needs a best friend lol. At this point I would say since the DM took over as spec ops (still doesn't make sense, seems like they should be more secret service) that the HZ become the CIA/DHS group with heavy focus on infiltration. The police force should be those robed dudes with the spears.

Its funny really, because anybody who read the book can tell immediately that never happened. And it's not like the comic is gone, you can easily pick it up and read what happened. Not only did he not accept it, but the Parliament was like "Hey T'Challa, My King help us!" When isht went sideways. They also ignore how when the MA are establishing their democracy, they were being judged jury and executioner in the jabari lands. They were exiling and killing MFers left and right lol. Then had to be threatened with destruction to not side with terrorists (which was Shuri and not T'Challa doing that ya know with her wisdom far beyond T'Challa) then after hiding they want to keep the place. T'Challa was never on board, he just realized that for the good of the nation, he had to make changes

[UltimateTy]

loved #1 from the new run

[chief12d]

That's what I mean, so it's like, who was he deferring to? They mentioned Bast on there too but all bast did was cast blame onto T'Challa when he was like "Yo where were you when all this **** went down?" She tries to blame T'Challa for the empire even though she bounced and then tries to go "Lol no you"

So the person is so far from reality of what actually took place in the book, ontop of their... Description of how Coates weak ass T'Challa is supposedly a step on the right direction as opposed to what came before him with Priest a d Hudlin? The agenda is really obvious and for them to try and flip T'Challa behaving more in character and in continuity (which I remember when people TRIED to claim Coates whiny T'Challa was somehow in character) and acting like it's a bad thing, are going to be on for a rude awakening when they realize that fans enjoy actually rooting for the HERO of the franchise, not the side characters no one cares about

Bast is the worst one. She purposely aided in the expansion of an intergalactic slave state responsible for the untold suffering of trillions for 2,000 years lol. She justified it by just saying “they were Wakandan”. In what universe is that kind of god wise or worthy of taking council from? She only even raised her hand to help out when Killmonger beat her ass and the Orisha basically betrayed her by not doing anything. Between that and letting Doom take vibranium, Bast is damn near a threat to Wakanda herself because her god complex has done far more damage than any hypothetical Wakandan dictatorship. She feeds the very worst of her followers and literally has no loyalty, gods in the MU are universally unwise and garbage with the exception of Thor lol.

I can at least respect the author because he admitted Coates’ take is a deviation from how he’s normally depicted. He went out of his way to point out how his approach to T’Challa was not like what came before and that’s much better than what I think other reviewers will do as the story unfolds. Even pointed out that there may be an audience for Ridley’s more traditional direction because Coates alienated a bunch of longtime fans. He can like Coates all he wants but it’d be a straight up lie to suggest that’s how T’Challa was always depicted.

[Ezyo1000]

It seems like Ridley is already reminding some of the Coates concept.

Under Coates everyone was pretty much on board with Wakanda being democratic. Right now that doesn't seem to be the ccase.

Coates introduced a tribal council that replaced the monarchy and now Ridley replaced that with the parliament and Prime Minister.

Ridley could either choose to pull a Priest and "fix" things from the Coates era the same way that Priest revealed that T'Challa joined the Avengers and became a teacher to spy on them. Or he could ignore most of it. Either fix the Coates concepts or ignore them is good with me.

It just shows just how hollow and weak of a writer Coates was. Everything he did was of some hive mind. EVERYONE was seemingly in agreement with becoming a democracy and it was supposedly this magical fix all, just like EVERYONE was seemingly just cool with rape camps. EVERYONE was cool with putting the MA to death over Killing a tribal leader and EVERYONE was cool with Shuri saying the rape victims should of shut up and died for the glory of Wakanda. EVERYONE was cool with Storm just popping in and becoming a Wakandan god... His concepts were so surface level and basic that it's easy to see why Ridley can come in and change them with little to no issues whatsoever. So much for Coates deeply layed, and cerebral concepts.

[Ezyo1000]

Bast is the worst one. She purposely aided in the expansion of an intergalactic slave state responsible for the untold suffering of trillions for 2,000 years lol. She justified it by just saying “they were Wakandan”. In what universe is that kind of god wise or worthy of taking council from? She only even raised her hand to help out when Killmonger beat her ass and the Orisha basically betrayed her by not doing anything. Between that and letting Doom take vibranium, Bast is damn near a threat to Wakanda herself because her god complex has done far more damage than any hypothetical Wakandan dictatorship. She feeds the very worst of her followers and literally has no loyalty, gods in the MU are universally unwise and garbage with the exception of Thor lol.

I can at least respect the author because he admitted Coates’ take is a deviation from how he’s normally depicted. He went out of his way to point out how his approach to T’Challa was not like what came before and that’s much better than what I think other reviewers will do as the story unfolds. Even pointed out that there may be an audience for Ridley’s more traditional direction because Coates alienated a bunch of longtime fans. He can like Coates all he wants but it’d be a straight up lie to suggest that’s how T’Challa was always depicted.

Really makes you wonder why Wakandans even worship bast in the recent times. Bast is truly a villain currently and I think it would be cool to have a story unfold that she is currently being corrupted Which is why she has been behaving the way she has been. But yeah she basically allowed the ongoing suffering of trillions to go on and only decided to help because her new favorite avatar stole her powers and didn't want to take orders from her.

So she ran and went back to T'Challa with some "Oh my Wonderful champion hemp me!" Then had the balls to say that none of it was her fault because T'Challa sent those people into space, she had no control over what happened, and she was just an innocent bystander/ victim in T'Challas "hubris" to send Wakandans to the stars. But all these characters were clearly wiser than T'Challa, because they are female. If these were male characters then the writer would of been raving about how smart T'Challa was and how badass he was for not letting these idiots destroy Wakanda.

Yes the dude can like Coates take, I don't care. But they need to stop with the revisionist history and projecting

[BlackClaw]

I wonder if Omolola is in on these agents getting killed or if she’s a potential new LI.

[KingNomarch]

Bast is the worst one. She purposely aided in the expansion of an intergalactic slave state responsible for the untold suffering of trillions for 2,000 years lol. She justified it by just saying “they were Wakandan”. In what universe is that kind of god wise or worthy of taking council from? She only even raised her hand to help out when Killmonger beat her ass and the Orisha basically betrayed her by not doing anything. Between that and letting Doom take vibranium, Bast is damn near a threat to Wakanda herself because her god complex has done far more damage than any hypothetical Wakandan dictatorship. She feeds the very worst of her followers and literally has no loyalty, gods in the MU are universally unwise and garbage with the exception of Thor lol.

I can at least respect the author because he admitted Coates’ take is a deviation from how he’s normally depicted. He went out of his way to point out how his approach to T’Challa was not like what came before and that’s much better than what I think other reviewers will do as the story unfolds. Even pointed out that there may be an audience for Ridley’s more traditional direction because Coates alienated a bunch of longtime fans. He can like Coates all he wants but it’d be a straight up lie to suggest that’s how T’Challa was always depicted.

Don't forget that it ends with her fusing with the Nazi ally that tried to ruin Wakanda more than once. Lol I'm still waiting for someone to explain the genius behind Zenzi, her character made no sense and her replacing/becoming Bast was even more ridiculous.

[Ezyo1000]

I wonder if Omolola is in on these agents getting killed or if she’s a potential new LI.

If she wasn't his former friends lover I would say yes. Now? Might be pretty weird hooking up with your dead friends boo.

[Marvell2100]

I wonder if Omolola is in on these agents getting killed or if she’s a potential new LI.

I hope not. If she wasn't already seeing one of T'Challa's close friends who just died then maybe.

That wouldn't be a good look.

[Ezyo1000]

Don't forget that it ends with her fusing with the Nazi ally that tried to ruin Wakanda more than once. Lol I'm still waiting for someone to explain the genius behind Zenzi, her character made no sense and her replacing/becoming Bast was even more ridiculous.

My guess was he was trying to keep her relavent to the mythos and keep her from limbo like Hudlin did for Shuri. Unlike Hudlin, who despite missing on developing her better, he still had a logical character arc for Shuri which lead to her being BP to prevent limbo, at best, Zenzi was a somewhat sympathetic/misguided villain to start. Then Coates had her go full villain, stay full villain, continue to stay full villain, into she makes a completely random and out of the blue heel change and something something something, Zenzi is now Bast.

She should escaped to fight another day, and honestly? Kid bast was more interesting. Atleast in kid form, her logic and reasoning and randomness made sense because she acted like a child

[Tofali]

I wonder if Omolola is in on these agents getting killed or if she’s a potential new LI.

I hope not because I wouldn't trust her ever for forgetting sexy Jhai that quickly.

[Tofali]

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