On comic book round-up an aggregator you can see that KIB got three 10 from reviewers, some idiot gave it a 4.0(2 out of 5 their site) which lets me know never to go their site again
https://comicbookroundup.com/comic-b...lack-panther-1
Coates is a high profile pick, You are unknowingly asking for Coates again with what you are saying. Just give me a small name who love the property and the medium of comics like Redjack. You can tell when a person loves and understand the character they are working on.
Also you can tell when a person is not just content to tell remixes of stories that came before but add on new pieces to the Mythos, Watch RJ Black Panther cartoon, KIB BP or Vixen you can see someone who wants to build the world up and add on to world. Just in this book he added the Hand of Bast and Crodile chick leaving the mythos better than before.
Last edited by Killerbee911; 02-13-2021 at 12:06 AM.
BP King in black is great. A spark of optimism when most things Black Panther related feel me with dread, disappointment and apathy. It's so weird that there are a lot of writers that know how to write T'challa and Coates was never one of them.
Both of these posts make the same error, IMO. Coates's problem was never that he hated the character (although it did inform his creative choices). One of the (arguable THE) best runs on the character was by a writer who didn't care for how T'Challa was portrayed, and chose to use his run to turn the character into someone he DID like.
Coates's problem is that he's bad at writing genre fiction. He thinks lyrical language and Important Ideas™ about race & gender are a viable replacement for a coherent plot and well-rounded characters. For example, he wasted half an issue showing the villain vogue-ing while putting a Henry Dumas poem in the narration (one some fans STILL think he wrote because of how he hid the attribution), and do I even have to bring up the Space Empire plot?
As far as I can determine, Ta-Nehisi Coates is truly passionate about the wrongs he believes needs righting. But comics are not the best medium for him to fight for those causes, because he's crap at writing them. And the fans are the ones that suffer.
I was very specific with my words. I said RJ set the standard, I don't want a safe choice, safe as in they tell a generic story that is meant to be nothing more then just a safe "tried and true" type story like say, Klaw attacks Wakanda and is soundly beaten by T'Challa. Again I said RJ has reset the standard back to where it used to be
The next creative team AT MINIMUM needs to match KiB in how it portrays T'Challa, in Story telling, in how he interacts with his supporting cast, how he operates etc etc. I want RJ or someone who has the same passion and love for the character like RJ and is willing to go above and beyond to tell the best BP stories and elevate T'Challa to new heights.
Btw I saw that review you were talking about.. that person was all over the place. It was actually pretty clear they know very little about the BP franchise. Probably only exposed to the MCU and Coates work based on what they say, which is a hot mess
I wasn't trying to imply Coates hated the character, I am just saying there is a difference when some who love the comic genre is at the helm. There is a difference when someone who loves concept enough to put in the small details like with that crocodile chick. I forget who was the exact person and movie it was but the general point there was a writer who actually loves and grow up on comics on Hollywood comic book movie set and several times in his experience he was able to go hey you can use this guy or hey we have access to this character to this character to fill the role they were talking about.
I am not one of those who takes shots at Coates I understood who he was and I understood what Marvel was trying to in hiring a person like him. The only thing will say that is negative I am pretty Coates himself would probably wish the person who has wrote all these issues, Black Panther and Captain America issues was able to take over at the beginning. Anyways moving on I know this topic is going to go an interesting place.
Almost forgot I am not saying you have to love or know the character to write it well either, they could be several approaches that work.
@DigiCom
Exactatiously!!!
Lord Ewing *Praise His name! Uplift Him in song!* Your divine works will be remembered and glorified in worship for all eternity. Amen!
Agreed EZ, that's a crazy levels of trolling, and down right trifling to let the world see so much of how T'Challa should be done. Only for them to pick another fake, weak woke writer with a screwed up agenda. Hell there really is no justification to even released the remainder of Coates fecal surprises!
Black Panther Discord Server: https://discord.gg/SA3hQerktm
T'challa's Greatest Comic Book Feats: http://blackpanthermarvel.blogspot.c...her-feats.html
Coates didn't do his homework. He saw "Black Panther, King of Wakanda, an African nation. A man surrounded by the Dora Milaje -female bodyguards". And then he took every negative trope and inference and imposed his own biases. He elevated the female characters because men were useless to him.
The men were misogynistic and the women were freedom fighters and liberators. If he had read any of the prior Panther stories he would have seen that women were some of the most powerful characters in BP lore not in spite of men but because Wakanda took the best of it's society. And if he did read the history of BP and still was determined to turn Wakanda in to a feminist vs misogynist society, then it's blatant disregard for what came before him. He didn't care.
I don’t have an issue seeing T’Challa handle real world political issues and exploring social commentary, contrary to what many would have non-BP readers believe, Coates was not the first writer to explore these ideas with the character. The issue is T’Challa was turned into the primary vessel of criticism and not given the personality or competence to rise above the transparent desire to deconstruct the mythos from a gender and racial lens.
Coates sees the character of T’Challa as irredeemably flawed and problematic, he’s wealthy, intelligent, straight, and owns it. As Marvel2100 and Digicom have pointed out, it leads to Coates’ political values overriding his willingness to commit to a well-paced, coherent plot (as that’s all he brought to the table since he had no experience in fiction). He doesn’t know how to elevate T’Challa because he thinks the character is emblematic of the problems both within and outside the black community and can only rely on political allegory and changes to established lore to push the story along, making for atrocious character dynamics and dialogue.
Does Coates like T’Challa? Definitely not in the way most fans of him do. Where most of us see T’Challa as the solution to many of the ills Coates sees in the world, he believes that at best T’Challa is unknowingly complicit in the suffering and oppression of others. At worst he’s part of the problem. It’s why you see blatant mischaracterization like him meeting with racist dictators to put down a rebellion or ignoring obvious alien slavery for years just because the slavers were Wakandan. Coates doesn’t believe T’Challa is a purely good man (which I agree with) but he instead sees him as a meek villain who works best when played up against more compelling and heroic side characters.
Last edited by chief12d; 02-13-2021 at 08:14 AM.
Black Panther Discord Server: https://discord.gg/SA3hQerktm
T'challa's Greatest Comic Book Feats: http://blackpanthermarvel.blogspot.c...her-feats.html
I cosign this statement.
I had pretty much given up on comics, Marvel, & have been mad with the MCU to some extent due to how Black panther is being handled ( which is why i haven't posted in a long time).
Black Panther: King in Black sparked my interest in Black Panther ( & to be honest comics) again. It is sad it took this long ( since Rise of the Black Panther) to see T'Challa & Wakanda written in a positive light!
Facing strong challenges but meeting them head on. Coates should have infused that part of Black/African History into the Black Panther lore.