T'Challa: The Black Panther Appreciation 2021

[Dboi654]

Lol, I don't even feel the need to pile on, and points and observations being made are just all at once. Poignant, funny, and sad. No lies being told, and and no "F's" being given! ...Coates is dead, Long live Ridley!

Don't speak too soon before you get disappointed lol

[MindofShadow]

Coates had a good run imo. (yall come around in time)

However, hopefully, Ridley is less divisive so everyone can enjoy it.

Eh, no ones really come around to Doom War.

I don't think many long term fans will come around to be honest.

It seems the people who really really really really like the run are generally newer fans (hickman on, MAYBE), people who just like TNC in general, or Storm fans.

It'll be interesting to see how the newer fans who like Coates run will react if Ridley's run is more like "classic" T'challa. Will the bristle at a more.. competent/aggressive/not mopey T'challa and no longer enjoy the character? Or will it change how they view Coates run retroactively? WE will see.

[Cville]

Eh, no ones really come around to Doom War.

I don't think many long term fans will come around to be honest.

It seems the people who really really really really like the run are generally newer fans (hickman on, MAYBE), people who just like TNC in general, or Storm fans.

It'll be interesting to see how the newer fans who like Coates run will react if Ridley's run is more like "classic" T'challa. Will the bristle at a more.. competent/aggressive/not mopey T'challa and no longer enjoy the character? Or will it change how they view Coates run retroactively? WE will see.

Most of the time, you hand someone a Priest book and that happens. lol

[CosmiComic]

I'd like him to be more competenta and confident, but not necesarily aggressive. I don't really like when heroes are pointlessly aggressive or confrontational

[Toonstrack]

Let's test that theory.

Issue #1:

Zenzi, who has never appeared outside of his work, and is off the board as of issue #25.

Issue #2:

The Taifa Ngao, which is just a new name for a concept that's existed since at least the Priest era.
Hodari. Has actually appeared fairly often. So that's one.
Akili. Has only appeared in Coates' work. Has no personality. But I'll give it to you anyway.
Thandiwe & Mbali: Prisoners in a rape camp. Not exactly "supportung cast"
Lord Mandla: Killed in his second appearance.
Changamire: Has never appeared outside of Coates work. But still, 3.

Issue #3

Tetu: Never appeared outside of Coates' work. Also unusuable.
"Mother": We're never told what she IS. So not usable.
Abena: Used three times, as a generic character.

Issue #4:

No new characters.

Issue #5:

Kwabena Ware. Appeared 4 times.
A bunch of dictators for T'Challa to ask about how to be a better king.

Issue #6:

No new characters.

So, if I want to be GENEROUS, Coates created Hodari, Akili, Changamire, and Mother. Only Hodari has been used outside of the book (or his Cap run).

He also created two villains with ill-defined powers, and made them unusable after his run.

I get the feeling you don't actually KNOW who Coates created, and who he simply reused. But even at the most generous listing, it's hardly 12 new, viable characters. Mostly, they are just names & faces giving exposition.

And yet, do 12 characters get introduced on a new spidey run? A new iron man run? Thor? Even minor ones? Hardly. Those characters have SOLID supporting casts. Rock solid. So they don't need them.

It is clear that marvel and Coates agrees that what the character had to work with pre 2016 wasn't good enough. The run expanded the face of wakanda and its lore to a massive degree. Down to these sorts of things. A lot of these characters can be used in future stories even if they werent now, just like every other support character.

But im fine with leaving this discussion as is. A lot of people aren't ready yet to judge Coates run definitely and as a whole. The wounds are fresh and the passion is still there. I think over time a reevaluation will occur, but tike will tell. The run is far from perfect but I like a lot of what was done. All I will say is again, loook at what the other avengers got put through these last few years and you'll realize it could have been a LOT worse.

[Cville]

I'd like him to be more competenta and confident, but not necesarily aggressive. I don't really like when heroes are pointlessly aggressive or confrontational

We've been saying that since issue six or so of the first arc. lol

[Cville]

And yet, do 12 characters get introduced on a new spidey run? A new iron man run? Thor? Even minor ones? Hardly. Those characters have SOLID supporting casts. Rock solid. So they don't need them.

It is clear that marvel and Coates agrees that what the character had to work with pre 2016 wasn't good enough. The run expanded the face of wakanda and its lore to a massive degree. Down to these sorts of things. A lot of these characters can be used in future stories even if they werent now, just like every other support character.

But im fine with leaving this discussion as is. A lot of people aren't ready yet to judge Coates run definitely and as a whole. The wounds are fresh and the passion is still there. I think over time a reevaluation will occur, but tike will tell. The run is far from perfect but I like a lot of what was done. All I will say is again, loook at what the other avengers got put through these last few years and you'll realize it could have been a LOT worse.

That's because most of the support cast were dead or Coates chose not to use them. lol

[4sake Baned]

And yet, do 12 characters get introduced on a new spidey run? A new iron man run? Thor? Even minor ones? Hardly. Those characters have SOLID supporting casts. Rock solid. So they don't need them.

It is clear that marvel and Coates agrees that what the character had to work with pre 2016 wasn't good enough. The run expanded the face of wakanda and its lore to a massive degree. Down to these sorts of things. A lot of these characters can be used in future stories even if they werent now, just like every other support character.

But im fine with leaving this discussion as is. A lot of people aren't ready yet to judge Coates run definitely and as a whole. The wounds are fresh and the passion is still there. I think over time a reevaluation will occur, but tike will tell. The run is far from perfect but I like a lot of what was done. All I will say is again, loook at what the other avengers got put through these last few years and you'll realize it could have been a LOT worse.

Haaaaaaahhhh It’s been a long day at my 1st job & about to head to my 2nd in few I greatly appreciated the laugh..

[4sake Baned]

That's because most of the support cast were dead or Coates chose not to use them. lol

Many of TNC fans have alomost zero knowledge on what/who BP/Wakanda is as a concept b4 TNC ( really have zero interest of learning) & a lot of TNC fans trying to backed up there lack of understandable with false info or in some cases just argue joyfully with arguments either lacking knowledge or simply being intellectually dishonest don’t waste you time my brother..

[Ezyo1000]

And yet, do 12 characters get introduced on a new spidey run? A new iron man run? Thor? Even minor ones? Hardly. Those characters have SOLID supporting casts. Rock solid. So they don't need them.

It is clear that marvel and Coates agrees that what the character had to work with pre 2016 wasn't good enough. The run expanded the face of wakanda and its lore to a massive degree. Down to these sorts of things. A lot of these characters can be used in future stories even if they werent now, just like every other support character.

But im fine with leaving this discussion as is. A lot of people aren't ready yet to judge Coates run definitely and as a whole. The wounds are fresh and the passion is still there. I think over time a reevaluation will occur, but tike will tell. The run is far from perfect but I like a lot of what was done. All I will say is again, loook at what the other avengers got put through these last few years and you'll realize it could have been a LOT worse.

Coates introduced Characters that weren't needed because there were already existing Characters that filled those roles. He basically created mouthpieces to spout his agenda an and none of those Characters matter much outdoor of maaaaaybe Hodari as he got use outside of Coates book.

I think people are thinking Coates did some massive overhaul or laid more ground work then he actually did. All he really did was name a few cities and create a concrete location on a map for where Wakanda is. The golden city, Necropolis, a Wakandan flage, all of that existed before Coates got on the book.

I think it's funny how people keep saying that there's going to be some great reevaluation and will come around to Coates. Of you like Coates, more power to you, but long time and hardcore fans of T'Challa aren't going to come around. People said the same thing about Doomwar. That was over a decade ago, it's still not looked at fondly by fans and until Coates it was considered the worst showing of BP and Wakanda.

Alot of us have been saying this since issue 1 of season 1 that this story is bad on a fundamental level. Ignoring that it's a BP book or a superhero book and strictly looking at it from a fictional storytelling view, it's clear Coates is not good at writing fiction.

It's just magnified 100x when he applies these poor fictional writing skills to a long established franchise that has lots of continuity and Character traits that he straight up ignores bin favor of molding the Characters traits and actions to for his story rather than the other way around.

And yes thing's could always be worse, T'Challa could of been killed by some OC Z Lister and Ayo and Aneka take over Wakanda as the new leaders. However, Coates and his pals burned alot of goodwill and heavily stunted the growth of T'Challa to a bigger presence on the MU Comics. The fact that only stelfreeze aesthetics and ideas and the names of Wakandan cities are the only things referenced from Coates run tells of the impact or "legacy" Coates left.. Which isn't much

[Dariel81]

Coates BP is one big graphic novel that's how I'm gonna look at it.

I still think Coates BP has one if the greatest BP panels ever.
The Dialogue between Elliot and Tchalla

[CosmiComic]

We've been saying that since issue six or so of the first arc. lol

Hopefully that'll happen going forward.

[Klaue's Mixtape]

Evan Narcisse: I want to start with the hardest thing first: I know that you are aware of the criticisms that there have been of your run, at least aware of some of them. How do you process them?

Ta-Nehisi Coates: I’m very emotional about how it ended, very emotional about it ending. I think everybody wants their work to be ... they want people to receive it kindly. But I have to tell you, having dealt with the response to Between the World and Me, having dealt with the response to We Were Eight Years in Power, having dealt with what I expect will be the response to Superman, there’s just no world where you get to do big things — and you’re privileged to do to the kind of things that I’ve been privileged to do — and you don’t get people who voice criticism that you don’t really agree with. That just doesn’t exist. No one gets to be universally beloved. I wrote the book. I had a great time writing the book. I learned so much writing the book.

That feeds into the next question that I wanted to ask you. What would you have done differently in issue one, knowing what you know now?

What would I have done differently? I mean, I don’t know. I can tell you what’s wrong.

Let’s go there.

There are probably too many people [in that issue], I guess. There’s probably too much going on. I’m hesitating on that, though, because if I don’t do those things [early on], then I don’t get better. I don’t learn. It’s funny, because I just got the lettering draft of the last issue, and honestly, there are probably as many, or if not more, people as there were in issue 1, even though I said that. [laughs]

Is the ending that you wrote for issue #25 the ending you had in your head all along?

No, absolutely not. I didn’t even have the Intergalactic Empire arc in my head all along. No. Wait, wait, wait, that’s not true. I’m sorry. I thought you meant the absolute, absolute ending down to the last page. No, not the last page, but the ending for T’Challa I had pretty early on.

Is the ending that you wrote for issue #25 the ending you had in your head all along?

No, absolutely not. I didn’t even have the Intergalactic Empire arc in my head all along. No. Wait, wait, wait, that’s not true. I’m sorry. I thought you meant the absolute, absolute ending down to the last page. No, not the last page, but the ending for T’Challa I had pretty early on.

[4sake Baned]

Coates introduced Characters that weren't needed because there were already existing Characters that filled those roles. He basically created mouthpieces to spout his agenda an and none of those Characters matter much outdoor of maaaaaybe Hodari as he got use outside of Coates book.

I think people are thinking Coates did some massive overhaul or laid more ground work then he actually did. All he really did was name a few cities and create a concrete location on a map for where Wakanda is. The golden city, Necropolis, a Wakandan flage, all of that existed before Coates got on the book.

I think it's funny how people keep saying that there's going to be some great reevaluation and will come around to Coates. Of you like Coates, more power to you, but long time and hardcore fans of T'Challa aren't going to come around. People said the same thing about Doomwar. That was over a decade ago, it's still not looked at fondly by fans and until Coates it was considered the worst showing of BP and Wakanda.

Alot of us have been saying this since issue 1 of season 1 that this story is bad on a fundamental level. Ignoring that it's a BP book or a superhero book and strictly looking at it from a fictional storytelling view, it's clear Coates is not good at writing fiction.

It's just magnified 100x when he applies these poor fictional writing skills to a long established franchise that has lots of continuity and Character traits that he straight up ignores bin favor of molding the Characters traits and actions to for his story rather than the other way around.

And yes thing's could always be worse, T'Challa could of been killed by some OC Z Lister and Ayo and Aneka take over Wakanda as the new leaders. However, Coates and his pals burned alot of goodwill and heavily stunted the growth of T'Challa to a bigger presence on the MU Comics. The fact that only stelfreeze aesthetics and ideas and the names of Wakandan cities are the only things referenced from Coates run tells of the impact or "legacy" Coates left.. Which isn't much

Preach, My brother preach only thing TNC truly made problems.. brought up nonexisting issues and problems created none needed fixes that were problematic themselves to those said problems. For the most part and then added unnecessary and irrelevant trash characters to fill space any writer worth his salt would’ve researched and saw they were actual true characters already that fit the mold & mix but when writing to trash a concept he it’s needed to create radomdos & recon then to use what already there because those already established characters being a mouthpiece for the trash agenda that he was spewing would not work within story without having reconing like he did to Aneka. Just laziness because when he wanted to research A concept I.e storm & random other X-men he surely put his full effort into it. This why I’m in favor of killing every single of those characters he made & the trash angels aswell. ima feel that way today, tomorrow, next week next month, next year, 10 years from now, 20 years form now & so on.

[Klaue's Mixtape]

I think the way you’ve written T’Challa has been in line with his aggregate personality throughout all the different writers. He’s always been reluctant. To me, he’s always been the character who thinks, I wish I didn’t have to do this, but I actually have to. And sometimes other people have to tell him that. So do you feel like T’Challa was reluctant to interrogate his own relationship to institutional power throughout your run?

Definitely. And this probably goes back to your first question. I think there’s a desire for whatever reason to see a version of T’Challa that is always ahead of the opposition and is never really in any sort of danger. Man, the different thing about comic books — and legacy characters, especially — is that people really live into them. They really, really do, in a way that I didn’t understand at first. That wasn’t really my relationship to comics coming up. I mean, I had my favorite characters, but my attachment was different.

After I got the gig and went back to read older stories, I was mostly interested in T’Challa, because it really felt like this was a character who had been born into royalty but really didn’t want to be royal. That wasn’t his thing. He had an adventurous spirit, he traveled, he was constantly leaving Wakanda. Going off to college, joining the Avengers, and exploring other places, even though he was born in the most advanced country in the world. This was a guy who was in many ways kind of a rolling stone, and yet duty called him back to home. That’s the preeminent conflict all through the entire run.

I think it goes deeper, too, when you consider what his childhood was probably like. The minute T’Chaka dies, he knows that duty’s going to be thrust upon him. So his childhood was one of having to prepare for that mantle from the time he was a little kid. And you know what it’s like when you tell a kid, “You have to do something,” and they have no choice about it. They don’t want to do it. And some of that probably informs his adult personality. In terms of T’Challa interrogating his own relationship to power, one of the deep ironies of where you leave him is, he comes into even more power. Was that something you knew was going to be a beat for the ending?

Yeah, pretty early on I knew that. I can’t remember when, but I was pretty clear that he wasn’t going to get out.

“I intended none of this,” T’Challa says, “I never wanted to be king. And now I shall die an emperor.” Black Panther #25, Marvel Comics (2021).
T’Challa and Storm in Black Panther #25. Image: Ta-Nehisi Coates, Brian Stelfreeze/Marvel Comics
Do you think he’s in the same emotional place with regard to his responsibilities?

No, I don’t think so. And that probably was the significance of Storm for me. In many places, Storm is helping him work through that, because I feel like she has some sense of all of the conflicts that come with having this dual identity. You’re born and, at a very early age, you’re thought to be a god to your people. You’re a mutant, and you have to be responsible for what is the flagship team for an entire nation. Storm’s always trying to balance all of that. I think I’ve said this before. I wasn’t one of the people that was a fan of that [Black Panther/Storm] relationship. But again, this goes back to a very different interaction I had with the comic books, I guess. It really didn’t matter to me that I wasn’t a fan of it.


It happened. You know what I mean? And so what I was left to deal with was, OK, so what’s here? And so I think obviously a lot of people who are fans of the relationship will probably be happy that they’ll end up together for now. Who knows what will happen? But that wasn’t the reason I did it. If I’m going to have to carry this, if he’s going to have to carry this, it really helps to have somebody who has some understanding of what that means.

Throughout Storm’s publishing history, there have been these moments where she’s like, “I wish I could just give it up. I wish I didn’t have to be —”

Very much. Yes.

“— the Earth mother, goddess, team leader.” Storm is rarely portrayed as carefree because she has all that weight on her. I’m struggling to think of one carefree moment outside of the occasional X-Men softball game. I think it’s really interesting that you took something that you didn’t like, their marriage, and found a way to make it work for you.

For me, it made sense to look at it that way.

Storm smashes free of a rockfall in a flare of lightning. “Let this be the hour when gods again stalk the land,” says an off-panel voice.
I
Because of the work you’ve done outside of comics, or more specifically, the perception of the work you’ve done outside of comics, people expected a cerebral exploration of the Wakanda mythos. And you kind of joked about that when you were still on Twitter in the run-up to the first issue. But I feel like what’s really been the hallmark of your run are emotional epiphanies for the characters about themselves, about their relationship to other people, about Wakanda as an idea. Did you start out with those moments as destinations, or did they reveal themselves to you as you pursued other storytelling goals?