T'Challa: The Black Panther Appreciation 2021

[Klaue's Mixtape]

I knew I was interested in the nature of monarchy, because of the work that [Jonathan] Hickman had done with Wakanda in Fantastic Four, and then in Avengers and New Avengers. I knew I was curious about what happened to Bast and their gods during what was a really cataclysmic period.

So I was kind of interested in the nature of theocracy. There were hints in Hickman’s run of some sort of space program, so I was interested in that. I was interested in lineage and the exploration notion. Some of it was early, and off of previous stuff that I had just read. But a good deal of it came as I went along.

Talk to me about the new characters that you sprinkled out in your run. Changamire in particular fascinates me. In the early part of your run, he is very much in the mold of the activist scholar, political critic. Why was that important for you in the beginning?

I was very interested in the notion of this place being this really advanced monarchy. When we think about Wakanda being advanced, we think about weapons and tools and engineering, but we don’t think about political thought. And it occurred to me that if these people are so smart, aren’t there people here that have thought about other things and considered other things? So that was important.

“Wakanda, is science and wonder, all of it achieved by ensuring your subjects do not ask too many questions,” Changamire tells the Queen, “Wakanda has all the intelligence any advanced society would want, and none of the wisdom that any free society needs,” in Black Panther #4, Marvel Comics (2016).
Queen Mother Ramonda and the scholar Changamire talk in Black Panther #4. Image: Ta-Nehisi Coates, Brian Stelfreeze/Marvel Comics
Believe it or not, I tried, actually, as much as I could, not to invent characters. I was much more interested in what was already there. And so whenever I had an idea, I always tried to look and see, if there was some sort of precedent that I could invoke. And where there wasn’t or where I missed it, I ended up inventing people.

To me, that’s one of the joys of these long-lived superhero characters, is that these threads have been going on for so long that you can loop back to something and make it more meaningful, or just re-contextualize it. I think you did that with Thunderball [a Black, magically empowered member of The Wrecking Crew supervillain team]. This dude was just a C-list villain ... he wasn’t even a C-list villain; he was a henchman of a C-list villain! He struck out on his own a couple of times and it was just mad embarrassing! You took this guy, and it’s like, “OK, what else could there be to him?” And his arc winds up with him being accepted into Wakanda. Why did you care about Thunderball?

[MindofShadow]

IF you are going to copy and paste an article that's been linked moer than once, you an at least make it readable by bolding stuff, bast have mercy

[Klaue's Mixtape]

I was a fan of the Wrecking Crew! They were a big deal in the ’80s! And it probably speaks to the imprint that Secret Wars made on me at a young age. To read that at 9 years old, or however old I was, and notice, Holy shit, there’s a Black guy in this group?! That’s weird! At the time, it was so rare in pop culture, really. So that probably had an impact on me. And then you start reading about him, and he has a very interesting backstory. This guy’s a genius. What’s that about? Look at what they called him, the Black Bruce Banner, that was the thing. And with T’Challa’s intellect, it felt like a natural interface.

Then, the question is, “Well, how come Bruce Banner gets to be Bruce Banner?” Even if he’s carrying a monster inside of him, he still gets the benefit of the doubt in some ways that Eliot Franklin does not. Banner got to reform multiple times.

Exactly. I thought T’Challa would understand that. To me, this actually was an extension of a conversation he has with Shuri at the end of maybe issue #12, I think, which is that he’s going to have to find a way to be king that’s not like everybody that came before him. T’Challa really figures out in #23, and what Storm’s explaining at the end of #25: What does Wakanda mean to people outside of Wakanda? And what does it mean specifically to Black people outside of Wakanda? This is not my idea. This is hinted at in Hudlin’s run, but I wanted to come back to it.

“Here, on this soil,” T’Challa says to a crowd, “we have a saying: ‘Wakanda for Wakandans.’ I still believe that. But I also believe ‘Wakanda’ is more than its soil. And in this world, and many others, ‘Wakandans’ are legion,” Black Panther #23, Marvel Comics (2021).
Image: Ta-Nehisi Coates, Daniel Acuña/Marvel Comics
Using what came before really energizes this character, maybe more than it does for other characters.

Clearly, Wakanda would mean something to those people. And what T’Challa realizes is, what if I expanded the definition of what it meant to be Wakanda? The thing you’ve got to understand is, when I picked up this run, this is a nation that people talk all this shit about ”The Golden City shall not fall!” They alluded to this, in some way or another, as far back as his earliest comics. But, the nation has fallen several times now, or a few times. Bruh, that’s out. That’s gone. And so, with T’Challa, here’s somebody in search of new resources, new places of strength, new reservoirs. And he finds that in people who put some sort of faith or some sort of belief in the idea of Wakanda.

You have that line in issue #25 where he just says, “The miracle is Wakanda.” And I think what’s implicit in that line is the miracle is not something that’s solely his own making, right? It’s a collective effort. One of the nicknames for Wakanda is the Unconquered Realm. I think, despite the times it’s been destroyed, that truism still applies because it’s the spirit of the people that remains unconquered.

That’s what he’s saying in that line, over this beautiful splash by Danny [Acuña]. He said, “Look, it’s here. It’s still here. The miracle’s already happened. Everybody’s here. Everybody’s seeing the Wakanda in them.”

“David, don’t you see?” T’Challa tells the overwhelmed mutant Prodigy, “The miracle is Wakanda.”
Image: Ta-Nehisi Coates, Daniel Acuña/Marvel Comics
One of the things that last arc does explicitly is it makes Wakanda an ancestral homeland for all these Black characters. You put everybody in there. Ironheart is in there. Miles is in there. Both of the Patriots. Tell me about how you justified the structure of all of this to yourself, in terms of ‘this is what the story needs’ but also from a meta perspective, so that they’re not just a bunch of cameos.

You spend a lot of time thinking about people’s powers. It’s like a gaming out a chess match.


I texted you when issue #24 came out and I was like, Yo, this is just a game of D&D.

It is. It really is, literally.

You have Prodigy DMing the war. But also, I felt like that was very experimental structurally. Did you feel like you had the freedom to do that? Like, OK, I’m about to go out, let me just do my shit.

I did, but there’s a Grant Morrison issue of X-Men that I’ll always think about. New X-Men #121. It’s almost all silent, drawn by Frank Quitely, and they’re trying to figure out what Cassandra Nova’s origin is. It’s so beautifully done. And only one thing is said at the end. That was always in the back of my head, and I tried something like that with Ayo a while back, and I thought it worked really well. In these big moments, when you’ve got Danny, you got somebody you know who can really, really do it. I’m just here giving stage direction. Danny’s the actor. Let him act.

I really wanted that issue to belong to him. A lot of this stuff is just fun, man. The whole Spectrum-Storm thing [where they combine their powers], all that shit is just ‘How can I freak this? Oh, what if they come together and do X, Y, and Z? Man, that would look really cool.’ So it was fun, man. It was really, really fun.

Bast, in the form of a tiny child with twin afro puffs.
Image: Marvel Comics
That leads to my next question. What other moments or characters were you happiest to write?

I loved writing Bast as a child.

Making her a kid was a real fun fusion of her different aspects: unknowable, capricious, temperamental. Kids are like that, so are cats and gods.

I had a lot of fun, obviously, writing T’Challa, especially in the opening for Intergalactic Empire. That was just a ball. Obviously the cerebral stuff is really, really important to me. But, the whole sort of pulpy notion of this dude being stripped of memory being in this place and having to get out, it was just fun. That is both the hardest and the easiest stuff to do. It’s the hardest because it’s really hard in terms of setup and figuring out what’s going to happen. It’s the easiest because a lot of times you don’t have to worry about dialogue and that sort of thing, you just got to figure out what actually happens, not what’s being said. Zenzi. I really like Zenzi a lot.


I wanted to ask about her explicitly. In the beginning of your run, she seems like a subversion of a femme fatale, temptress character. But as your run goes on, she’s really I think coming to grips with her own place in the history of this country, right?

I always thought, and this just came to me in the creation [phase], that she had a kind of Loki-ish vibe to her. Not quite a villain, almost above it. She always had this sort of way of being that was above everything. “Oh, we’re going to do this? OK, fine. Let’s go do it.” You know what I mean? Not really terribly emotionally invested, which was sort of a side effect of her powers.

A result of her backstory, too. She’s a survivor of Killmonger’s supervillain campaigns.

Exactly. When it came time to get close to the end, it just felt like it made sense that this union would happen between her and Bast, and that that would be the elevation back to godhood for Bast, who couldn’t do it alone. Because Zenzi is kind of accepted, you know what I mean? This world she came from, [Wakanda’s neighboring fictional nation,] Niganda, that she wasn’t supposed to survive after those experiments. That world is gone. And all I’ve ever thought about is vengeance. And it’s the other version of N’Jadaka, some of which is here in this version, that killed her people. And so, Once this is done, what am I? What can I do? Oh, this looks fun. Let’s try this.

“Mortals. So thick-witted and dense.” Bast says as she and Zenzi are surrounded by earth’s Black superheroes in Black Panther #25, Marvel Comics (2021).
Zenzi and child-Bast, in Black Panther #25. Image: Ta-Nehisi Coates, Daniel Acuña/Marvel Comics
That’s particularly compelling to me because, again, you’ve been writing her as feline and petulant, this horrible combination of cat and a spoiled-ass kid. But I think underlying all of this is the idea that the Wakandans have arguably moved beyond worshiping Bast and the Orisha. So she can’t reclaim her full godhood without somebody believing in her, and that somebody winds up being Zenzi. Their fusion creates this new version of Bast.

[Klaue's Mixtape]

IF you are going to copy and paste an article that's been linked moer than once, you an at least make it readable by bolding stuff, bast have mercy

Normally posters dont respond so soon. My bad thought I'd have time to go back and bold it

There's just too much Coates goodness that puts you, Ekie and Ezyo to shame. I couldnt wait (lol jk..)

[MindofShadow]

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

Which panel? Who is Elliot?

It really isn't one OGN though. Season 1, 2, 3 are pretty distinct.

[Klaue's Mixtape]

Sorry for the over copying/pasting.

IF you want to read the full quotes you can find it here. https://www.polygon.com/interviews/2...ates-interview

[Klaue's Mixtape]

Which panel? Who is Elliot?

It really isn't one OGN though. Season 1, 2, 3 are pretty distinct.

Cant speak for him, but I think he's going off the tone and vibe. Deconstruction lends itself to more graphic novel.

It reminds me of how DC fans (some) hate Snyder cause he's so influenced by The Dark Knight Returns that he used that as the framework for his movies instead of comic history.

[DigiCom]

Elliot Franklin is Thunderball, who we are meant to believe has reformed...

Except he's still a villain in other books.

[chief12d]

Did we already discuss who the villain might be for Ridley’s first arc? Are we getting a revamped antagonist or someone completely new? I’m thinking we’re getting an original villain but he’ll be doing a dive into continuity with the secret T’Challa’s keeping.

And after reading Who Is the Black Panther again a few days ago I’m thinking about how it sucks we never saw Cannibal again. Such an interesting villain for T’Challa to have that nobody did anything with. If Ridley’s doing espionage this run Cannibal would be a wildcard character to throw in there.

[DigiCom]

Did we already discuss who the villain might be for Ridley’s first arc? Are we getting a revamped antagonist or someone completely new? I’m thinking we’re getting an original villain but he’ll be doing a dive into continuity with the secret T’Challa’s keeping.

And after reading Who Is the Black Panther again a few days ago I’m thinking about how it sucks we never saw Cannibal again. Such an interesting villain for T’Challa to have that nobody did anything with. If Ridley’s doing espionage this run Cannibal would be a wildcard character to throw in there.

Insufficient data. It could be anyone from Andrew Forson to Princess Zanda.

[Ezyo1000]

Normally posters dont respond so soon. My bad thought I'd have time to go back and bold it

There's just too much Coates goodness that puts you, Ekie and Ezyo to shame. I couldnt wait (lol jk..)

Indeed Coates puts MoS, Ekie, and myself to shame... In how much he doesn't understand the character and how far off he missed the mark. Narcisse is embarrassing himself on how much he is gushing over Coates. "Dizzying heights" is apparently how high he was when doing the interview

[Ekie]

Did we already discuss who the villain might be for Ridley’s first arc? Are we getting a revamped antagonist or someone completely new? I’m thinking we’re getting an original villain but he’ll be doing a dive into continuity with the secret T’Challa’s keeping.

And after reading Who Is the Black Panther again a few days ago I’m thinking about how it sucks we never saw Cannibal again. Such an interesting villain for T’Challa to have that nobody did anything with. If Ridley’s doing espionage this run Cannibal would be a wildcard character to throw in there.

Just based off that one interview alone it sounds like Ridley has an appreciation for the Tchallas past so I expect a mix of old and new villains. Id really like to see some like Achebe and Slay revamped and id LOVE to see PantherJacks Zanda brought in the mix as well as just a few new creations from Ridley.

[MindofShadow]

Elliot Franklin is Thunderball, who we are meant to believe has reformed...

Except he's still a villain in other books.

Teach Wakanda physics in the morning

Fight Doom in the Evening lol

[DigiCom]

Teach Wakanda physics in the morning

Fight Doom in the Evening lol

Doctor Strange, actually.

Or hang out at a con for criminals:

[Cville]

Did we already discuss who the villain might be for Ridley’s first arc? Are we getting a revamped antagonist or someone completely new? I’m thinking we’re getting an original villain but he’ll be doing a dive into continuity with the secret T’Challa’s keeping.

And after reading Who Is the Black Panther again a few days ago I’m thinking about how it sucks we never saw Cannibal again. Such an interesting villain for T’Challa to have that nobody did anything with. If Ridley’s doing espionage this run Cannibal would be a wildcard character to throw in there.

Cannibal died. He tried to switch with a Skrull Doctor Voodoo and shorted out. He was in Tchallas' cousin up to that point.