T'Challa: The Black Panther Appreciation 2021

[Ezyo1000]

Coates when he's invited back to the cookout in a few years

More like

[MindofShadow]

Whatis Bast referring to here? What is that last panel depicting?




"didn't I".... ????

What is that thing behind her? Who is that person floating? I can't tell witht he art? What call back is that supposed to be?


And why does Stelfreeze T'challa look like he need sto up his HSH dose?

[Cville]

Whatis Bast referring to here? What is that last panel depicting?




"didn't I".... ????

What is that thing behind her? Who is that person floating? I can't tell witht he art? What call back is that supposed to be?


And why does Stelfreeze T'challa look like he need sto up his HSH dose?

I thought it was that issue where the went to that water planet. Didnt Eden blown up to planet to destroy a fleet or something?

[DigiCom]

There is a common excuse, particularly from fans of "literary" fiction, that gets dragged out in times like this:

"You just aren't smart enough to understand it!"

In their mind, a good story doesn't NEED things like character arcs, a coherent plot, or a fully-realized setting.

As long as there is plenty of navel-gazing and internal monologue about whatever the writer feels strongly about, it's GENIUS™.

Consider this:

T’Challa began in this series as a disgraced king. He began this arc as a disposed-of slave. He now rises, in valedictory, as an emperor of legend. The path was never easy, never clear: failure after failure repeatedly forced T’Challa to part with his pride. And yet because he’s so adept at parting with pride, because he leads with experiential humility and love, only now can he be the leader so many people will need.

What the writer fails to acknowledge, so enamored are they with showing the pain of their own lives, is that the only reason T'Challa was a disgraced king OR a slave is because of authorial fiat. Coates MADE him that way... just so he could spend five YEARS to put him right back where he started (and where the rest of the Marvel U. assumed he was, all along). A king and a good man.

He imposed weakness on the character to teach him a lesson that the character never needed. Only under TNC's pen has T'Challa EVER said "I never wanted to be king." In nearly EVERY other run the character has had, certainly since 1998, his devotion to duty, the throne, and Wakanda has been at the heart of the character. But no... he had to learn a Lesson™, because Coates couldn't STAND the idea of a black hero who was (and I quote) "awesome, awesome, awesome". He HAD to be flawed. He HAD to be reluctant. He HAD to make poor choices.

Because that's all Coated can write about. People who struggle, and fail.

I mean, look at that final battle again. How is NuMonger defeated?

First, he's "thermal shocked" by Storm & Spectrum. T'Challa does nothing.
That's undercut by Zenzi, because... they still had pages left.
Then, after being distracted by baby Bast, Killmonger rips off the symbiote, Bast GIVES T'Challa a knife, and T'Challa stabs him.

(This is shortly after T'Challa one-shots Tetu with a deux ex lancea, using a never-before seen effect.)

At the end of the book... T'Challa STILL doesn't defeat the villain via his own intellect, physical might, or strength of will. He's handed the victory and told "This was all your fault anyway, and you should feel bad."

But I don't blame the reviewer. Everything I need to absolve him can be found in one line:

It is 2016 and I’ve just bought Black Panther #1, my first comic book.

If all he saw was what Coates depicted, then he never saw how low the character has fallen.

I've been reading comics since1975. I have a much broader standard of comparison.

And from that perspective, I have only two words to say about the "revolutionary" work Ta-Nehisi Coates did on the character:

[Jabare]

I stopped buying the book forever ago, but I have a good deal with the comics store so I can pay attention and also spoilers. There's ways to stay informed and know what's going on without supporting the book

oh I know. I was merely commenting on the choice. I read the first few issues of the run but other than that I get my updates from this thread and the occaisonal Youtube video in my recommends

Jets fans still show up to games. Lol

stronger fans than me let me tell you. But then again I rep the purple and black so I don't know about that life

hey it is what it is

I'll just say

people tend to start commenting about a Coates issue at a certain time pretty consistently.

If you can't figure that out, well then *shrug* lol.

I checked out when the rape camps showed up and didn't go back.

Yeah, I bowed out not too long after that.

[MindofShadow]

I thought it was that issue where the went to that water planet. Didnt Eden blown up to planet to destroy a fleet or something?

Maybe?

lol... this arc man....

If all he saw was what Coates depicted, then he never saw how low the character has fallen.

I've been reading comics since1975. I have a much broader standard of comparison.

I missed the first comic line.

Explains everything.

[Ezyo1000]

There is a common excuse, particularly from fans of "literary" fiction, that gets dragged out in times like this:

"You just aren't smart enough to understand it!"

In their mind, a good story doesn't NEED things like character arcs, a coherent plot, or a fully-realized setting.

As long as there is plenty of navel-gazing and internal monologue about whatever the writer feels strongly about, it's GENIUS™.

Consider this:



What the writer fails to acknowledge, so enamored are they with showing the pain of their own lives, is that the only reason T'Challa was a disgraced king OR a slave is because of authorial fiat. Coates MADE him that way... just so he could spend five YEARS to put him right back where he started (and where the rest of the Marvel U. assumed he was, all along). A king and a good man.

He imposed weakness on the character to teach him a lesson that the character never needed. Only under TNC's pen has T'Challa EVER said "I never wanted to be king." In nearly EVERY other run the character has had, certainly since 1998, his devotion to duty, the throne, and Wakanda has been at the heart of the character. But no... he had to learn a Lesson™, because Coates couldn't STAND the idea of a black hero who was (and I quote) "awesome, awesome, awesome". He HAD to be flawed. He HAD to be reluctant. He HAD to make poor choices.

Because that's all Coated can write about. People who struggle, and fail.

I mean, look at that final battle again. How is NuMonger defeated?

First, he's "thermal shocked" by Storm & Spectrum. T'Challa does nothing.
That's undercut by Zenzi, because... they still had pages left.
Then, after being distracted by baby Bast, Killmonger rips off the symbiote, Bast GIVES T'Challa a knife, and T'Challa stabs him.

(This is shortly after T'Challa one-shots Tetu with a deux ex lancea, using a never-before seen effect.)

At the end of the book... T'Challa STILL doesn't defeat the villain via his own intellect, physical might, or strength of will. He's handed the victory and told "This was all your fault anyway, and you should feel bad."

But I don't blame the reviewer. Everything I need to absolve him can be found in one line:



If all he saw was what Coates depicted, then he never saw how low the character has fallen.

I've been reading comics since1975. I have a much broader standard of comparison.

And from that perspective, I have only two words to say about the "revolutionary" work Ta-Nehisi Coates did on the character:

I mean, basically the majority of people who are worship the book so hard and talking about how ground breaking and great it is can be found in your second quote. They don't really know T'Challa outside Coates run.

They don't know any better or they are so desperate for representation that they will settle for whatever garbage and praise it to high heavens as this legandary run or this great era when the character literally goes in a circle (I have a nice scene from the Solo that perfectly shows how much Coates frakked up this series) and there's literally no elevation.

The character is the same as when he started Which shows no growth, more like dejected resignation.

[Toonstrack]

In their mind, a good story doesn't NEED things like character arcs, a coherent plot, or a fully-realized setting.



What the writer fails to acknowledge, so enamored are they with showing the pain of their own lives, is that the only reason T'Challa was a disgraced king OR a slave is because of authorial fiat. Coates MADE him that way... just so he could spend five YEARS to put him right back where he started (and where the rest of the Marvel U. assumed he was, all along). A king and a good man.

He imposed weakness on the character to teach him a lesson that the character never needed. Only under TNC's pen has T'Challa EVER said "I never wanted to be king." In nearly EVERY other run the character has had, certainly since 1998, his devotion to duty, the throne, and Wakanda has been at the heart of the character. But no... he had to learn a Lesson™, because Coates couldn't STAND the idea of a black hero who was (and I quote) "awesome, awesome, awesome". He HAD to be flawed. He HAD to be reluctant. He HAD to make poor choices.

see i disagree with ALL of this. I'll explain.

Because that's all Coated can write about. People who struggle, and fail.

Thats all main characters in Marvel though... that's literally how they are all written because you need that to maintain a story and keep it interesting. This is a sentiment I see a lot but like... BP was a C tier character at best for majority of his existence. Now? He's a household name. Possibly top 15 recognizable Marvel characters in less than 5 years, especially in the west.

With that kinda recognition COMES the Flaws and all of it because that's literally all marvel even puts out.

Don't believe me? See any other character who has enjoyed a spotlight as a MAIN character in a solo, bigger than he has and longer than he has. If they are still being written, at some point they either, did something terrible, found out some dark secret about their past, found out something they believed in was a lie, made a crucial mistake, got killed off and replaced, etc etc etc. You can't escape that for a character like this.

There is not a writer at Marvel who is going to write this character without flaws poor choices, trials and conflict both internal and external ever again. Hes too big now. Because those things are inherent in a fully realized, leading CHARACTER almost every time. So you cannot really go back stuff like to the original when he wiped the F4 anymore. His stories cannot be that simple any more.

Because you cant make a story out of that. Not for long. You can do that when the character is a support role, one of 6 characters on a team so he's only there to do cool stuff. You can do that with an awesome one shot tie in where the story is is open and shut.. but if you're gonna have a character up there with Iron Man, Thor, Hulk, Spidey with long runs and ongoings those flaws and conflicts are inevitable.

And its happened to all of those characters. All of them have that run that is controversial because it "ruined" the character for a time. The X Men too. DC too. Because its either do that or stop writing that character because you can't think of something else to do, or relegate the character to team books and minis. Again, you can get by when your character is a C tier characters who gets runs that don't generally affect the MU as a whole and are self contained but Black Panther is no longer that. There just isn't any going back to that.

Whenever characters get written like that, they live a very short life in the industry as in, eventually writers run out of things for him to beat and move on to other characters and he gets forgotten or you see him pop up as side stories or job to establish threats. This has happened to characters before. Look at Sentry. Look at Scarlet Witch. Even Wolverine for a few years, when they ended up killing him.

To juxtapose that look what happens to Venom in his most recent run. Venom is competent. Venom wins his fights. The run is great but look what they had to do to pull a story out of the character. Retconned in an abusive father story. Retconned in that his cancer was fake. Retcon in that thus guy had a SON the whole time. Failure. Conflict. Drama. All introduced in when it wasn't there before.

The only character I can think of who has a longevity even approaching most superheroes who DOESNT have these types of "conflict" is Goku. The most one note protagonists of all time, whose "character development" is a new hair color. He has no depth. He has no conflict or arc. His storylines are exactly as I described, which is bas guy shows up, uber powerful, beats everyone else until he beats em. This leads directly into the superman problem which is a bad place for any character to be.

BP shouldn't be Goku, I think we all agree on that. Hes the biggest he has ever been and he's a great character but I think great characters aren't determined by the strength of the guy they beat, its the conflicts they overcome and the full sum of successes and mistakes they make that lead them to that point, thats how they are made into characters people will continue to follow.

And this isn't even intended as a defense of Coates but rather the shift in the treatment of his character and the world he is from which i believe is going to continue. I know most everyone here is for TChalla but no writer is going to ignore the goldmine of stories that come from a fictional sci fi nation. This is why WAKANDA has become so dang front and center. Back when TChalla showed up in Earths Mightiest heroes he was given an episode or two of backstory. After that Wakanda is gonezo and hes back to a support.

Even with Redjacks one shot which was awesome, that story told in that issue, don't you think that could be stretched to a series? Maybe a 3 issue mini. Anything else? I doubt it. Because after you finish that the readers just say "now what? What does he do next?" Do you introduce a new threat and have him take that out in 3 issues too? I just don't think there's enough longevity there.

So yea, Black Panther IS a flawed character now. I dont blame Coates for that because that was always going to be the end result of this massive uptick in popularity. Whether or not he did that WELL, well thats another discussion entirely

[CosmiComic]

I'd say BP was more B-tier in the comics. C is too low.

Anyway, I see what you mean Toonstrack. I think the execution of these ideas hasn't been totally great, and has turned off many fans

[Cville]

Thats all main characters in Marvel though... that's literally how they are all written because you need that to maintain a story and keep it interesting. This is a sentiment I see a lot but like... BP was a C tier character at best for majority of his existence. Now? He's a household name. Possibly top 15 recognizable Marvel characters in less than 5 years, especially in the west.

With that kinda recognition COMES the Flaws and all of it because that's literally all marvel even puts out.

Don't believe me? See any other character who has enjoyed a spotlight as a MAIN character in a solo, bigger than he has and longer than he has. If they are still being written, at some point they either, did something terrible, found out some dark secret about their past, found out something they believed in was a lie, made a crucial mistake, got killed off and replaced, etc etc etc. You can't escape that for a character like this.

There is not a writer at Marvel who is going to write this character without flaws poor choices, trials and conflict both internal and external ever again. Hes too big now. Because those things are inherent in a fully realized, leading CHARACTER almost every time. So you cannot really go back stuff like to the original when he wiped the F4 anymore. His stories cannot be that simple any more.

Because you cant make a story out of that. Not for long. You can do that when the character is a support role, one of 6 characters on a team so he's only there to do cool stuff. You can do that with an awesome one shot tie in where the story is is open and shut.. but if you're gonna have a character up there with Iron Man, Thor, Hulk, Spidey with long runs and ongoings those flaws and conflicts are inevitable.

And its happened to all of those characters. All of them have that run that is controversial because it "ruined" the character for a time. The X Men too. DC too. Because its either do that or stop writing that character because you can't think of something else to do, or relegate the character to team books and minis. Again, you can get by when your character is a C tier characters who gets runs that don't generally affect the MU as a whole and are self contained but Black Panther is no longer that. There just isn't any going back to that.

Whenever characters get written like that, they live a very short life in the industry as in, eventually writers run out of things for him to beat and move on to other characters and he gets forgotten or you see him pop up as side stories or job to establish threats. This has happened to characters before. Look at Sentry. Look at Scarlet Witch. Even Wolverine for a few years, when they ended up killing him.

To juxtapose that look what happens to Venom in his most recent run. Venom is competent. Venom wins his fights. The run is great but look what they had to do to pull a story out of the character. Retconned in an abusive father story. Retconned in that his cancer was fake. Retcon in that thus guy had a SON the whole time. Failure. Conflict. Drama. All introduced in when it wasn't there before.

The only character I can think of who has a longevity even approaching most superheroes who DOESNT have these types of "conflict" is Goku. The most one note protagonists of all time, whose "character development" is a new hair color. He has no depth. He has no conflict or arc. His storylines are exactly as I described, which is bas guy shows up, uber powerful, beats everyone else until he beats em. This leads directly into the superman problem which is a bad place for any character to be.

BP shouldn't be Goku, I think we all agree on that. Hes the biggest he has ever been and he's a great character but I think great characters aren't determined by the strength of the guy they beat, its the conflicts they overcome and the full sum of successes and mistakes they make that lead them to that point, thats how they are made into characters people will continue to follow.

And this isn't even intended as a defense of Coates but rather the shift in the treatment of his character and the world he is from which i believe is going to continue. I know most everyone here is for TChalla but no writer is going to ignore the goldmine of stories that come from a fictional sci fi nation. This is why WAKANDA has become so dang front and center. Back when TChalla showed up in Earths Mightiest heroes he was given an episode or two of backstory. After that Wakanda is gonezo and hes back to a support.

Even with Redjacks one shot which was awesome, that story told in that issue, don't you think that could be stretched to a series? Maybe a 3 issue mini. Anything else? I doubt it. Because after you finish that the readers just say "now what? What does he do next?" Do you introduce a new threat and have him take that out in 3 issues too? I just don't think there's enough longevity there.

So yea, Black Panther IS a flawed character now. I dont blame Coates for that because that was always going to be the end result of this massive uptick in popularity. Whether or not he did that WELL, well thats another discussion entirely

Hes not a flawed character "now", he always was. Coates just picked the wrong flaws and the wrong way to write them.

[DigiCom]

Thats all main characters in Marvel though... that's literally how they are all written because you need that to maintain a story and keep it interesting. This is a sentiment I see a lot but like... BP was a C tier character at best for majority of his existence. Now? He's a household name. Possibly top 15 recognizable Marvel characters in less than 5 years, especially in the west.

Because of the movie, not the bloody comic.

Don't believe me? See any other character who has enjoyed a spotlight as a MAIN character in a solo, bigger than he has and longer than he has. If they are still being written, at some point they either, did something terrible, found out some dark secret about their past, found out something they believed in was a lie, made a crucial mistake, got killed off and replaced, etc etc etc. You can't escape that for a character like this.

But, and here's the key point...

THAT'S NOT GOOD WRITING.

There's a difference between "struggles to overcome obstacles & wins" and "continuously fails to win, and has to be helped by supporting cast members".

There is not a writer at Marvel who is going to write this character without flaws poor choices, trials and conflict both internal and external ever again. Hes too big now. Because those things are inherent in a fully realized, leading CHARACTER almost every time. So you cannot really go back stuff like to the original when he wiped the F4 anymore. His stories cannot be that simple any more.

Because you cant make a story out of that. Not for long. You can do that when the character is a support role, one of 6 characters on a team so he's only there to do cool stuff. You can do that with an awesome one shot tie in where the story is is open and shut.. but if you're gonna have a character up there with Iron Man, Thor, Hulk, Spidey with long runs and ongoings those flaws and conflicts are inevitable.

Moving goalposts. Nobody has said that T'Challa should win all the time without working for it. But for the last two runs, T'Challa has FAILED all the time, no matter what he does. He has to get help from guest stars to defeat his adversary.

ALL THE TIME.

And its happened to all of those characters. All of them have that run that is controversial because it "ruined" the character for a time. The X Men too. DC too. Because its either do that or stop writing that character because you can't think of something else to do, or relegate the character to team books and minis. Again, you can get by when your character is a C tier characters who gets runs that don't generally affect the MU as a whole and are self contained but Black Panther is no longer that. There just isn't any going back to that.

And nobody EVER goes back and says "Hey! Remember that crap run! Let's do more of it!"

Characters thrive DESPITE bad runs, not because of them.

Even with Redjacks one shot which was awesome, that story told in that issue, don't you think that could be stretched to a series? Maybe a 3 issue mini. Anything else? I doubt it. Because after you finish that the readers just say "now what? What does he do next?" Do you introduce a new threat and have him take that out in 3 issues too? I just don't think there's enough longevity there.

So yea, Black Panther IS a flawed character now. I dont blame Coates for that because that was always going to be the end result of this massive uptick in popularity. Whether or not he did that WELL, well thats another discussion entirely

I'll let him answer for himself, but I note that RJ managed to come up with a season's worth of cartoon episodes (and, I'm sure, plans for more) without making T'Challa the sad-sack loser of the Coates run.

Listen, if you like the Coates run, that's fine. But I'm not going to buy this BS that the only way for a character to have longevity is if he has crap runs at times.

That's not how books succeed. That's how they get CANCELED.

[chief12d]

T'Challa was a flawed character before Coates came along lol. The suggestion of anything otherwise speaks to a crucial lack of prior knowledge or a willful rejection of the many stories through the years where T'Challa's flaws result in devastating losses or personal issues. Gillis had T'Challa's long-term thinking lose the faith of the entire nation and get rejected by his god. Wakanda got invaded by an army of white supremacists and nearly lost. Priest had the guy stripped naked and effectively molested by a rogue Dora Milaje partly as a result of keeping his allies in the dark. T'Challa's arrogance and preoccupation with personal honor was one of the primary arcs of Hickman's New Avengers. His underhanded nature caused him several issues during Redjack's Panther's Quest cartoon, the same cartoon where T'Challa gets his ass kicked by Zanda. Even Stan Lee had T'Challa eventually lose his fight with the FF because he didn't even think to account for Wyatt Wingfoot, losing to a regular ol' guy.

T'Challa for the last 2 decades has been a character defined by an extreme, unhealthy amount of paranoia caused by a stolen childhood which results in his tendency to manipulate and lie to even those closest to him. He's one of the most brilliant men on the planet and isn't particularly good at hiding that he thinks he's better than most everyone he encounters. I actually agree with Coates' assessment that T'Challa often feels trapped within his duties to the throne, a concept explored by several writers years before he came on the book.

T'Challa wasn't a paper thin avatar of perfection like when he was initially depicted and there's a very strong argument to be made T'Challa wasn't like that going as far back as the 70s when Killmonger threw his ass over a waterfall (nearly killing him) and T'Challa seriously grappled with a sense of loneliness in a nation he was having trouble identifying with. The Dora were a complicated institution years before Coates came along, Wakandan xenophobia as the bane of their existence was explored in Doomwar and other stories.

Coates showing a T'Challa with flaws and hesitation is not the issue here because that's not new for the character. Anyone thinking that Ridley isn't gonna show T'Challa with flaws and complications is in for a rude awakening but the people who think he's gonna go about it the same way as Coates are probably gonna be just as surprised, because it looks like he's going in the Priest style of showing T'Challa's flaws. Whether "fans" catch that nuance or understand that's always been how the character is written is the question.

There's a difference between writing a flawed but competent character with agency and depicting a weak protagonist carried by his/her supporting cast without a comprehensive understanding of the elements that made the character so popular in the first place. One would assume that there's more to this spectrum than Stan Lee's Goku-esque depiction of T'Challa and whatever nonsense Coates tried to pull.

[Ezyo1000]

Thats all main characters in Marvel though... that's literally how they are all written because you need that to maintain a story and keep it interesting. This is a sentiment I see a lot but like... BP was a C tier character at best for majority of his existence. Now? He's a household name. Possibly top 15 recognizable Marvel characters in less than 5 years, especially in the west.

With that kinda recognition COMES the Flaws and all of it because that's literally all marvel even puts out.

Don't believe me? See any other character who has enjoyed a spotlight as a MAIN character in a solo, bigger than he has and longer than he has. If they are still being written, at some point they either, did something terrible, found out some dark secret about their past, found out something they believed in was a lie, made a crucial mistake, got killed off and replaced, etc etc etc. You can't escape that for a character like this.

There is not a writer at Marvel who is going to write this character without flaws poor choices, trials and conflict both internal and external ever again. Hes too big now. Because those things are inherent in a fully realized, leading CHARACTER almost every time. So you cannot really go back stuff like to the original when he wiped the F4 anymore. His stories cannot be that simple any more.

Because you cant make a story out of that. Not for long. You can do that when the character is a support role, one of 6 characters on a team so he's only there to do cool stuff. You can do that with an awesome one shot tie in where the story is is open and shut.. but if you're gonna have a character up there with Iron Man, Thor, Hulk, Spidey with long runs and ongoings those flaws and conflicts are inevitable.

And its happened to all of those characters. All of them have that run that is controversial because it "ruined" the character for a time. The X Men too. DC too. Because its either do that or stop writing that character because you can't think of something else to do, or relegate the character to team books and minis. Again, you can get by when your character is a C tier characters who gets runs that don't generally affect the MU as a whole and are self contained but Black Panther is no longer that. There just isn't any going back to that.

Whenever characters get written like that, they live a very short life in the industry as in, eventually writers run out of things for him to beat and move on to other characters and he gets forgotten or you see him pop up as side stories or job to establish threats. This has happened to characters before. Look at Sentry. Look at Scarlet Witch. Even Wolverine for a few years, when they ended up killing him.

To juxtapose that look what happens to Venom in his most recent run. Venom is competent. Venom wins his fights. The run is great but look what they had to do to pull a story out of the character. Retconned in an abusive father story. Retconned in that his cancer was fake. Retcon in that thus guy had a SON the whole time. Failure. Conflict. Drama. All introduced in when it wasn't there before.

The only character I can think of who has a longevity even approaching most superheroes who DOESNT have these types of "conflict" is Goku. The most one note protagonists of all time, whose "character development" is a new hair color. He has no depth. He has no conflict or arc. His storylines are exactly as I described, which is bas guy shows up, uber powerful, beats everyone else until he beats em. This leads directly into the superman problem which is a bad place for any character to be.

BP shouldn't be Goku, I think we all agree on that. Hes the biggest he has ever been and he's a great character but I think great characters aren't determined by the strength of the guy they beat, its the conflicts they overcome and the full sum of successes and mistakes they make that lead them to that point, thats how they are made into characters people will continue to follow.

And this isn't even intended as a defense of Coates but rather the shift in the treatment of his character and the world he is from which i believe is going to continue. I know most everyone here is for TChalla but no writer is going to ignore the goldmine of stories that come from a fictional sci fi nation. This is why WAKANDA has become so dang front and center. Back when TChalla showed up in Earths Mightiest heroes he was given an episode or two of backstory. After that Wakanda is gonezo and hes back to a support.

Even with Redjacks one shot which was awesome, that story told in that issue, don't you think that could be stretched to a series? Maybe a 3 issue mini. Anything else? I doubt it. Because after you finish that the readers just say "now what? What does he do next?" Do you introduce a new threat and have him take that out in 3 issues too? I just don't think there's enough longevity there.

So yea, Black Panther IS a flawed character now. I dont blame Coates for that because that was always going to be the end result of this massive uptick in popularity. Whether or not he did that WELL, well thats another discussion entirely

My Dude.... BP was never ever perfect. Ever. He had always been flawed in regards, not trusting his allies fully, using people friends and allies if it will further his plans, this has put him at odds with the avengers plenty of times. And Coates didn't make him a house hold name, that was the MCU. Coates didn't make him a flawed Character, he had his flaws before Coates
Coates literally had him spin on a circle. And tried to retcon his personality. Luckily no one followed on that Because it's not who T'Challa is.

Your trying to claim that T'Challa being badass has no longevity, yet Priest still has the longest solo of BP. And Hudlin still has the most commercially successful run to date. Both of them showed T'Challa as a badass didn't mean he never failed or took Ls, but he was competent, he drove the story, and we explored Wakanda as well.

And comparing Redjacks one shot to a series doesn't make sense because it was a specific event. And he DID do a whole series about T'Challa and Wakanda. Black Panthers quest

[MindofShadow]

T'Challa was a flawed character before Coates came along lol. The suggestion of anything otherwise speaks to a crucial lack of prior knowledge or a willful rejection of the many stories through the years where T'Challa's flaws result in devastating losses or personal issues.

So many of us in here are Priest Panther fans and consider his run the gold standard.

Anyone who comes out and claims those fans want a "perfect unstoppable Black Panther" have never ever ever ever ever read Priest Panther lol. They saw a few scans, maybe read the first arc, and then claimed to read it.

If anything, Hudlin's run had a much more "perfect" Panther until he got comatosed lol. And hell... he sold the best! So can't really fault Hudlin there.

Which is what makes things extra infuriating. People wanna like Coates run? Knock themselves out. People like different things. Hell, I hate QDJ and people in here love her lol.

But don't claim know "know" the character after one run and make wild accusations when you don't know the history. Just be honest with what you like. The Storm fans do this **** too in here lol. You can like somethign without acting like you know everything.

[Ekie]

David Liss (a run most love) wrote a tchalla that had flaws and left the country to examine them. Flaws are not the issue ppl have with Coats