T'Challa: The Black Panther Appreciation 2024

[chief12d]

I guess you wouldnÂ’t like the idea of Zanda being a friends with benefits type thing.

Zanda isn’t a political rival because she’s been in exile for years now iirc. If she got with T’Challa (FWB or otherwise) it’s as a rogue princess turned archaeologist, not a head of state with a political agenda at odds with his own.

And speaking of archaeology, with the recent reveal that Sue’s doctorate is in that field I’d love an arc where T’Challa and the Fantastic Four fight the Collectors or something. Zanda should still be a member of the group so it’d be fun to see her dynamic with Sue and other longtime allies. Zanda has potential as a love interest, she’d push T’Challa and the franchise in a fun new direction if they capture her personality well.

[Ezyo1000]

Ewing wrote the best modern Storm epic in years and I don’t think T’Challa was brought up once, we don’t gotta do that. And a little jab in a bad Wolverine ongoing is not stopping T’Challa from getting with Monica or Zanda.

The Storm/T’Challa dynamic is about Black Panther writers using it to deconstruct T’Challa’s failures as a person, hero, and king (just look at Ridley and Coates). That’s why it sucks, it only exists to show T’Challa mess up and be wrong because writers focus on the “leaders of different peoples” trope and create conflicts that Storm will never be written to lose because we all know why. It’s why Coates never had Ororo be confronted about AvX the way T’Challa was and why Ridley has him groveling on his feet after she physically attacked him.

T’Challa’s next love interest should not be a leader or political rival. Like Storm herself, he needs a love interest who takes backseat in the pair because there’s something more important than either of them, Wakanda. I never understood this idea T’Challa needs an “equal” in romance (or what that even means). He’s the king, the ultimate representative of his god, and the one with his name in the title. Everyone in Wakanda should be secondary in his book, including his love interest. Making them some ruler in their own right is not compelling and a misunderstanding of the core appeal of T’Challa himself.

I think a Lot that has political pull is completely fine, but I think they need to be home grown, like say, RJs Zanda. I think having someone with comparable strength either political or physical is what needs to happen. At it's base T'Challa and Storm work well as a power couple. Storm powerset wise is stronger than T'Challa, but he holds far greater political, technological, strategic power. That's what made them work well.

So Zanda could work or someone could play with the idea from the BP book and have Basts daughter take an interest in T'Challa

[Username taken]

I've been doing a "backward re-read" of my BP stuff.

Just going through my Priest collection. It's night and day compared to the way the character is depicted today.

Honestly, it almost feels like one is reading a completely different character. The last few years of 616 BP have been...

[KingNomarch]

Very few writers have captured T’Challa the way that Priest wrote him in the 20 years since his run ended. The craziest part is that Priest didn’t even originally like him and was upset that he was offered BP. From his design to character his T’Challa will always be my favorite

[Username taken]

Very few writers have captured T’Challa the way that Priest wrote him in the 20 years since his run ended. The craziest part is that Priest didn’t even originally like him and was upset that he was offered BP. From his design to character his T’Challa will always be my favorite

Very true.

I loved the gold on the outfit and the way Texeira drew his eyes was just intimidating.

Priest wrote T'Challa as a guy with "main character" energy (interestingly, I think the only other writer that captured that is Jason Aaron).

[Quill-Han-Vos]

(interestingly, I think the only other writer that captured that is Jason Aaron)

Which time (the Black Panther: Secret Invasion tie-in with a very badass T'Challa or his more recent Avengers run) ?

[Emperorjones]

Odd, it almost seems to suggest an aversion to see a Black hero win, which is what all heroes are designed to do at some point. Joking aside, are we seeing a display of a lack of cultural awareness to the point of not adding the right amount of nuance for writing an African warrior king, with superior intelligence and highly capable hero. Do we feeling leadership on guiding the main BP book just perpetual victim of a lazy kind of racism?

I've long thought that Black comic book heroes, as well as many Black characters in entertainment, are written through a racial filter. I don't think it's always necessarily intentional, but there's certain expectations, or things that make the creators or their employers comfortable, and that usually results in less developed and less powerful Black characters. I don't think there's one standard when it comes to white and Black heroes. There are allowances given particularly for white male characters in comics that aren't for Blacks, male or female. While even white male characters get deconstructed, I don't think major white characters have to deal with sustained deconstruction, and some have different series running at the same time so there might be deconstruction in one series, and if you don't like that, like say what's happening to Batman in the Batman book, you have Detective Comics to read, or a million other Black books. It's much harder to find alternatives if someone is writing a subpar T'Challa in his headlining title.

[Emperorjones]

Very true.

I loved the gold on the outfit and the way Texeira drew his eyes was just intimidating.

Priest wrote T'Challa as a guy with "main character" energy (interestingly, I think the only other writer that captured that is Jason Aaron).

I need to pay more attention to Aaron's BP stories. You don't think Hudlin wrote T'Challa with "main character" energy?

By the way, I also really liked Priest's T'Challa. That's the best version of him that I've read. I got my quibbles here and there, but overall, and especially compared to all that came after, Priest is still the one. Hudlin is a close second.

[Username taken]

I need to pay more attention to Aaron's BP stories. You don't think Hudlin wrote T'Challa with "main character" energy?

By the way, I also really liked Priest's T'Challa. That's the best version of him that I've read. I got my quibbles here and there, but overall, and especially compared to all that came after, Priest is still the one. Hudlin is a close second.

Yeah, I didn't phrase my original point well.

I was speaking more in recent times.

[Username taken]

Which time (the Black Panther: Secret Invasion tie-in with a very badass T'Challa or his more recent Avengers run) ?

Both of them.

Aaron has always written an unapologetically badass T'Challa.

[Ezyo1000]

Very true.

I loved the gold on the outfit and the way Texeira drew his eyes was just intimidating.

Priest wrote T'Challa as a guy with "main character" energy (interestingly, I think the only other writer that captured that is Jason Aaron).

I honestly think that Hudlin did a better job of capturing the main character energy than Priest. Only because we didn't really get T'Challas thoughts and it was other people retelling what happened, T'Challa felt more like a heavy presence with Priest than main character energy, which maybe sound's funny to say as I think they ARE different. That being said o prefer Priests design over Hudlins. The only design on par with priests was Ewings ultimates

[KingNomarch]

God can we please go back to T’Challa looking like this. I wished they could’ve kept Texeira on as the artist longer and even though it won’t happen, I want the next artist for the main title to go back to this design

[XJlock]

[butterflykyss]

Hey BK, The Alpha Flight program was in effect before the events depicted in the image.

The Incursions still occurred, but T'Challa restored the universe to the the point prior to the first Incursion wave happening. That was part of the reason why he started the Alpha Flight program

Hey my friend!!! Thanks for the clarification!!

lol that panel always make me laugh both had to have that end of the world “Adult time”

right nothing wrong with that.

Exactly.

Dude is just a villain.

Black Twitter tried to make him more than that. But he's just a villain lol.

Ain't no different than how White Twitter had to think Loki was sucha nice guy (pre tv show). Despite the fact he grew up as royalty when he should have been dead. But "woe his me his brothers shadow"... naw he's a villain lol.



Shuri died in hickmans run basically committing suicide charging Proxima after T'challa/Shuri/HZ tried to infiltrate

Shuri mentally broke and decided to have a warriors death/suicide and let T'challa go save the world.

Thanks to you as well fir clarification here!!

[Frontier]

God can we please go back to T’Challa looking like this. I wished they could’ve kept Texeira on as the artist longer and even though it won’t happen, I want the next artist for the main title to go back to this design

I prefer T'Challa with hair though (and not facial).