Originally Posted by
SKJoker
Meanwhile, everyone who has seen the movie has come away with stronger impressions of the side characters. It's not "oh, the side characters are good for once!" Almost no one is talking about T'Challa. Not in articles, not in discussion. He's depicted as the main character in pretty much the same way Coates does it.
I mean, crying is rarely the ends to a solution. The man cried when he saw his father in the movie, and when he couldn't kill billions in the comics. Interestingly enough, both scenes were about T'Challa's dedication to Wakanda and ability to be king... I don't find that calling him an ineffective hero for that to be accurate. You realize that comic T'challa cried because the man he looked up to the most (and the rest of his ancestors!) could *command* him to do something that to him was sickening and basically tainted how he views him? His threat to bring Klaue back also proved hollow. Killmonger did it.
T'Challa did attempt to kill Namor. The Black Order threw a wrench into that plan. And Namor himself by... surviving.
No, I'm annoyed that there are obvious parallels - down to the same lines being used - and people aren't catching them.
That's actually not to the level I mean when I talk about T'Challa's diplomacy. That's something you see from many superheroes, including Spider-Man and Thor. Rounding up a former enemy to be a friend isn't the T'Challa-level feats I'm talking about. This is a man that deals with Doom and Namor on a regular basis. We know he can do better on diplomacy alone, not to mention strategic feats.
Meanwhile, the Kimoyo beads from Coates's run are on full display. The force push - also from Coates's run is on full display, being used just as well. Ineffective leadership...? We didn't even see the average Wakandan's reaction. When Killmonger took the throne, he immediately had half of T'Challa's army - the War Dogs at least - loyal to him.
Wakanda wasn't even portrayed as misogynistic in Coates's run. There were terrible places, of course. The entire idea was that T'Challa wasn't paying attention to the areas with the rape camps. Incidentally, this is a source of conflict between Nakia and T'Challa at the beginning of the movie - wanting to do more (for those kidnapped women, for example) vs sitting in the city and maintaining the Wakandan way of life.
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I'm willing to accept that a lot of this is because it's a younger T'Challa. This is definitely not a Priest, Hickman, Liss, or Hudlin Panther. That said, I would have loved to see more of the character himself. He doesn't come off as inspirational - people are loyal to him for the most tenuous of reasons... because they know him personally or because Killmonger is the bad guy. Or, in M'Baku's case, because he spared him. Every other aspect of him is reflected better in another character.
So while ultimately the movie itself is AMAZING... T'Challa leaves a lot to be desired from the moment Klaue escapes onwards. Which is why everyone is talking about how significant everyone else is, and how inspirational they are... yet nothing about T'Challa. I feel like comic book T'Challa would do more to inspire think pieces about black excellence and different shades of black masculinity.
In the movies... Killmonger is interesting commentary on the socio-political climate of race relations in America. Shuri, Okoye, and Nakia are inspiring black girls, showing them wonderful representation of everything they could achieve.
And T'Challa... well, he's a hero that looks like we - black males - do. That's strong, but not as strong as what the other characters do IMO. See, black women are already pursuing education in droves. Intensely dedicated to their future. The women of Wakanda probably reinforce that path for any black girl who came to see the movie. That's strong.