MTV: Marvel's Black Panther Has To Be Twice As Good If It's Going To Succeed

[The S0/\/\@7ic Si/\/\[]Dl370n]

Sad, but unfortunately true.

http://www.mtv.com/news/2880098/marv...ng-to-succeed/

[XPac]

I don't think it needs to be twice as good to suceed... the comic seems to be doing just fine and I think at this point pretty much all the movies will be sucessful.

But becoming another Spider-Man is another matter entirely... getting to the level of a Spider-Man or a Batman or a Superman is capturing lightning in a bottle.

[Hypestyle]

merchandising is a start. There needs to be more. T-shirts, mugs/cups, hats, pajamas, bedsheet sets, office knick-knacks, all the stuff that superman gets made into. Also, there should be a really good Panther logo invented- like the Super symbol, the Bat symbol, the spidey face, green lantern symbol, X-Men's "X", Fantastic "4", etc. That will increase merchandising possibilities.

[FriendRoss]

What a wet blanket of an article.


Way to compare apples to oranges and to properly identify that the glass is indeed half empty

[JediMindTrick]

I have never liked BP in comics, in fact I've mostly despised him for two reasons: 1) Being primarily an X-men fan, I resented Storm being farmed out to him for a marriage stunt to try and boost sales on his book (Storm and Forge forever!) and 2) his fanbase that borderlines on arrogant at times in their resentment that his sales aren't better.

That said BP was awesome in the movie. I expected to not like him given my dislike of his comic version but he was great. Infinitely better than Spidey who felt so out of place and so wrong to me (I'm biased toward the Sam Raimi / Tobey McGuire Spidey).

I still have no interest in reading the BP comic but if the movie version could win over someone like me to the point I actually look forward to the BP movie (something I didn't think possible) than it doesn't have to be twice as good, it merely needs be a good movie and if the BP filmmakers can capture even 70% of how great he was in Cap's movie then they will do fine.

[dragonmp93]

To turn Black Panther into the new Spider-man with just one movie, the box office would have to be as big as the Force Awakens.

[Midnight_v]

I can't shake the feeling that they are literally quoting "boys in the hood" or "menace to society with that line... seriously, on of those made for Black people movies I got priced into watching when I was a kid or a teen. Even if not... its an oft repeated african-american adage you hear growing up. Yet it seems so trite when used in this form. "You have to be twice as good to succeed"
...Its so awkward...
Its like making an excuse, before you fail... in case you fail.
I mean thor TDW was pretty bad as well, and I think doctor strange is going to be wildly mediocre as well. This article also fell flat because T'challa isn't every going to be any kids spider man. Thats ridiculous. He's soooo far away from the diaspora of kids in the us. Bp isn't an everyman story so imho, he's always been hard to identify with. In fact the more they power him up the more distant he becomes. He has some pretty die hard fans (on this forum at least) but I have always felt he just has too little to make him relatable... other than "he's black". That was has never been enough for me, I think its important to look past the image of a character, and into that characters "Ideals", and its hard for me to fathom what BP's "Ideal" is. "What Giants Do" in the appreciation thread. I never expected a bp movie to happen, and now that its happening... I'm pretty lukewarm to it. If they invest enough in it It might do well, though, advertising does everything round the world nowdays. I'll be impressed if they get it to sell well in china though. Good luck with that

I am looking forward to Luke cage on netflix, in other diversity news. Seems awesome!

[ciscostudent561]

I can't shake the feeling that they are literally quoting "boys in the hood" or "menace to society with that line... seriously, on of those made for Black people movies I got priced into watching when I was a kid or a teen. Even if not... its an oft repeated african-american adage you hear growing up. Yet it seems so trite when used in this form. "You have to be twice as good to succeed"
...Its so awkward...
Its like making an excuse, before you fail... in case you fail.
I mean thor TDW was pretty bad as well, and I think doctor strange is going to be wildly mediocre as well. This article also fell flat because T'challa isn't every going to be any kids spider man. Thats ridiculous. He's soooo far away from the diaspora of kids in the us. Bp isn't an everyman story so imho, he's always been hard to identify with. In fact the more they power him up the more distant he becomes. He has some pretty die hard fans (on this forum at least) but I have always felt he just has too little to make him relatable... other than "he's black". That was has never been enough for me, I think its important to look past the image of a character, and into that characters "Ideals", and its hard for me to fathom what BP's "Ideal" is. "What Giants Do" in the appreciation thread. I never expected a bp movie to happen, and now that its happening... I'm pretty lukewarm to it. If they invest enough in it It might do well, though, advertising does everything round the world nowdays. I'll be impressed if they get it to sell well in china though. Good luck with that

I am looking forward to Luke cage on netflix, in other diversity news. Seems awesome!

yea I'm black.
I have zero interest in the character at all.
Totally unrelatable. There are more reasons...
I mean Marvel named an African super hero black panther. Black Panther yo... I mean cmon, is there any sensitivity to that matter?
That just does not sit well with me.
Its funny, I dont know if he outshined Spider-man in CW
but he did have a great showing.

With that said, a much more relatable black marvel character to me is Miles Morales.
It just seems effortlessly genuine.

I'm also a Bishop and Storm fan, but I don't relate to them much.
Even tho they villianized da big homie

[XPac]

yea I'm black.
I have zero interest in the character at all.
Totally unrelatable. There are more reasons...
I mean Marvel named an African super hero black panther. Black Panther yo... I mean cmon, is there any sensitivity to that matter?
That just does not sit well with me.
Its funny, I dont know if he outshined Spider-man in CW
but he did have a great showing.

With that said, a much more relatable black marvel character to me is Miles Morales.
It just seems effortlessly genuine.

I'm also a Bishop and Storm fan, but I don't relate to them much.
Even tho they villianized da big homie

Though I love the Black Panther, I'll agree he's not terribly relatable (at least to me). A big reason I'm a big Spidey fan is that skin color aside I did find him relatable. He spoke to me in ways no other fictional comic book character ever has.

That said, I'm not entirely sure a character needs to be relatable to be popular. It HELPS... but I don't imagine too many comic book fans relate to say Wolverine... but he's pretty darn cool nonetheless.

[Rumble]

Though I love the Black Panther, I'll agree he's not terribly relatable (at least to me). A big reason I'm a big Spidey fan is that skin color aside I did find him relatable. He spoke to me in ways no other fictional comic book character ever has.

That said, I'm not entirely sure a character needs to be relatable to be popular. It HELPS... but I don't imagine too many comic book fans relate to say Wolverine... but he's pretty darn cool nonetheless.

Yup, not to mention Batman isn't relatable*. Yet he's the 2nd most popular comic book character in the world... behind only Spider-Man, ironically enough. It's more so about the cool factor in the characters aesthetic look, abilities and general m.o. With that in place, any character can be given some relatable qualities or stories to substantiate him or her after that.

*unless you're a filthy rich billionnaire playboy white guy who juggles a double life and adopts troubled orphans to live in your mansion.

[LastManStanding]

Don't you just love click bait. Big up the Superman fans. Nothing new..writers unaware of T'Challa's internal struggles making big statements,

[dragonmp93]

Yup, not to mention Batman isn't relatable*. Yet he's the 2nd most popular comic book character in the world... behind only Spider-Man, ironically enough. It's more so about the cool factor in the characters aesthetic look, abilities and general m.o. With that in place, any character can be given some relatable qualities or stories to substantiate him or her after that.

*unless you're a filthy rich billionnaire playboy white guy who juggles a double life and adopts troubled orphans to live in your mansion.

Well, to be Batman, you only need to be smart and rich.

[Smoov-E]

I have never liked BP in comics, in fact I've mostly despised him for two reasons: 1) Being primarily an X-men fan, I resented Storm being farmed out to him for a marriage stunt to try and boost sales on his book (Storm and Forge forever!) and 2) his fanbase that borderlines on arrogant at times in their resentment that his sales aren't better.

That said BP was awesome in the movie. I expected to not like him given my dislike of his comic version but he was great. Infinitely better than Spidey who felt so out of place and so wrong to me (I'm biased toward the Sam Raimi / Tobey McGuire Spidey).

I still have no interest in reading the BP comic but if the movie version could win over someone like me to the point I actually look forward to the BP movie (something I didn't think possible) than it doesn't have to be twice as good, it merely needs be a good movie and if the BP filmmakers can capture even 70% of how great he was in Cap's movie then they will do fine.

[Jody Garland]

I mean Marvel named an African super hero black panther. Black Panther yo... I mean cmon, is there any sensitivity to that matter?
That just does not sit well with me.

To be fair, he predates the Black Panther party. It's happenstance. I can get rolling your eyes at him having 'black' in his name, but that too seems like a product of his creation period. There were serious concerns the character wouldn't be allowed to exist because he was a black superhero- having black being part of his name meant putting even having to keep a mask on him meant you weren't hiding it.

It's also a flat out better name than Coal Tiger, but that's neither here nor there.

[aja_christopher]

I can't shake the feeling that they are literally quoting "boys in the hood" or "menace to society with that line... seriously, on of those made for Black people movies I got priced into watching when I was a kid or a teen. Even if not... its an oft repeated african-american adage you hear growing up. Yet it seems so trite when used in this form. "You have to be twice as good to succeed"
...Its so awkward...
Its like making an excuse, before you fail... in case you fail.

Or it could be simply pointing out that even if you do "succeed" there are many who will see you as a "failure" unless you are twice as good as those who came before.

I don't know that the Black Panther film will be judged on such a basis, but even when the new solo was first being discussed you had people (falsely) claiming that it would "fail" like all of the other previous series because "minorities" don't support "minority books", and then when the (highly successful) pre-order numbers came in you still had -- and have -- people saying that those numbers won't last and that the series is destined to be a "failure" in the long-term, rather than just celebrating it's overwhelming "success" today.

Realistically, if people are saying that you will "fail" before you even have the opportunity to succeed, then it makes sense that you might feel that you have to "twice as good" to be considered a success -- whether this is true or not is debatable, but I have no doubt that every time Serena Williams sets foot on court that she keeps this in mind, which no doubt keeps her committed to winning as much as possible.

Is that the best way to approach the issue? Who knows? But it seems to work for her, as well as for artists like Kanye (for better or for worse). I know I've had to deal with it as well, both in the scholastic and the working world, where assumptions of "affirmative action" and professional ineptitude run rampant -- at least until you prove that you are "twice as good", that is, and you have the results and the accolades to back it up.

Speaking personally, despite being black, I don't identify with T'Challa, Cage, Storm or any of the other A-List black characters. I can relate to Prodigy to some extent, or even Miles or Alex (Wilder), but ultimately I think that "race" isn't the selling point of BP (or any other "black" superhero) so much as character... and honestly, I'd argue that most of us who don't read Black Panther really don't know all that much about the character in question so I'm hard-pressed to say whether I would enjoy a film that featured him as the lead character without seeing it first.

I do know that I'm looking forward to seeing how they depict Wakanda on film and I'm glad to see a mega-budget film that features a predominately black cast that (hopefully) depicts them as intelligent, heroic, and in control of their own destiny -- that alone is a "success" in my eyes, no matter how much money it makes.

Granted, that's a very low bar -- but given the rarity of such films in "mainstream" Hollywood -- it's progress.