I'm one of those people who came around to the recast idea. Though going with Shuri (or Kasper Cole) as Black Panther does fit the comics' storyline, and for Shuri especially can also be an organic move-and not feel shoehorned in-it's these conversations, and to a lesser extent the advocacy of E Man's Movie Reviews that changed my mind. I was looking at it too inside the comics' world, and not considering the real world implications of taking T'Challa off the board and what that could mean for little black boys and girls to not have this character around anymore.
Granted, there are still black male heroes in the MCU, but none are on T'Challa's level, and none have that greater Diasporic connection. Many are stepping into white men's shoes like Falcon as Captain America or Rhodey as War Machine, or they are kept street level like Luke Cage. Nick Fury has also been put in the background and made sort of the comic relief in the Captain Marvel movie. There's even less options when you look at the DCEU or DC films, with no black heroes-male or female-at present on their big screens. Doubtful we will see Ray Fisher as Cyborg again, and I'm doubting they'll even recast that role for the Flash film. There's The Rock's Black Adam (an antihero at best) and Aldis Hodge's Hawkman (we'll see how much screentime and development he gets), but that film is not out yet to really be in the conversation as something you can judge and compare to other depictions of black men.
On the small screen Luke Cage and Falcon were the saving graces, so there's that. However, Falcon had to share billing with Winter Soldier and wasn't necessarily the boss on his series, but he did come across better than I thought he would. Luke Cage owned his two seasons better, though he had much lower stakes as well. I never finished Agents of Shield but Mack seemed mostly to be a solid supporting character and that was mostly it. And Deathlok was barely used. Tripp died early on Shield and to my knowledge was never resurrected. Didn't watch enough Cloak and Dagger to get a read on Cloak (same with the brother with the hooves on Inhumans), but the kid on Runaways often seemed to get challenged too much for my taste, despite him being the supposed genius intellect. Not MCU, but I would be remiss to leave out the short-lived Blade: The Series, though that show was hamstrung by taking the focus off Blade for a white female character, Krista. Black females have actually fared worse than black men so far in the MCU-on big
and small screens (gritting my teeth at the treatment of the Rambeaus thus far)-but that's a different conversation.
DC is better on the small screen mostly because of Black Lightning. Despite my issues with it, the series did give us four seasons of a show headlined by a black male hero. The rest of the black male characters on DC television can leave a lot to be desired. It's just a lot of supporting characters, black best friend kind of characters.
Spoiler (click to reveal)
I was pleased with how they handled Steel on Superman & Lois
and Cyborg on Doom Patrol (I've only seen the first season), was mostly pleased with Diggle but less with Mr. Terrific on Arrow, was disappointed with James Olsen on Supergirl and so far Batwing has been mostly underwhelming on Batwoman. Had no major issues with Kid Flash and Impulse, though I wish they had gone with the Jason Rusch Firestorm.
Spoiler (click to reveal)
Dr. Manhattan didn't do much in the Watchmen series but take abuse and then give his powers away.
Black women are faring better on DC television (Batwoman, Sister Night, Starfire, Blackfire, Vixen, Thunder, Lightning, Dr. Mid-Nite, X/S, Cecile, Guardian, Lyta-Zod) while being almost nonexistent thus far in the films, even more than Marvel, with just Black Canary to put up against Shuri, Okoye, Nakia, Ayo, and the other Dora Milaje.
I don't look at enough animation, definitely Marvel animation to judge how black characters are depicted in that medium. It might be better for black males and females. Blade did get an anime series and Black Panther also got a short animated series back in the day. On the DC side, with which I'm more familiar, they are mostly supporting characters, outside of Static who headlined a series and Vixen who also starred in a webseries.
Cynically I was also thinking that changing to Shuri was just going with where Disney wanted to go all along, pushing black men to the side for black women. I think the first Black Panther film had already started that process, parceling out T'Challa's skills, and Ta-Nehisi Coates and his confederates in the comics' world were already sidelining him while putting female characters forward, creating a zero sum game where none need existed. Mr. Boseman's death provided Disney with the opportunity to put this plan into overdrive and do so under the guise, or the genuine grief, over Chadwick Boseman's untimely passing. They could "honor" him by crystallizing (though ultimately burying in amber) his legacy. And they could be seen as the caring, good guys for it.
