however I didn't like all the things that he did with the black female protagonist, Spoiler (click to reveal)
including killing her off halfway through the second book (even though it was a shocking twist and subverted expectations), and then replacing her with an Asian female protagonist.
Over decade ago, Ridley wrote a very questionable and IMO coonish essay for Esquire. I can't say he still has these views but I don't really care to see him use T'Challa to play out his racial fantasies or ideas like Coates did.
So, while Ridley definitely has the genre/comics pedigree (I haven't read his Batman books but I would like to, and I also haven't read his Authority work), and I think can deliver better written stories and characters, I'm not sure if he won't just turn out to be a slightly more tolerable, refined Coates. I do imagine that his T'Challa might dither less and kick a little more ass though than Coates.
http://www.esquire.com/news-politics/a162/esq1206blackessay-108/
http://www.nbcnews.com/id/wbna17121916
http://www.ferris.edu/HTMLS/news/jimcrow/essays/ridley.htm
http://www.bet.com/celebrities/news/2017/04/09/freida-pinto-black-panther.html#!
I reduced the excellent post to our brother to the main areas of worry and concern. There should never. Ever. Be a legit worry that a given author will do the character s/he/they are supposed to write dirty. Their past works should put such concerns beyond even a quark of concern. The very fact that we are here having legitimate trepidation is all the proof we need that Ridley shouldn't be here, and is all the condemnation necessary of the way that 616 is treating T'Challa's solo book. Like the Derek Chauvin trial? There should never have been a moment's doubt that Chauvin would be instantly convicted and sent to death [ if Minnesota state law allowed such ] or life in prison [ if the death penalty wasn't an option ]. The very fact that such didn't occur and even worse we were all on pins and needles that Chauvin could walk off completely free [ like he was FOR WEEKS AFTER HIS MURDER OF GEORGE FLOYD WAS BROADCAST ROUND THE WORLD ] is alll the evidence needed to prove that this justice eviscerating state of affairs should never ever ever have existed in the first place and COULD NOT exist in a just and good society.
Redjack would be the scribe of BP in a just and good society. The very fact that we have legit doubts about Ridley is precisely why he shouldn't even be considered for the job, when we have a Redjack around. A Redjack who absolutely killed it both on Disney.com cartoon Black Panther and with his KiB tie in. Given Redjack's KiB universally and resoundingly good reviews? I'm sure that the book sold a solid amount of units [ who can get sales figures and compare them to TurnCoates' drivel in the same, previous and succeeding months? ]
Redjack Black Panther. Wakanda Forever.
I understand what you're saying, but I keep it foremost in my mind that we aren't the ones picking the writers/creators T'Challa unfortunately. We do get to vote with our dollars though, and of course we have great forums like this to express trepidation, displeasure, disgust, or support and joy for those artists who do right by the characters we care about.
I do think Ridley is a good writer. He's one that isn't afraid to look at social issues, particularly race, so I can see him diving into that issue more head on that Coates. I've only read Ridley's
American Way which featured a black male protagonist, and I found that character to mostly be positive. Ridley can write complicated characters and that can be a good thing. His black female protagonist from his superhero novels was also complicated, and perhaps a bit less likeable than the
American Way guy. So I imagine that Ridley might like the antihero, ambiguous heroes. Which could mean a return to Priest's Machiavellian T'Challa.
I was reading a recent interview from him where he was dismissing (largely white I'm assuming) fan complaints about a black Batman, by saying he's only writing for his sons and maybe if he keeps that same kind of energy he might deliver a strong T'Challa.
I do have reservations about Ridley, but I would have reservations just about anyone that got the job, after Coates. I was very excited when I heard Coates got the job. I had been reading his
Atlantic essays about race for a while by that point and found his writing to be quite good and perceptive, and that's what made me subscribe for the first time for a book. And he lost me on the very first page. There's something to the fury of a woman scorned, but also to that of a comics fan burned. And Coates burned me. So I can't go on how good a writer might be
before Marvel taps them anymore.
And when I think about it, it's been very sketchy way before they picked Coates. It got sketchy after Hudlin left the book. There's been years of deconstruction. I can at least say that Ridley is a better choice than one of the younger woke or black feminist writers they could've been given the book to like Vita Ayala, Roxanne Gay, or Nnedi Okorafor. I also think Ridley is a better choice than David F. Walker. Walker is very iffy with me. Sometimes he's on, but other times, his reach exceeds his grasp IMO, and I've read nothing after his first
Shaft graphic novel that has matched or bested how good that book was.
I wouldn't mind seeing Bryan Hill get a crack at T'Challa. I thought his
Deathblow series, from what I read, was interesting. His
Batman/Outsider series not as much, though he didn't do terribly writing Black Lightning or Duke Thomas. He could've done more with them, especially BL since he was supposed to be the leader, but still, nothing as embarrassing or disheartening as Coates did with T'Challa. And Hill's villain Ishmael has already made it to live-action on the
Black Lightning show, which is neat.
Perhaps Ridley will wind up giving us a 'black excellence' T'Challa (and to some extent Hudlin's T'Challa was a forerunner of that), but right now I don't see how that could be worse than a self-defeating, self-doubting, and self-hating T'Challa in a dystopic Wakanda that we got courtesy of Coates.
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