FEAR OF A BLACK PANTHER - New Black Panther Series by Eve L. Ewing & Chris Allen

[CvilleWakandan]

I give the overall series an 8/9

[Ture]

The mini series could have been a classic if they only remembered to center on T'Challa and keep him grounded in his comic book history.

[Ture]

I don't think Shuris costume is the reason he beat FF. He didn't act surprised when he redirected Ben's punch like he did with Klaws' sound monster.

I think this showed his martial and strategic skills better than the original. In the original he had time to plan and prep to fight the FF. Here he had to do it on the fly.

I think he did show he was Reeds' peer, just not a science geek like he is.

In the original T'Challa defeated the FF, in Legends he didn't beat the FF as they were all standing while he was running toward them before Shuri's intervention. It was Shuri's costume's ability to absorb kinectic energy that used Grimm's strength against him and knocked down the Invisible Woman. By on panel evidence it was Shuri's suit that was fire proof thus allowing T'Challa to grab Johnny Storm.

On the fly?!? The FF had whatever you want to call that national security response by the short hairs from jump.



The original showed T'Challa the Black Panther's martial and strategic skills by having him dodging Reed's punch and out maneuvering the Human Torch. He went blow for blow with the Thing and was able to track Sue by her scent and was fast enough to to get inside her personal forcefield before she could seal it.

On the fly?!? T'Challa steamed up Reed by redirecting the Torch's flame throw. Repelling the Thing was a definite result of Shuri's new suit. The same holds true for his knocking down Sue. T'Challa's action with them was an entire page while the original dedicated several.

Taking the time to plan and prep for a fight are the defining traits of the Black Panther. This was evident from his very first introduction by Lee and Kirby, why be satisfied by its removal?

Reeds' peer?!? T'Challa read a paper on what Reed discovered and what Shuri was able to put to practical use.

[CvilleWakandan]

But Shuri didn't press the button to makes it redirect energy and I doubt it just does it on it's own. That would be reckless. I'd say it's the equivalent to the help he received in the original.

Any security errors should be placed at Uncle S'Yans feet. Tchalla is the incoming administration. He weakened the Things strength twice in order to fight him. And he defeated Johnny with tech and security assisted by shooting energy beams at them to force them to separate. The only one he got a victory over using his own skills is Sue, but the gas used to knock her out isn't. And a normal human was able to knock out Wakandan security and revive the team before Tchalla could complete the victory.

There is another line of dialogue at the dinner table where he says he and Shuri would debate some theories for hours.

[Ezyo]

It was a disappointment. Could of been a very good way to showcase T'Challas genius yet it felt like it was Less about T'Challa the black panther and more about team Wakanda.

Sometimes it's nice to see the title character doing main character things. I want to read about T'Challa strategizing about now to beat the FF, creating his habit, and defeating Klaw. Not worrying if Hunter likes him,  having others create his habit and Sharing panel space not just with the FF (this is fine as they are the guests) but Shuri hunter and Okoye when frankly? They are irrelevant and should of stayed in the background

[supreme illuminati]

It was a disappointment. Could of been a very good way to showcase T'Challas genius yet it felt like it was Less about T'Challa the black panther and more about team Wakanda.

Sometimes it's nice to see the title character doing main character things. I want to read about T'Challa strategizing about now to beat the FF, creating his habit, and defeating Klaw. Not worrying if Hunter likes him,  having others create his habit and Sharing panel space not just with the FF (this is fine as they are the guests) but Shuri hunter and Okoye when frankly? They are irrelevant and should of stayed in the background

That is because without a titular actual lead character as T'Challa in the BLACK PANTHER movie series and the MCU as a whole? Feige has decided to go with TEAM T'CHALLA [ MEANING MOSTLY "TEAM STRONG BLACK WOMEN WHO ARE LESS THREATENING TO WHITE MEN THAN BLACK MEN LIKE T'CHALLA ARE" ] in every possible Black Panther iteration wherein they can replace T'Challa. The ramifications of this decision making is spilling down to the 616 BP, as well.

[Ezyo]

They are definitely trying hard. But the ONLY Silver lining is that No one on the franchise sells. Only T'Challa can sell. They have tried and failed multiple times to push Shuri, Okoye, MA etc. And they will continue to fail because they want to spin off but didn't bother to actually develop these characters and assumed that the MCU versions would grab people when all this done in Shuris case is make her a worse character that is dragging down T'Challa
Unfortunately this does fall at the feet of Hudlin because he didn't take Shuris Creation further than ", Back up their and replacement for T'Challa Incase he dies". And left her a blank slate that was just inferior T'Challa.she had no Lane to occupy so now we are getting teen Shuri who still can't sell because moon girl does it better and has a dinosaur.

[Ture]

This is the kind of research and strategic planning that should have been alluded to in Legends.

[/b][/size]
Marvel Anatomy: A Study of the Superhuman

Fans and enthusiasts of the Black Panther can only wait for the forthcoming renaissance that will put T'Challa the Black Panther in his proper context.




61015

[supreme illuminati]

They are definitely trying hard. But the ONLY Silver lining is that No one on the franchise sells. Only T'Challa can sell. They have tried and failed multiple times to push Shuri, Okoye, MA etc. And they will continue to fail because they want to spin off but didn't bother to actually develop these characters and assumed that the MCU versions would grab people when all this done in Shuris case is make her a worse character that is dragging down T'Challa
Unfortunately this does fall at the feet of Hudlin because he didn't take Shuris Creation further than ", Back up their and replacement for T'Challa Incase he dies". And left her a blank slate that was just inferior T'Challa.she had no Lane to occupy so now we are getting teen Shuri who still can't sell because moon girl does it better and has a dinosaur.

This is the kind of research and strategic planning that should have been alluded to in Legends.

[/b][/size]
Marvel Anatomy: A Study of the Superhuman

Fans and enthusiasts of the Black Panther can only wait for the forthcoming renaissance that will put T'Challa the Black Panther in his proper context.




61015

I think you're definitely right to an extent with the above. I do agree with your comment that RH didn't develop Shuri enough [ although there are flashes of a significant base for Shuri in RH's spare prose style ]. Remember that he started to delve into her more in the very arc that saw T'Challa lock horns with Killmonger in RH's book? By that time, the art quality had dropped dramatically, but the introduction of Killmonger to RH's book definitely made me and most of us...even Jenn when she was here [ where IS Jenn nowadays, anyway? ] stand up. His run on BP was shut down just as he was "starting to begin" to more substantively address that very matter with SHURI.



I don't think that Shuri, however, hasn't been given enough material to truly build from. Extracting the good parts of Maberry's run and Hickman's run regarding Shuri, combining these with the foundation laid by RH, and...dare I say it?...the ACTUALLY GOOD WORK done on aspects of Shuri by TurnCoates [ his whole idea of "The Ancient Future" was DOPE, and I wrote so right here on HEF when I became aware of it...but of course, he screwed it up by misappropriating character traits of T'Challa's and exporting them to SHURI and several other characters, including his "original" characters who truly have no legit reason to exist ] and we really have something to build from.

And bruh. You are madd dead on correct with Lunella. I really think she should get pushed a LOT more than she is. I was SO GLAD to see Jason Aaron include her in his AVENGERS run. And? I'm hoping that Shuri, Riri and Lunella can form a utatu...a "trinity"...of sorts. A quintuple thing might include Squirrel Girl and Valeria Richards.

[Ture]

As I continue to research all things Black Panther I came across some interesting articles. I thought not only would they make interesting reading but needed archival preservation here at the HEF.

EDITS and EXERTS taken from

The Black Panther: A Comic Book History
By Vernon Mitchell, Jr., Curator of Popular American Arts on 23 May 2018 in Dowd Modern Graphic History Library, Special Collections, What's New

The late 1960s was a tumultuous time for America both domestically and abroad. President Lyndon Johnson signed the Voting Rights Act into law on August 6, 1965, which banned discriminating voting policies, just five days later, riots broke out in Watts, a section of Los Angeles, centered around police brutality toward African Americans. Times were indeed tense, and the issues of race were at the forefront. The fires that burned in Southern California were not solely about one incident per se, but a response to continued systematic oppression.

The larger implications of socio-economic inequality were now part of a larger critique of what America was and was not. This was the backdrop that Marvel Comics’ Stan Lee and Jack Kirby used to create their new character, Black Panther. The character’s alter ego, King T’Challa, was ruler of the fictional African kingdom of Wakanda. He was the first black superhero to debut in American comic books.

Originally conceived of as the “Coal Tiger,” Black Panther cannot be separated from the times in which he burst onto the comic book scene in Fantastic Four #52 in July of 1966.  Prior to the release of the comic, Lee and Kirby, according to writer Sean Howe, were very much aware and influenced by an article in The New York Times that discussed the formation of the Lowndes Country Freedom Organization (LCFO), which had as their emblem a black panther. Howe attributed that article as the impetus for changing the name of the character that Lee and Kirby had been working on for months.

The media referred to the LCFO as “The Black Panther Party,” after its formation in 1965 under the direction of Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee (SNCC) field secretary, Stokely Carmichael (Kwame Ture).  Carmichael believed that African Americans’ political power resided in the will and political self determination of local people.

full article
https://library.wustl.edu/the-black-panther-a-comic-book-history/


First Serial: Marvel Comics, The Untold Story
Drugs, feminism, and blaxploitation superheroes — the moment when Marvel changed forever

by SEAN HOWE ON OCTOBER 4, 2012

In the issue of The Fantastic Four #119, Marvel briefly tried to put distance between the Black Panther and his politically charged namesakes by renaming him Black Leopard. “I neither condemn nor condone those who have taken up the name,” T’Challa told the Thing, in a carefully measured bit of expository dialogue.

full article
https://grantland.com/features/an-excerpt-sean-howe-marvel-comics-untold-story/



EDITS and EXERTS taken from

How ‘Coal Tiger’ Became ‘Black Panther’
The newest addition to the Marvel Cinematic Universe has always been tied to Black Arts Movement.
BY JONITA DAVIS / FEBRUARY 12, 2018

The energy and imagery of the mid-1960s saturated the creative minds looking for inspiration, including Marvel artist and art editor Jack Kirby.

Sean Howe’s book Marvel Comics: The Untold Story details that time leading up to Black Panther’s creation. Stan Lee was managing the team of artists and writers, who were actively competing with DC comics for comics sales. According to Howe, Stan Lee heard of the upcoming release of a line of comics that was a gamechanger for DC. Marvel had nothing new to compete. Howe quoted Kirby, “I came in one day,” said Kirby, “and Stan said, ‘Martin says we have to add more books.’ They were afraid Al Harvey, who had pretty good distribution, was going to crowd them off the stands.” Kirby and the rest of the team went to work looking for new lines and characters.

They tapped a little history by researching ancient cultures of Mexico and Africa. They also dug deeper into the sci-fi lore that was becoming popular at the time. The atmosphere of the time greatly influenced the Marvel creatives as well. The result of their hard work was a few new characters are still famous today—The Inhumans—and a black superhero, who lead an uncolonized African nation, and used the cutting edge of futuristic weaponry was born. His name was…Coal Tiger.

Kirby presented the character to Lee, and Lee decided not to push the black hero or the Inhumans at that time. They waited to introduce their new black character with an already popular line of white characters, the Fantastic Four, in issue #52, which hit stands July 1966. The renamed the Coal Tiger, Black Panther, and gave him a makeover for the gig. It would be another 8 years before Lee launched a solo Black Panther comic series Jungle Action.

Meanwhile, the Black Arts Movement, which was started in 1965 by poet Imamu Amiri Baraka, was creating a national interest in black culture. BAM also stimulated a pride in the black community that was manifest in hair (afros and braids), clothing (dashikis and Afrocentric prints), beauty. James Brown’s “Say It Loud—I’m Black and I’m Proud” was like an anthem. This pride carried the community forward.

By 1973, the movement was in full swing and black culture was dominating pop culture, and even film. Blaxploitation movies that centered black characters with black problems were available. Despite their campiness and stereotyping fails, the films were the first time the nation saw black people onscreen and in the forefront of the narrative.

The celebration of black culture that the Black Panther character’s solo comic debuted it did not last, but it didn’t fade away either. The door was open just a bit for black creatives, who would push it open in the decades to come, leading to the Black Panther film.

the movie about Black Panther went through some false starts just as the comic did. In addition, both character debuts were attempted using the popular Marvel characters at the time. The solo release came later, after the “soft launch” of the black superhero standing alongside his beloved white counterparts. Also, like his debut timeline, the film version launches amidst a mainstream appreciation of black culture, with an underlying struggle with racism. That struggle is fueling activism and feeding the Black community’s resurgence of Black pride.

The soft launch before the solo debut is one curiosity to note. Although the elapsed time differed, they did occur. The black superhero had to be introduced by beloved white characters before he could come out alone. There may have been causing for such a thing in the 1960s when there had been little to no marketing of blackness to the public. Then, a black character was a significant risk, especially one that shares the name of a group that media and government were characterizing as militant and anti-White. Lee may not have wanted to gamble. This reason only holds until you considered the list of the many superheroes that Lee debuted solo without a soft launch. Even the Marvel film franchise released Spiderman, Hulk, and a few other superheroes in solo films without a soft launch. Both times, they took a gamble on the white superhero, but not Black Panther.

These and other curiosities lead to the conclusion that the Lee and Marvel, and also the Marvel studios today were priming the public for the black hero. They saw that the possibilities when Black culture started seeping into the mainstream. A soft launch would “test the waters” and see if the public could handle such a character. This seems plausible until you consider that prior to the solo debut of the character both times, the black community was calling for representation in pop culture. In the past few decades, the outcry for more representation in the film has been a topic of discussion and studies. They started well before the current film iteration was conceived.

In fact, when Black Panther’s solo comic appeared in 1973, it was so popular that Luke Cage followed. Similarly, the soft launch of Black Panther was followed by a Luke Cage series on the small screen that was a hit for Netflix streaming service. Once the public was given the Black Superhero, they eagerly sought out more, making the next one a hit out of the gate.

It’s obvious that the problem is not the public. It’s the industries. Both Marvel Comics back then and the MCU now are run by white men who do not want to gamble on blackness until they are sure that they can profit. They wait until the movement is starting, the pride is forming, and the creativity is arising in other areas before “dipping a toe in” for a soft launch. Once that happens, once the profitability of the character is recognized, then they ride in like abolitionists with bolt cutters to open the gates to creative works and opportunities. Everyone is too swept up in the chaos to see that the ones holding the bolt cutters were also the ones holding the gates closed before.




This was taken from a thread I started two years ago.

[Ture]

I found this article two days ago.

The Black Panther(s), the Coal Tiger, and US
Posted by Ron Edwards

BONUS POST: Thanks to Larry Lade and his March pledge at the Doctor Xaos Patreon! All you comics nuts probably already know how Lee and Kirby were developing an African black character called the Coal Tiger in early 1966, then changed the name to the Black Panther.



You might not know that the original name Coal Tiger wasn’t neutral by a long shot, as at the time, it was the media term for post-colonial African nations. The relevant name here is Patrice Lumumba, leader of resistance against the Belgian colonial government, author of Dawn in the Heart of Africa, important participant at the All-African People’s Conference in 1958, advocate for nationalizing the resources of the Congo Basin, then briefly the first prime minister of the Republic of the Congo in 1961. He was soon ousted in a military coup backed by the USA and Belgium, imprisoned, and executed. The nation – called Zaire from 1971 to 1997 – was brutalized for thirty years thereafter by a right-wing military dictatorship presided over (and thieved shamelessly) by Robert Mobutu, who makes a nice matched set with Ferdinand Marcos, Augusto Pinochet, and Francois “Papa Doc” Duvalier.



There’s considerably more of Lumumba in T’Challa than anyone has ever mentioned, particularly his erudition and the idea of a resource-rich African nation entirely free from colonialism, which controls and develops its own technologies. Lumumba’s legacy spoke directly to both African heritage and economic national empowerment. This is Third Way, Non-Aligned Movement material again: the most frightening thing the U.S. political establishment had ever seen, outside the comfortable bipolar framework that had been cemented in 1948-1952.



An American organization you might not have heard of was US, or the US Organization, written in capitals but not an acronym, founded in southern Calfornia in 1965 by Ron Everett, who changed his name to Ron Karenga, with the title “Maulana.” It was a pan-African movement seeking to recover and re-synthesize African traditions, using Greek-American or Italian-American pride as a model (that’s my example; these were not explicitly named by US). Although sometimes called “separatist,” and directly inspired by many African nationalist leaders’ writings, the idea was to conduct traditions and community activities in an ethnically-rich way, not to move away. The group is also the originator of Kwanzaa and a number of other cultural terms, some widely adopted.

You might have noticed that in the original Star Trek, Lt. Uhura speaks Swahili (“The Man Trap”). That was the language promoted in the U.S. by US, and thus most linked to the concept of black pride and African heritage in the public eye. The episode was filmed in that same summer of 1966. The character’s name is almost certainly based on another US holiday, Uhuru Day, first celebrated early that same year by US.



The political term “black panther” originated with the Lowndes County Freedom Organization, which emerged from the Student Non-Violent Coordinating Committee in late 1965 and was associated with founding member Stokely Carmichael’s book Black Power (1966). The Mississippi group used the black panther as its logo, but the image and term was swiftly picked up by the media in 1966 and was then co-opted by a number of organizations, including two in California, one in Chicago, and one in New York City. But before that, the comics character was introduced: Lee or someone there picked it up from the LCFO logo and media labeling just like others did, assigned it to the Coal Tiger design, and the character appeared in The Fantastic Four a few months before the Oakland organization went public. Considering that Mobutu named himself president-for-life at that time and embarked on a notorious, ongoing reign of butchery, and also that Lumumba’s name was a rallying cry for militant, anti-colonial revolt throughout Africa, it strikes me that in mid-1966, “Black Panther” might even have been chosen as the less threatening name over Coal Tiger.

For some perspective on the timing, Donald Warden founded the Afro-American Association in 1962; Malcolm X broke with the Nation of Islam in March 1964; the first and rather weak Civil Rights Act was passed in July 1964; Malcolm X was shot and killed in February 1965; the Selma-to-Montgomery marches took place in March 1965; the Voting Rights Act and the Watts Riots were almost simultaneous in August 1965; * the events I’m talking about occur here *; Martin Luther King was shot and killed in April, 1968, not long after allying with Robert F. Kennedy against the Vietnam War; Kennedy was shot and killed in June, 1968; Fred Hampton, leader of the Chicago Panthers and linchpin organizer among working-class white, black, and Puerto Rican grassroots groups, was shot and killed by police in 1969.



The Black Panther Party for Self-Defense, founded by Huey Newton in Oakland, became the most nationally prominent and formed alliances with the other groups using the name; when Eldridge Cleaver was released from prison in 1968 he accepted Newton’s offer of the position of Minister of Information and took leadership of the New York group. (At the time of this writing, the LCFO Wikipedia entry wrongly calls it the BPP’s “predecessor.”)

The BPP and US began with some accord (they celebrated Uhuru Day together in 1967), but had little in common. Newton’s view was refined Leftist to the core. He applied Franz Fanon’s The Wretched of the Earth to the disenfranchised under-class (Marx’s lumpenproletariat), to which most American black people were relegated – he considered it all to be a form of colonization and emphasized combating discrimination – especially police harassment – as a form of modern class struggle. Contrary to popular belief, blackness as a cultural identity was not a Panther priority, and they built alliances across ethnic lines and within community structures (e.g. food programs at schools). So ideologically, the BPP and US differed greatly, and as it turned out, the FBI’s CoIntelPro was on the job, sabotaging communications between the leaders and according to some, were the real instigators of a Panthers-US gunfight on the UCLA campus in 1969.

The story moves on from there and although US may seem minor compared to the political impact and media presence of the Panthers, quite a lot of its ideas have persisted in black activism and community efforts nationwide. My kids celebrate Kwanzaa in school. Karenga is a university professor and an influential voice, as are many US alumni.



So to recap, well before the above-mentioned conflicts. the political context for the character’s creation is not the BPP at all, but the coal tiger nations and the US Organization, which in mid-1966 was the most visible new black activist group. It must have been visible to Lee or Kirby or both. T’Challa, Prince of Wakanda, is so spot-on with US ideals of Africa’s heroic past and potential, it’s amazing they hadn’t already started a comic book of their own starring a guy like him. That another group soon used the name “Black Panther” and became more publicly visible is history’s little joke to obscure the content in retrospect.




Again, my take is that this is Lee’s admirable eye for genuinely trenchant politics, and Kirby’s lightning-bolt insight that comics are journalism, all of which deserves more appreciation. The content is more spot-on than anything Life Magazine was portraying, much more challenging to the white mainstream. T’Challa could have been another “Willie” or “Robbie,” the other first named black characters at Marvel, probably because Willie Mays and Jackie Robinson were the two most famous non-threatening but non-servile black people known to white Americans (to be fair, they did threaten a lot of people, heroically so, but not like King or Malcolm X did; also to be fair, Joe/”Robbie” Robertson, introduced a bit later, turned out to be a pretty good character). Or he could have been a waif “rescued” from the colonial stereotype of unspeakably primitive life In Darkest Africa and fully assimilated into Europe or the U.S. Or he could have been a cosmic whackadoo like Galactus or the Watcher, good enough to check off the “black character” box but without any difficulties pertaining to his possible human presence.

The modern accounts I’m reading describe Lee as merely tapping into hip memes with his political content, and as playing right and left against one another, but I don’t think so – you can’t get the 1966 T’Challa without being tuned in better than that, and finding ideals of justifiable pride and existing power to portray that were decidedly not mainstream or soft/centrist liberal white. In foreign policy, the “coal tiger” phenomenon was swiftly cast as creeping global communism, and Mobutu and the government of South Africa were our bold heroes of freedom (if a bit “authoritarian” … you do realize this is sarcasm, I hope). Domestically, the term Black Power was flatly radical in both North and South, as it explicitly broke with the northern-white-friendly “non-violent” terminology from the SNCC. US, like the BPP and the Deacons for Defense, went armed (more accurately, without pretending otherwise). Don’t let all the pretty legislation fool you – this is post-Watts, and the LBJ administration’s support for civil rights stopped with the northern white vote. It had blood in its eye toward any but the most mild and white-led effort. Black Power, for black people, meant being spied on, being beaten, going to prison, and getting murdered. Invoking it in pop media, just a hair short of naming it outright, wasn’t appropriation; it was solidarity.

Was the Black Panther a token? And here I mean the term not as a sole nonwhite face, which he couldn’t help but be, but a fake inclusion intended to smooth things over. Not to be too polite about it, was he a Tom? I don’t think so. The LCFO, US Organization, and BPP had something important in common: neither asking for favors nor settling for a weak win by conceding first. T’Challa wasn’t doing any of that either. He didn’t need redeeming, rescuing, salvaging, uplifting, or educating. This was not a nice-and-comfy center statement in 1966; if you put a black guy as a national leader, a mysterious presence, a sophisticated African, and a decided ass-kicker in there, it wasn’t playing to the gallery. One may make the case that Wakanda is Latveria without the villainy, and arguably, therefore scarier to the reading audience. It means relevance, not in the shallow sense, but being actually relevant.

The question then becomes, how black was T’Challa going to be? The Coal Tiger seems like a remarkably strong, gutsy start. On the published pages, though, there was apparently some early stuttering, maybe that’s why there were two covers, one which displayed his skin color and one which didn’t, and see also this contrast:


To my eyes, the face-reveal at the end of #52 shows signs of last-minute revisions and is a bit hard to interpret.


But in #53, his look is bold, individual, and uncompromised.

Marvel’s history with the issue started strong, but is also full of steps and missteps. In 1969, they stumbled hard with the Falcon who even had a pet hawk if you didn’t grasp the whole Indian-sidekick thing on the first try. Thomas – widely perceived as more political than Lee – was embarrassingly ham-fisted in writing the Panther as a token in the Avengers. Fortunately, not too much later, the Panther’s Rage would come along, as well as another fellow to address the American urban black hero issue. Bet on some posting about these in days to come.

A link:

Some thoughts on more recent affairs at the Hudline Entertainment forum

https://adeptpress.wordpress.com/2015/03/31/the-black-panthers-the-coal-tiger-and-us/









61468

[Ture]

FROM THIS...


TO THAT?!?


Gone are the days of regal bearing...





supplanted by usurpation's brutality.



Ask a fan, enthusiast or a casual which they prefer. Then ask why they think T'Challa the Black Panther is being depicted by Ridley and company in such a manner.



62205

[Ture]

Courtesy of CBR's Redjack

1. Evan and I could make the franchise a showpiece.

2. There comes a point where there's almost zero chance my pitches for the character(s) would get anywhere near what the company wants for them, regardless of sales. We may be past that point. I have no interest in furthering the mythology as it's progressed over the last few years and my Big Pitch, without being an attack on any of that work (it's not. I never attack the prior writers for doing with their ideas exactly what i would do with mine if i was driving) would still be too far away from they seem wot want for T'Challa and Wakanda.

3. If the THOR book suddenly stopped being about Thor and focused instead on all the supporting characters who live in Asgard, the audience would riot, no matter how well-written or drawn.

4. I don't think it's possible now for ANY Black Panther run to exist without massive controversy. Trust me. if MARVEL called me tomorrow and said, "Green Light, brother, do anything you need to do with the title." THE INSTANT that became news, the knives would come out ,calling me every name in the book before anyone had read one word.

I don't actually care about that chatter (as if) but that's what would happen. And my run would absolutely remove everything I don't like about the last few years– in-story, without hand waves. Do we really think Marvel is signing up for that? Doubt it. Highly.

You can tell from my writing of the character what I think about him and his supporting cast. There actually is a way to have the cake and eat it vis a vis T'Challa and Shuri and all that. It's sitting right there in the existing text if they want to connect those dots. But the folks who own it have to want to and they'd need to give me at least two years to make it go.

WILDLY unlikely.

62289

[Ezyo]

This is why Ridley needs to be off the book. T'Challa has, from day one, consistently whooped the HZ. Ewing and JA had T'Challa beating on Hulk, swordmaster, Namor, Moon Knight, space bugs, vampires, winter guard, flash, Batman,and Superman analogues etc etc. And Ridley is having him struggle against redshirt Wakandans, OC pet characters and needing to be saved by Storm, along with that HORRENDOUS ooc dialogue. Dude needs to be gone

[supreme illuminati]

Courtesy of CBR's Redjack

1. Evan and I could make the franchise a showpiece.

2. There comes a point where there's almost zero chance my pitches for the character(s) would get anywhere near what the company wants for them, regardless of sales. We may be past that point. I have no interest in furthering the mythology as it's progressed over the last few years and my Big Pitch, without being an attack on any of that work (it's not. I never attack the prior writers for doing with their ideas exactly what i would do with mine if i was driving) would still be too far away from they seem wot want for T'Challa and Wakanda.

3. If the THOR book suddenly stopped being about Thor and focused instead on all the supporting characters who live in Asgard, the audience would riot, no matter how well-written or drawn.

4. I don't think it's possible now for ANY Black Panther run to exist without massive controversy. Trust me. if MARVEL called me tomorrow and said, "Green Light, brother, do anything you need to do with the title." THE INSTANT that became news, the knives would come out ,calling me every name in the book before anyone had read one word.

I don't actually care about that chatter (as if) but that's what would happen. And my run would absolutely remove everything I don't like about the last few years– in-story, without hand waves. Do we really think Marvel is signing up for that? Doubt it. Highly.

You can tell from my writing of the character what I think about him and his supporting cast. There actually is a way to have the cake and eat it vis a vis T'Challa and Shuri and all that. It's sitting right there in the existing text if they want to connect those dots. But the folks who own it have to want to and they'd need to give me at least two years to make it go.

WILDLY unlikely.

62289

First? ALL HAIL REDJACK AND EVAN. These are the real "in comics industry NOW" bruthas who'll actually do not only T'Challa but any character...especially a character from Alkebulan miscalled "Africa" or "Afrika" [ the term "Afrika" is a ROMAN term, meaning: "land of the Afri {people}", etc ] With this comment above...where did he post this comment?..he just got me onboard whatever he writes, wherever he goes.

I'm done with Marvel comics. I don't see them doing us right in no kinda way, shape, or form. And that's double unacceptable, because not only are RJ and EN [ Evan Narcisse ] out there {and there seems to be some serious iffyness in Evan from some things one of the OG HEFfas said he stated about BP} was out there, until DC swooped him up for the new BLACK ADAM series [ which I'm definitely following! I loved his Deathstroke ].

How is it that twice IN A ROW now...Coates and Ridley...they bring in bruthas with seemingly impeccable credentials, and they both come in and make T'Challa into T'Chumpa, Mayor of Suckaville [ Coates ] and T'Challa, Citizen of Suckaville [ Ridley ]? When Aaron, Ewing, etc have absolutely kilt it like Scottish man skirts...FOR YEARS, FROM ISSUE #1 FORWARD... with T'Challa?

Answer: they're trying to "misappropriate", redirect and neuter both T'Challa AND Wakanda.

With R to the H? CJP? Coogler? T'Challa and Wakanda actually directly engaged issues from our Alkebulan perspective. Were proud of our Alkebulan heritage, and both introduced and resolved thorny issues which have a perpetual racial and racist dynamic due to nonAlkebulan Racist Feudalists doing what they do.

Neither Aaron or Ewing approached these subjects at all. And that's why their depictions are very dope, desirable...but they're writing "Panther" . Anyone can be under the Panther mask of the admirable, well written, potent character they write; and I definitely feel that such was purposeful. How can we ask Aaron and Ewing to write from a Alkebulan perspective; a perspective they can never have?

The bruthas? Write BLACK PANTHER. Not just Panther. And Redjack? Was absolutely magnificent. With him? We'd have it ALL. The EVERYTHING we love, the BLACK PANTHER, not "just" a fly dope "Panther". Aaaand? We'd have the sales. Redjack? With the proper art support and company push? Would run numbers we haven't seen since R to the H.

But for LONGER, because the comic book would get a strong bounce from the MCU release of BP and the subsequent Disney+ and MCU ventures [ any Okoye or Dora Milaje or Shuri stuff, any AVENGERS stuff, any MIDNIGHT SONS stuff, etc ]. That means? Redjack would have broken ALL the records, and set up all bold face like the dominating presence of T'CHALLA THE BLACK PANTHER...

...right as the homegrown terrorists in this country and White Civilization worldwide are taking a propagandized powered hard Right turn, which is all designed to keep the corrupt creatures currently in power? Perpetually in power. And Disney? Is in this up to its NECK. Presenting the devastatingly dope, multifaction uniting BLACK PANTHER AND WAKANDA would thoroughly undermine or outright obliterate a significant facet of their hyperpowered propaganda machine visavis the younger generation. The death blow to their position of power and their further aspirations is the unification of good people across racial and economic lines into a single force recognizing that the entire 1%...all of them...are existential threats to humanity, this planet, and wherever they may roam off planet.  All of them. All. Of. Them. Need be exterminated without mercy and with the most extreme prejudice possible.

MLK was heading toward this unified multiracial, multieconomic class unity with his POOR PEOPLE'S CAMPAIGN. That's why they killed him.

T'Challa is far more threatening. He's not asking anyone for anyone, he overwhelms opposition. Effortlessly. While not only uniting groups like MLK did, but also putting an invincible Black male as the head of the movement we all need. These optics? Will lift the profile of bruthas worldwide, annealing the fractures in many of our family units and propelling many and plenty T'Challa analogues in real life. This reality will reverse all this softie sucka boy image that too many of us see when we see images of Alkebulan men in media. We will speedily take control of and celebrate our images of real masculinity without allowing outside or weaker forces to compromise us further.

We'll pay attention to and rally round way more bruthas like Grandmaster Jay of NFAC.

We won't necessarily hate on people like "lil nas x" but people like him won't be dominating our music airwaves like he currently is, when we still have RAKIM, WU TANG, PUBLIC ENEMY, PARIS THE BLACK PANTHER OF HIPHOP, FAT JOE, ROYCE DA 5'9", J. COLE, KENDRICK LAMAR, etc etc around.

Redjack? Will make a pile of money for Disney while he makes BP the ultra G he always was and should be. I mean, seriously...imagine what Redjack could do with FIVE GALAXIES OF WAKANDA to play with!! When I first imagined the idea years ago and brought it to life with my Wakanda Kifalme Ya Nyota..."Wakanda's Kingdom of the Stars"...in my fanfic? I was thrilling to build threads in the main story that would take us to exploring it.

But I confess that I never thought of FIVE GALAXIES for Wakanda. I wanted to tell the story of how Wakanda Kifalme Ya Nyota came to be and how T'Challa and The Royals led it into expansion throughout this galaxy. I wanted that throwdown with everyone from The Shi'Ar to The Stranger. From Ego to The In-Betweener, from The Brood to The Living Tribunal. And? Yeah, I would have thrown some new and not-so-new heads in there. T'Challa and Adam Brashear? Would hotbox with Adam's ace bad guy, who'd joined forces with a Multiverse Inverted Adam Warlock to do our Reality all kinds of wrong.

T'Challa would have matched wits with our newly upgraded Princess Zanda as she sought to steal The Incubator...a critical facet of pre-Universal undefined power type that was responsible for propelling Galactus into our universe and helping to evolve him into The Life Giver...as well as devolve him into The Devourer.

T'Challa and Blade would have teamed up to defeat the resurgent, deadly powerful, brilliant and utterly terrifying Danquan Oheneba of the Obayifo, one of the Underworld Princes of the scarifying and lethal West Alkebulan versions of the vampire [ Obayifo ] which long predated Brahm Stoker's tales about Dracula and European vampires.

T'Challa would have been brought in by Elektra as she attempted her most daring kill yet...and T'Challa would have no choice but to answer her summons.

Moondragon would show up, and we'd learn all kinds of lusty and lethal things about their secret past together...and Moondragon would pull T'Challa into the kind of adventure that we've only once before [ under RH's pen ] seen even being hinted at, visavis T'Challa.

Storm and T'Challa would finally have that talk about their breakup, their fight, Wolverine, and everything in between. There will be clashing of wills and fighting happening.

And so. Much. More...


You know what? I'm going to get to writing again, since Ridley isn't going to do us right.