Is this a good thing? Who'll take his place? Will it be someone from the MCU, like Robert Cole who co-wrote the MCU BP?
Or...dare we even hope...a RH or CJP or RH+CJP collab? It'll be a "name" author, I think...which screws the in-house up and coming geniuses like Redjack, et al. Walker won't get a look unless he's cowriting.
Who would y'all like to see take over in July?
Before I go any further? I want to clarify my meaning above. The reason I asked if removing COATES from BP was a good idea...is because I dreaded that they'd somehow found someone WORSE THAN COATES to pen BP. Now brethren, with that out of the way...
All of you made good points. I too don't want Nnedi anywhere near T'Challa...but I think that 616 MU will be directed by Feige and crew in the MCU...which increases the possibility of Cole writing the BP ongoing. Or not, as I'm sure Cole, Coogle and Crew are doing their thing to prep for BP 2.
Idk if Priest will come back to BP. He didn't sound especially overjoyed at the thought, at the last interviews of his that I read on the subject. So solly, stanleyballard. R to the H will kill it, if he's not distracted by other projects or isn't prevented from doing 616 work due to some contract or other from one of his many projects.
Ewing? I like him, but I don't think that he should be writing two high profile books at once because I think that there's a real chance that both books...IMMORTAL HULK and the possible Ewing BP... will suffer for it.
The next person who writes BP will be a "name" writer, and probably someone none of us have thought of...although I think that the more actually "woke" intellectual/writer alternative that someone mentioned earlier is probably on the list.
But what if a White guy who's NOT Al Ewing wrote BP? Would we TRULY welcome the return of David Liss? I liked his run, but his whole thing is more of a street level, noir like guy. BP is definitely not able to go street level to cosmic on the regular; without missing a beat. Sooo...prolly not Liss.
Mark Millar? Ed Brubaker? Warren Ellis? Some Other Guy?
I keep returning to R to the H and...CJP. Even though I want Redjack to FINALLY get his shot. We're definitely looking at serious dearth of diversity in big name Afrikan American writers. I don't think they'd give Eric Jerome Dickey another shot...so he's not even really in the running.
N.K. Jemisin, Marlon James, Colson Whitehead are just some of the big name black authors out there right now. And there's a growing list of black genre writers. My one concern though is that I suspect that many of the new writers are on some agenda stuff.
I would like to see what Steven Barnes or Walter Moseley could do with a Black Panther book.
I'm ashamed to admit that of the list above? I only know Barnes and Moseley...and I don't think that Moseley is the guy [ am I wrong or was Easy Rawlins...Moseley's main PI character...always getting beat up? ] , with Barnes killin it on GORGON CHILD like he did. I completely forgot about Barnes until you mentioned him. Idk what agenda that Barnes might have, because he seemed to have no problem writing a potent Aubry Knight...although he did make a point to specify the difficulty that the amazing Nullboxer Knight had with reading.
Nowadays, though? He won't have to make those kinds of concessions to the LCBRD because T'Challa is already a massive star, with even more dominance in the offing if we get the right scribe for him. So of the writers above? I very much favor Barnes.
Jemisin is the current 'it' black science fiction writer. She's won multiple Hugo Awards and she's writing a Green Lantern series, Far Sector, right now. I have read some of Far Sector, but none of her novels. I could see her injecting the agenda though if she was writing Panther, however, it might not be as in your face. From Far Sector I can see that she definitely has imagination and she could've done something pretty interesting with the Intergalactic Empire of Wakanda concept. I also would like to see what Jemisin could do with Captain Marvel.
I haven't read any of James or Whitehead. Both of them are also highly praised. Last year, James wrote a very highly touted fantasy novel, that's supposed to be an African Game of Thrones. For fantasy, there's a brother, Evan Winters who wrote a book Rage of Dragons (which I also haven't read), but it's good to know we are seeing more black fantasy writers out there. From what I can tell, Whitehead is more of a general literature writer, however, he has written a zombie story in the past. I thought about Whitehead because of that literary pedigree.
I've read quite a few Easy Rawlins books and I don't recall Easy getting beat up all the time like that. However it's been a very long time since I've read that series. Back in the day, I really loved it. I loved how Moseley wrote black people, how he described the various hues of black skin, his character work, his views on society. Perhaps if Easy was getting beat up a lot-which is something that might go along with the detective genre to some extent-that left the door open for Mouse, who was the ultimate bad ass in the Easy books. I've also read some of his Fearless Jones series, and Fearless is also a bad ass in that, though the main character is bookish and Fearless is the muscle. I thought Moseley with his insight into black (American) life as well as him also writing science fiction novels could be an interesting choice. I saw Moseley in person once and he said during that talk that the reason he got into writing was to create black male heroes so I don't see him chumping Black Panther. I would like to see what Moseley could do with Luke Cage as well. Cage would be more in his wheelhouse, considering his detective fiction, maybe Daredevil and Nighthawk too.
As for Barnes, I like that you mentioned Aubry Knight and Gorgon Child. I've started reading that book. I had read the first and last books in the Knight trilogy but finally decided to get around to Gorgon Child. When it comes to the agenda, Barnes was writing, not going to say pushing, the agenda even in the Knight series, 30 years before I knew there was an agenda. That being said, I don't think he writes in a way that is a detriment to Aubry Knight that I've seen thus far, and don't recall from the other novels I read. Further, his book Lion's Blood, where he creates an alternate history where Africans colonized America instead of Europeans, was epic and I highly recommend it. I have yet to read the sequel Zulu Heart. I have it, but just haven't really committed to reading it. I used to read Barnes's old blog all the time and he's the first one that got me thinking about how black men in particular are depicted as sexless in films and he also was critiquing Blade: The Series for it's treatment of Blade, and also broke down Hancock, so Barnes knows what the deal is.
I think Barnes would be a great choice. I've also listened to an audio book from his wife, Tananarive Due, called Joplin's Ghost, which was quite good too. I'm not sure about her for Panther, but another Marvel character, I would be fine with. From what I've seen of Barnes's writing and just listening to him on You Tube, I don't see him doing a wholesale deconstruction of Black Panther and would do right by the character, or try to. I think he's more comfortable in his black skin that Coates seems to be. Doesn't mean his Panther wouldn't have flaws but I think he could bring something cool. Plus, Barnes is a martial artist and I wonder what he could bring to the action scenes.
Thinking of martial arts, Barnes might go to town on an Iron Fist, Shang-Chi, Blade/Strikeforce, Nighthawk, or Daughters of the Dragon series as well. For Due, who I think writes more (but not only) supernatural natural stories I could see Blade, Morbius, Dr. Strange, Dr. Voodoo, Magick, or maybe even Ghost Rider or Hellstrom.