A little over six months ago, Marvel Entertainment announced that author Ta-Nehisi Coates would be writing a year-long Black Panther comic series, alongside artists Brian Stelfreeze and Laura Martin. If you are unfamiliar with Coates’ writing, which is primarily fine cultural commentary and reports on race in America, you might want to make Black Panther your first comic book.
The series will have a new issue every month – around 11 issues when completed – and every individual comic will be as thoughtful and vivid as you’d expect. As for the Black Panther, Marvel’s first black superhero – it’s about time. The Black Panther will be featured in the Captain America movie set to premiere in a few weeks and will even have his own solo movie in 2018. Marvel is setting the stage for young impressionable kids (of color) interested in comics who want to grow up to be a superhero, and no not a white superhero at that either.
Now, let’s get into the story of Black Panther itself. In Marvel Comics, the “Black Panther” is a title held by the king of Wakanda – a fictional African nation that’s one of the most advanced in the world. Many nations grow envious of Wakanda and begin to exploit the Black Panther and his people rather than learn from them. Black Panther #1 uses symbolic figures to attack and dismantle big, important ideas. The comic begins with chaos as recent events in Marvel’s various comics left Wakanda in disaster, they are questioning their king and the entire concept of a monarchy, and the revolution is being led by women (another big deal in the comic universe).
It is a story about America and patriarchy set in a nation almost entirely deprived of white faces, a story about world power frustrated with their traditions and the establishments built by men who claim thrones. It is a story about a king who discovers his nation has been infected by hate and no longer want him. But the real question is – do they need him?
Blank Panther asks big questions that are seriously relevant to an American audience also in the middle of a search for new leadership almost completely defined by the rejection of the previous one, an election cycle defined by passions running high and hateful eloquence. And now the story Coates, Stelfreeze, and Martin are here to tell: What happens when a nation of people discover that the way they view themselves is no longer true?
As for how the Black Panther itself matters for various communities, Marvel is strengthening their casting in the movie universe and choice of ethnicities in the comic universe. Shown through the reactions of the casting of Finn (John Boyega) in Star Wars: The Force Awakens and the animated movie Home starring Rihanna playing Gratuity “Tip” Tucci (set to resemble her), representation DOES matter! And for Marvel to move forward with having it’s first black superhero and expand on it shows that times are changing! Slowly but surely.
However, Black Panther won’t solve all our problems, this is just a step in the right direction. Hopefully the first of many.
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