TA-NEHISI COATES RESURRECTS BLACK PANTHER,
TA-NEHISI COATES HELPS A NEW PANTHER LEAVE ITS PRINT
The Black Panther may not be the mightiest superhero on the planet, but he’s certainly among the coolest. Created in 1966, he was the first black superhero in mainstream comics. While his capewearing peers spend their off hours slogging away at mundane day jobs — reporter at a major metropolitan newspaper, say — the Panther is a king, the sovereign ruler of Wakanda, the fictional, technologically advanced African nation. And then there’s his costume: skin- tight and jet black from head to toe. Not to mention, his former wife, Ororo Munroe ( Storm of the X- Men), can summon hurricanes.
Even so, the Panther has never enjoyed the popularity of many of his superpowered colleagues. That looks to change, however, thanks to a confluence of events that begin with the much-anticipated release, this week, of the new Marvel comic book series Black Panther.
Most comics don’t generate that much buzz, but then again, most comics aren’t written by Ta- Nehisi Coates, a national correspondent for The Atlantic and the best- selling author of Between the World and Me, which won the National Book Award last year. One of the most celebrated authors about race in America writing about a black superhero who has pummelled Captain America and members of the Ku Klux Klan?
The collective response from fans of comics and Coates alike: I’d read that.
The book arrives during the 50th anniversary of the Black Panther, who first appeared in issue No. 52 of the Fantastic Four ( and yes, he beat them up, too). Next month, the superhero will make his big- screen debut in Marvel’s Captain America: Civil War, with Chadwick Boseman (42, Get On Up) as the Wakandan royal. And in 2018, Boseman will reprise his role in the feature film Black Panther, to be directed by Ryan Coogler (Creed).
The Coates/ Marvel collaboration stems from a 2015 conference hosted by The Atlantic, where the author interviewed the Marvel editor Sana Amanat in a seminar titled “What if Captain America Were Muslim and Female?” Soon after, another Marvel editor, Tom Brevoort, asked Coates if there were any characters that he might like to write for them. A lifelong fan of Spider- Man and the X- Men, Coates sent them some favourites. “Black Panther was not on my list,” he said with a laugh.
But when he learned that Marvel was looking to feature the character in his own book once again (his last one ended in 2012), Coates was immediately intrigued. When Stan Lee and Jack Kirby first dreamed up the Black Panther for Marvel, he was at the top of his game. Descended from a long line of kings, the Panther, aka T’Challa, had protected his country from everyone from neighbouring tribes to alien shape- shifters. In recent times, however, Wakanda had taken it on the chin — flooded by Namor the Sub-Mariner and ravaged by a team of supervillains.
When Coates’ book opens, this latest version of the Panther is still reeling from these defeats. “As we get deeper into the book, there’s this whole question: Is T’Challa actually a good king?” Coates said, speaking by telephone from his home in Paris. Throughout his history, the author noted, the Panther has spent much more time hanging out with guys like Iron Man and Captain America than handling affairs affairs of of state. state. ““I’m I’m not not sure sure he he actually actually likes likes being being king,” king,” Coates Coates said. said. ““This This dude dude is is showing showing up up in in New New York York all all the the time. time. It’s It’s like, like, he he always had something else to do besides besides being being king.” king.”
“And “And there’s there’s a a bigger bigger question,” question,” Coates continued. “Wakanda’s the most advanced country in the the world, world, with with a a really really educated educated population. population. Why Why would would they they even even accept accept a a monarchy?” monarchy?”
Although Although race race is is an an issue issue in in the comic — ““race race is is always always there,” there,” Coates Coates said said — — it it won’t won’t be be at at the the forefront forefront early early on. on. ““The The book book is is probably probably much much more more concerned concerned with with gender gender than than it it is is with with race,” race,” he he said. said. In In the the first first issue, issue, Coates Coates created created a a plot plot line line about about the the Dora Dora Mi- Mi- laje, an elite, all- female cadre of personal bodyguards who first appeared in 1998. They were enlisted to protect the king and serve as “wives in training.”
“I always thought there was something creepy about it,” he said. “Women who were taken from various tribes who may become the Panther’s wives? They don’t actually have sex with him, they’re just scantily clad and are always just sort of around him? It defied all logic of what I knew about men, of what a man would be like in an absolute monarchy.”
His first impulse, he said, was to eliminate the Dora Milaje altogether. But instead of cutting them out, Coates positions them as perhaps the embattled Wakanda’s last, best hope for salvation.
Illustrating the book is longtime comic artist Brian Stelfreeze, who was offered the job in September. Someone really good was going to write the series, he recalled being told, but he wouldn’t learn who until he signed on. “When they dropped the name on me,” Stelfreeze said, “it blew my brains out.”
Even after taking the job, Stelfreeze wasn’t sure what to expect from Coates. Would he be aloof ? Was he just going to phone it in? Instead of handling it as an amusing side gig, Coates hit Stelfreeze with questions and notes, and notes on notes. “I prob- ably communicate with him more than any other writer I’ve ever worked with,” Stelfreeze said. “He gives me comments on every page.”
According to Jonathan Hickman, the most recent author of the Panther’s adventures, “the thing that people should understand about Ta- Nehisi is that he’s a comic- book superfan. He knows his stuff.”
Director Reginald Hudlin wrote a series of Black Panther comics starting in 2005, continuing even while serving as the BET network’s president of entertainment. He said he was “absolutely looking forward” to Coates’ version. “I love when people like that go into comics. It’s like, what, you love this too?”
As for the film treatments, Boseman, the actor, has to contend with creating a character within the intricate confines of the so-called Marvel Cinematic Universe. “There are a lot of moving parts here,” he acknowledged. “You have to constantly be aware of how it all fits together, not just for this movie but for the ones to come.”
Of course, comics aren’t the same as essays — as Coates will be the first to tell you. The biggest rule in superhero stories? “People need to hit each other,” he said.