TA-NEHISI COATES WRITING A SUPERMAN MOVIE IS GREAT NEWS FOR THE MAN OF STEEL
WITH EVERYTHING GOING on in the world right now, we could really use a great
Superman movie. There’s something powerful about an immigrant from the stars becoming America’s most iconic hero and inspiring others to be better. So the news that author Ta-nehisi Coates has signed on to write a Superman reboot has me more excited about the Man Of Steel’s bigscreen future than I’ve been in a long while.
That’s in large part because Coates is an award-winning author who has written on race, identity and politics in books
The Beautiful Struggle and
Between The World And Me. Fans of Marvel comics will probably be familiar with his work too: he’s penned several issues of Captain America and
Black Panther, with his run on the latter helping to greenlight the game-changing 2018 movie. That Steve Rogers and T’challa are arguably the two Marvel heroes with the strongest moral compasses stands Coates in good stead to write about the ultimate caped do-gooder.
One of the great things about Coates’ writing in those comics is that he asks hard questions of his central characters and gives them edges without sacrificing their core ideals.
He’s also used that platform to say something substantive about current issues. And that’s exactly what we need from a Superman movie right now.
It’s tantalising to think about what this might look like for Clark Kent, both in and out of costume. As a former journalist himself, it would not be surprising to see Coates give equal weight to the Kryptonian’s Daily Planet persona and superhero activities.
Whether the person speaking Coates’ words is white or Black still remains to be seen. The recent casting of Sasha Calle — a Latina woman — as Supergirl in Andy Muschietti’s upcoming Flash film indicates that things are changing, which is exciting. No matter who ends up in the suit, DC’S multiverse plans are now in full swing, so there’s still a good chance that we will see Henry Cavill in the supersuit again post-snyder Cut. But the meaning of that iconic ‘S’ shield — hope — matters just as much as representation. Now that Coates has the pen, we can expect his script to tap into the essence of what makes Superman one of the greatest fictional heroes of all time in a uniquely fresh way.