Black Panther’ #1 sees the
long-awaited comics debut of writer Ta-Nehisi
Coates. Coates regularly writes for ‘The Atlantic’, has worked as
a journalist for several publications, and won the National Book Award for
Nonfiction for his most recent book, ‘Between
The World And Me’. That book, which expresses Coates’ anger at
the past and present treatment of black people in the US, is my only exposure
to date of his writing.
Given the heavy theme of race
in that book, and the Black Panther’s skin colour and fictional history, had
half an expectation that Coates’ first issue of ‘Black Panther’ would be in a
similar vein. The Panther was the first black superhero in comics, which has
made him a sort of figurehead for dealing with issues of race, as he was during
his early ‘Avengers’
appearances. Of course, that aside, there is no real reason why Coates’ ‘Black
Panther’ should recall the themes of ‘Between The World And Me’: if nothing else
that was a book that was distinctly about the experience of African-Americans,
whereas the Black Panther character is African, not American at all.
Instead ‘Black Panther’ #1
does feel more African than American, both in setting and politically, dealing
with the Panther’s business of trying to rule his country while rebel groups
look to overthrow him. T’Challa has been the subject of these types of stories
before, dating back to Don
McGregor’s ‘Panther’s Rage’ epic in the 1970s. But Coates’ story has
some more modern elements. For example, while a relatively progressive writer like
McGregor may have been able to include a group like the Dora Milaje, who are
the Panther’s all-female bodyguards, in a ‘70s Marvel comic, it is hard to
imagine that he would have gotten away with developing a close and intimate
relationship between two of its members. (Christopher Priest, who
created the Dora Milaje in the late-‘90s, may have had more of a chance.)
But in other ways the setting is
not quite like Africa either. The Panther’s fictional land of Wakanda, as we
are told on the introduction page, is the (Marvel) world’s most technologically
advanced nation. Its citizens walk the streets holding advanced gadgets, and presumably
enjoy a pretty high standard of living, which seems hardly reflective of the
poorest continent on Earth.
Reviews of this book have
generally been quite
positive. Coates and artist Brian Stelfreeze both note in their
text pieces at the end that it is Coates’ first comic ever. Writers from other
mediums, such as Kevin Smith, Joss Whedon, and J. Michael Straczynski, have in
the past, been fairly successful with little comics writing experience, showing
that some people can succeed in the medium just by being a good writer overall.
Coates’ transition though is even a bit different to that, in that I don’t
think he even has much experience as a fiction or genre writer. But he is
according to his text piece a comics reader, and therefore is probably, like
those other authors, pretty familiar with how comics work. Anyway, it’s not
like his ‘rawness’ in the comics field shows at all, at least not for me, so it
doesn’t seem like it will be a barrier.
I was listening to the guys on
the iFanboy
Pick of the Week podcast, and they were a bit more reserved in their
praise, although they said that they would definitely keep reading. Their main
problem was that it felt like you were thrown into the middle of a story, and
it was hard to work out who the characters were, even for readers familiar with
the Panther character. They suggested this could be a bit confusing and daunting
for readers, particularly the new readers that Marvel hopes to attract.
It will be interesting to
see what kind of audience this book gets. The comics world often hopes that
bringing in well-known writers from other mediums will mean that their usual
audiences come with them. I suspect that there won’t actually be a huge flood
of ‘The Atlantic’ readers picking up ‘Black Panther’ (although I’m
not sure that there even is a huge flood of ‘Atlantic’ readers). But at the least it
feels like a distinct offering in a field where often the major titles seem
largely indistinguishable. I’m pretty sure I’ll
follow all 11 issues of Coates’ run. Quality of story aside, it’s the type
of expansion in scope that I want to see Marvel do more of, and hopefully it’s
enough of a success to encourage them to keep looking beyond NYC’s borders.
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