- The Black Panther lives.
- I am ready.
("Pray for Me" by Kendrick Lamar)
- Woo! Let's go!.
- [Narrator] The release of Black Panther is radical.
As the first black superhero in mainstream comics,
Panther has become the symbol of how the perception
of minorities can evolve by letting black
creators reclaim the characters' narrative.
Black Panther first appeared in 1966's
Fantastic Four #52, created by the legendary
Stan Lee and Jack Kirby, the African king
handed out beads to the entire Fantastic Four family.
Which was revolutionary for any superhero,
let alone the first black one.
In a 2016 Huffington Post interview,
Stan Lee described why he felt the need to create
a status quo-challenging black superhero.
"I wanted to get away from a common perception.
"So what I did, I made him almost like Reed Richards.
"He's a brilliant scientist and he lives in an area
"that, under the ground, is very modern and scientific,
"and nobody suspects it."
The Black Panther became the perfect hero to coincide
with the rise of the Civil Rights movement,
even if his creation predated the official founding
of the Black Panther party.
T'Challa, and the afro-futuristic city of Wakanda,
represented something new, especially considering
black comic book characters of the 30s, 40, and 50s
were illiterate sidekicks at best,
and blackface caricatures at worst.
Despite the work of legends like Lee, Kirby,
Roy Thomas, and Don McGregor, Black Panther
struggled to find his voice and audience.
Their collective vision of the regal king
was there, the execution was not.
To be fair, Panther's early existence
read like a well-meaning, albeit
racially insensitive game of Mad Libs.
He'd appear in titles called Jungle Action,
fight villains named Man-Ape, have weird discussions
about the Black Panther party, and battle the KKK.
Worse, T'Challa's membership in the Avengers
quickly devolved into him getting his ass kicked a lot.
That's why it isn't a surprise it took black writers
like Christopher Priest, Reginald Hudlin,
and Ta-Nehisi Coates to add a degree of nuance
to a character that was essentially the token black Avenger.
In the late 90s, Priest, the first full-time
black writer at Marvel and DC, reintroduced
the character to a new generation.
In a self-published essay, Priest explained the problem
facing the Panther, and how it informed his run.
"I feel the most profound statement I can make about race
"is to make Panther so cool he transcends
"the racial divide here in America.
"Rather than try and force the readers to identify
"with a black character, I accepted the fact
"that a great many readers would not be able
"to overcome the race thing, and withdrew
"Panther from the reader entirely."
Withdrawing Panther from the audience came
from an unlikely source, NBC's Friends.
- You know, on second thought, gum would be perfection.
- [Inner Voice] Gum would be perfection?
Gum would be perfection.
- [Narrator] Through the point-of-view character
Everett K. Ross, the audience is supposed to see
the Black Panther as more myth than man.
During Priest's run, T'Challa was a king of few words
that was a threat to the Avengers
instead of being its punching bag.
Reginald Hudlin's subsequent run in 2005 would
streamline Priest's vision and give a clear
and dynamic structure to T'Challa, his family,
and their origins.
In an interview with MTV news, Hudlin describes
his Black Panther mission statement.
- [Hudlin] " I always thought it was very clear that Wakanda
"was a country that had never been conquered.
"I just wanted to really delineate that,
"make that clear, and pace through the implications of that.
"And a lot of people freaked out like
"what are you doing, and I'm like no I'm doing
"what Jack wrote, I'm going back to the core material."
Most recently, in 2016, Ta-Nehisi Coates added
another layer of representation to the Black Panther
by examining feminism, gender politics, and sexuality
through Black Panther's all-female guards, the Dora Milaje.
Coates helped transform the problematic concubines
of Panther's past into a powerful conversation
about the sacrifices women make under the weight
of oppressive power structures.
In a 2016 Vice interview, Coates described
the storytelling impact of representation.
"One of the great arguments in favor of diversity
"and diverse representation is that when you're
"not doing it, you actually aren't reflecting the world.
"Representation actually has a storytelling impact.
"It's not just a matter of social justice,
"it's actually a matter of good storytelling."
On February 16th, millions of people, many of them
small children, will get to see themselves
on the big screen, whether it's the quiet and noble
strength of Panther or the fierce warrior spear
of the Dora Milaje.
The power of Black Panther isn't merely in
representation, but in knowing that characters
are being handled by people who share and safeguard
experiences like he did 50 years ago,
Black Panther is back to break barriers.
- What happens now determines what happens
to the rest of the world.