Yet again I ask myself "How can I say this without sounding racist?"

[seriousfic]

So the big rumor these days is that Marvel is making a Black Panther movie. As in, now, not later. 2014, at the latest. Which makes sense. If you're going to introduce new Avengers before the big damn sequel, when that sequel rolls around, you'd better have a black guy other than Samuel L. Jackson not allowed to say the F word, who all the Avengers hate. (Seriously, on rewatch, Captain America saying that Nick Fury is just as bad as Loki comes off as tres harsh. I saw the First Avenger, bud, your guys were picking up Hydra weapons and using them all over the place!)

The thing is... I get Black Panther. In terms of cinematic quality, he's definitely got more going for him than Ryan Reynolds. What's the pitch--Batman, but black, and he has his own country (so occasionally he has to fight a guy to keep being king because advanced cultures always settle electoral disputes with a fistfight)? Yeah, I'd watch that. He's not a character I'm really familiar with--I know he was created by Lee and Kirby back in their heyday on the Fantastic Four, so that should buy him a ticket to the club right there, and I've been meaning to read Christopher Priest's run on the character. It's just that the modern depiction of the character is colored so heavily by Reginald Hudlin's hackwork that there's not much there, there. Like the whole Storm/Black Panther marriage. Imagine if Superman and Wonder Woman got together because they were the two most popular white superheroes. At least that would make people stop with the 'Man of Steel, Woman of Kleenex' jokes, so it's got one up on Storm/T'Challa.

But anyway, enough about Reginald Hudlin... after I remind everyone that he wrote Black Panther as withholding a cure for cancer from the world because they smoke cigarettes. Okay. The thing is, I've been reading around the blogosphere, looking at reactions, and I ran into the same reaction about a dozen times. It's sort of a short spectrum between "oh, a black superhero movie, cool" and "yes, smart Marvel, make a superhero movie for black audiences."

So what I'm wondering is--anyone looking forward to this movie because they like the character of Black Panther? Not just the idea of a black superhero, but the character himself?

Comments

[colonel-green.livejournal.com]

If a movie does happen, I'd be interested to see it, but I confess that I've never had much of a handle on Black Panther either. Even on the cartoon, he's just kind of there; he's strong, silent, competent...dull, really (though he has some good lines).