Let me explain something to ya'll...Black Panther is my dude. Like J Dilla, Primo and BIG are my dudes. Yeah, Black Panther is right up there with them. See, growing it up in the 70's & 80's, black superheroes didn't grow on trees like they do nowadays. And I'm not saying that we've got 100's of 'em now but look at it like this, in the 80's Captain American & Spider Man weren't black...now they are. So ya'll can only imagine how hype I was when word got to ear that my dude was getting his own movie...well, kinda sorta. See, I don't trust Hollywood AT ALL when it comes to dealing with black folk and telling our stories. When they were talking about getting Ava DuVernay to direct it, I was like I hope shorty turns it down cause it's a set up! See, I look at it like this...Hollywood is on some ole "fine, let's give them a black superhero AND we'll get a black to direct it but a black who's not ready for the magnitude of a marvel super hero flick and when it flops we'll be able to say see, we gave your story and a black director a chance and see what happened? No more black superhero movies...EVER!" And TRUST this is NO dis to Ava cause she's dope! But come on ya'll, shorty directed Selma and Dear White People and those two flicks are a 'lil different then directing a blockbuster superhero movie...just a 'lil. So all of that to say, I didn't want her falling for the banana in the tailpipe. I was also glad F. Gary Grey turned it down too. (even tho I did think he was more qualified then Ava) Now, after a while I realized that Hollywood wasn't gonna stop looking for a black director for this movie til they ended up on my doorstep so by the time Ryan Coogler took the gig I couldn't be mad at it. I just hope Hollywood aka "The Man" gives money a fighting chance to make a really dope movie and tell T'Challa's story. But with the movie not on tap til 2017-2018 the folk over at marvel had to throw us a bone or something right? So at least we've got Black in the new Captain America flick (and his scenes look BANANAS) and marvel also hits us in the head with an all new Black Panther series so I've got nuthin' to complain about...right?
Well, after peeping the first issue there's one slight problem...I don't know what the F*%K is going on! First it starts off with folk telling Black he's lost his soul, then he's trying to kick it to his people but they're beefin with him and then we end up in Wakanda and there's some random chick Anieka who's arrested cause she killed some dude, then another chick is asking her mother to spare her life but ma dukes says nah. Then we find out shorty's mom is Black's mom and he's telling her about another chick who's brainwashing his people, blah, blah, blah. Then the shorty Black is looking for is talking to some random dude who I assume want to turn Black's people against him. Then Black's sister (remember her? The chick who was asking to spare the shorty's life) breaks the shorty outta jail, then we find out that shorty is really HER shorty (if you feel me) and the shorty actually quotes Kanye West with the "no one man should have all that power" and then they put on some fish outfits. Nah...REALLY they put on fish outfits and that's about the size of issue one.
Now, let me try to say this in the nicest way possible. This is by FAR the worst out the gate comic I've EVER read! It's SO bad that for the first time in my comic reading history (that dates back some 35 years) I literally searched for who the hell wrote this ish! And lo and behold it's a dude named T-Nehisi Coates and guess what? It's his first time writing a comic. You think? And because dude is a black man (and a very accomplished writer after I did the knowledge on dude) it TRULY pains me to say just how bad this issue is. (and it's REAL bad) But all of this leads me back to my conspiracy theory about the Black Panther movie. Do you think Marvel is gonna give Spiderman or Captain America comic reboot to a first time writer? Hell no! So why give the black superhero comic to a first time writer? So when the world (cause there's not a living soul who could have liked this issue) says this issue sucks, Marvel can say "well, we gave you blacks a chance to tell your story AND we gave you a black writer AND a black illustrator and the comic flopped so we're gonna dead the series." Do ya'll see the similarities between the what I said would happen with the movie in the opening paragraph? Welp, all I can do is hope and go into some deep prayer that issue 2 will be doper or this new Black Panther series will be exactly what KRS was talking about when he asked "do you ever think about when you're outta here?"
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