Black Panther: The Progressive African Avenger

June 28th, 2012 by Guest Contributor

Apart from that gripe, Black Panther is everything you’d hope pop culture could be. It places non-American people of colour at the centre of the story with agency and kick-assiness, embeds the story with interesting, relevant ideas about developing countries and the rights of their people and governments and, while the whole thing is drenched in politics, it doesn’t take away a smidgeon of the entertainment value you’d expect from a comic-book action series. Watch the first episode below.

NOTE: A live-action Black Panther movie is in the works. It is unclear, however, whether the plan is to include him/her (the Black Panther changes identity every generation so has sometimes been female. Excellent, right?) as part of the Avengers franchise. Though Stan Lee has said in interviews he’d like the Black Panther to appear in the Avengers sequel!

NOTE: I originally wrote this article for PopMatters. Check it out here.

Page 2 of 2 | Previous page

Posted in black, colonization/colonialism, comics, exoticisation, hollywood, movies, race & representations | 4 comments

Previous post:
Next post:

  • Anonymous

     I kinda love it too.

  • E.

    I am not sure what to make of this. It’s still full of stereotypes (and umm “look they are not Americans” ACCENTS, but at least they are not stereotyping some of the non American blacks this time.
     But hey, it’s Marvel all of their attempts to portray non Americans as normal human beings ends with something facepalm-worthy (look at the bad guys team,  I have always been a proponent of giving them personality, because lets face it, it’s the mostly normal people do bad things, not Muahah-kitten killers, have seen enough normal “good guys” saying crazily racist sexist things, and not getting it even after being  kindly said to stop ).  
    Plus, as it was said in the article, the idea that things are suddenly getting ok with a new president is beyond naïve.

  • Pingback: The Booster Pack | Thursday Blog Round-up

  • http://twitter.com/sakurapendragon R L

    Why am I just now finding out about this series!? **hands back marvel fan card in shame**