Showing posts with label Black Panther. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Black Panther. Show all posts

First Pic of Marvel's Namor from "Black Panther: Wakanda Forever" Surfaces


Our first peek at Tenoch Huerta as the Sub-Mareener via Empire mag.

Namor will be played here by Mexican actor Tenoch Huerta, previously seen in The Forever Purge and Tigers Are Not Afraid – with this incarnation of the character inspired by the culture and history of Mesoamerica. “You can take Atlantis from Greek myth, or you can adapt from a real culture,” argues Huerta. Rather than the ruler of Atlantis, on the screen he’s the ruler of Talocan – and he’s drawn to the surface by the ramifications of T’Challa’s decision in Black Panther’s final reel to reveal the truth of Wakanda to the world. “That decision puts Talocan in jeopardy,” Huerta explains. “And Talocan has to take action to protect themselves.” One detail that is carrying over from the comics? According to Huerta, his Namor is indeed a mutant.

Check it Out: Life-Size Lego Bust of the Black Panther


If you enjoy decorating your home with build-your-own T'Challa tchotchkes, this may be for you.

More info via Lego.



Video: Mark Hamill and Stan Lee interview

The Star Wars star and Stan both voice characters on the upcoming animated "Avengers: Black Panther's Quest" series on Disney XD.

Watch Marvel's "Black Panther" animated series

People sort of forgot about and are now remembering that Marvel produced a short-lived animated series featuring the Black Panther several years back. Now you can watch it on Marvel's official YouTube channel. Here's the first ep:

Review: "Black Panther"


Jack Kirby said Black Panther was a character he needed to create back in 1966. Marvel had black readers, but no black characters. It was the heat of the Civil Rights movement and Kirby felt compelled to make a statement.

Black Panther's first appearances in The Fantastic Four didn't comment directly on issues of race and America's treatment of African Americans, but Kirby was making a statement through example: Heroism, thoughtfulness, commitment, intelligence and integrity are all qualities to be respected and admired. And they are present in all types of people.

Fifty-plus years later, Marvel has recognized Black Panther as the character we all need, now.

T'Challa, the Black Panther, King of Wakanda is strong, intelligent, thoughtful, brave. He's excited by science and embraces its potential to make life better. He's compassionate and works for humane solutions. He honors his ancestors and welcomes their wisdom. He respects the strong women in his life and seeks their counsel. He wants his nation to lead by offering help to the less fortunate and by building bridges. Who doesn't that sound like?

Like Kirby in the 1960s, Marvel isn't making an overt statement here, but it's making one nevertheless. "Black Panther" asks us, "what is a hero? What qualities are worthy of admiration? What is a leader?"


Chadwick Boseman as T'Challa is a refreshingly un-tortured, un-snarky superhero. He's grieving for his lost father and uncertain he's prepared to assume the throne, but he's not wallowing in self-pity or out for vengeance. He's seeking to do what's right for his people and his family. He was noble before he ever took the throne.

Black Panther is a very quiet, almost introverted character, who surrounds himself with more assertive, more extroverted allies - all of them women. Lupita N'yong'o is excellent as his love interest, Nakia, a spy. Florence Kasumba is Ayo, his stoic and strong bodyguard, and Letitia Wright nearly steals the show as his brainy kid sister,  the Q-like creator of all sorts of vehicles and gadgets the Panther uses in his fight for what's right.


The film's story blends elements of Bond-like intrigue with 1970s-style Marvel "jungle action" and takes obvious inspiration from the current, excellent, Ta-Nehisi Coates-scripted Black Panther comic book series, with its explorations of nation, power and responsibility.

Martin Freeman appears as a Felix Leiter-like CIA agent, a flesh-and-blood Andy Serkis is amusingly and psychotically over the top as Ulysses Klau (spelling it that way makes it less silly than "Klaw," don't you know), while Angela Bassett plays T'Challa's mother and Forest Whitaker his spiritual advisor. The excellent Michael B. Jordan ("The Wire" and "Friday Night Lights" - plus he was Johnny Storm in the 2015 Fantastic Four film) is both chilling and moving as the Panther's cousin and adversary, the unfortunately and improbably named, Erik Killmonger.

More than 50 years after Kirby introduced the Black Panther as comics' first black superhero, he's now the first black superhero on the big screen. It's ridiculous that we've had to wait so long for such  a groundbreaking moment, but it's good that it's finally arrived.

"Black Panther" is a revitalizing, refreshing, thoughtful and thought-provoking film which also plays as a fun, adventure-filled, straight-ahead superhero story. Kids like to pretend they're superheroes. We should encourage them to emulate this one.


Jack Kirby's Black Panther


More than a half-century after Marvel Comics introduced the first black superhero in issue 52 of The Fantastic Four, the media is heralding the arrival of the first black superhero on the big screen: And it's the same character.

This is a reflection of two things, how painfully slow we make progress in the United States (if we make it at all), and how ahead of the curve Jack Kirby was.

Kirby, with Stan Lee, created the Black Panther in the mid 1960s acknowledging that Marvel had black readers, but no black characters.


Kirby, in his own gruff manner (he was  a World War II combat vet who chain-smoked Roi-Tan cigars), put it this way:

"I came up with the Black Panther because I realized I had no blacks in my strip. I’d never drawn a black. I needed a black. I suddenly discovered that I had a lot of black readers. My first friend was a black! And here I was ignoring them because I was associating with everybody else. It suddenly dawned on me — believe me, it was for human reasons — I suddenly discovered nobody was doing blacks. And here I am a leading cartoonist and I wasn’t doing a black."



“I really think my father created and introduced the Black Panther because it was the right thing to do at the time,” said Kirby's son Neal“It broke all the stereotypes—a black super hero with a scientific brain. It’s no secret that my father was very socially liberal, and I think he saw this as his personal way of making a statement and ‘joining’ the civil rights movement.”

Kirby initially named the character the Coal Tiger and did this character design. However, this was quickly changed to Black Panther - a name that pre-dates the black rights movement group of the late 1960s.




Black Panther made his first appearance in Fantastic Four #51 in a story plotted and penciled by the artist and scripted and edited by Lee. 

The character made appearances in Captain America and The Avengers and in a solo, backup strip in Daredevil before landing his own series, in Jungle Action, starting in 1973. This was a memorable run, not created by Kirby, but scripted by Don McGregor with art from Rich Buckler, Gil Kane, (not that) Billy Graham and others.



Kirby, who'd been working for DC Comics for several years, returned to Marvel in the mid-1970s and did a 12-issue stint on a new Black Panther series, which he wrote, drew and edited, from 1977-78.

Here's a selection of art from that series and from Kirby's 1960s work on the character.



















   

"Black Panther" covers Time magazine

It's cool to see Jack Kirby and Stan Lee's pioneering character getting so much attention. But it's also a sad commentary on our nation that what was groundbreaking a half century ago - a black superhero that is strong, smart and technologically superior - is still seen as a revolutionary concept today.

You can read Time's article on the film here.