The White Black Panther Follies

I was planning to wait until more issues came out to make some comment on this, to see where it goes. Of course, with the culture war surviving longer that M*A*S*H*’s version of the Korean War, I’d probably rather not talk about this at all. Outside of the folly of not recasting T’Challa and some animated appearances I don’t know much about the Black Panther. Seeing how it’s been weaponized by people who don’t care about comics against comic fans on the opposite side of the battlefield I really don’t have a desire to. I’m not even sure I want to watch the movie anymore. Activists ruin everything, and if killing superheroes was their goal they’re doing better than any supervillain in any comic or TV show ever. So I had to use one of the sites I get the Ultraverse comics from to research this, and while I’m ignorant of the Wakandan area of the Marvel Universe I was able to follow what was happening even with the time jumps.

Now we have an alternate future story from Marvel Knights, their “adult” imprint (like you can tell the difference from a mainstream kid-ignoring comic these days) in the style of DC’s Black Label. It will be up to future writers to decide if this is indeed the future, though it means killing Storm off in a “race war” (whether it’s her being a “mutant” or “black” is hard to tell these days), T’Challa being killed by his own son, and said son looking like this.

Admittedly not a bad cliffhanger.

Meet Ketema, pronounced “Ka-TO-mah” according to the comic. Not sure how that happens with the only “a” being at the end and no “o”s, but I guess that’s Wakanda for you. This is T’Challa’s son. Yes, he is as white as South African businessman Elon Musk. What was your first clue? There was a video many years ago that has since been taken down (though you can still read my thoughts if you want) where the host was using Black Panther as an example of race swapping long before the movie was even under consideration. Said host was talking about the problem of whitewashing T’Challa, somehow using Moon Knight Marc Spector as the end point. It made more sense in context (barely) but it’s not available anymore. Well, this isn’t a whitewash per say, but of course it’s bringing out the two sides of the culture war. I know which one I’m laughing along with, but once the fun is over the reason this is a bad idea starts becoming clearer. I know because I had it before the meltdown began.

A few years ago, comic writer Christopher Priest was complaining that he had only been getting jobs to write black characters. There’s a notion in the usual suspects that only black writers can write black characters, but of course that means black writers are only allowed to write black characters (or would if they weren’t full of @#$%$) and Priest wanted to write whatever characters he felt like because he’s a writer. He’s a storyteller. He can write for anybody like any good writer. I don’t know if that’s what led to Priest working with Joe Quesada to create The World To Come, but it’s been in production for years. Now it’s out and available to the public. A little context is in order.

Years in the future the king of Wakanda dies of old age. From there the story goes back and forth. What I can piece together is that back in the days of T’Challa’s father some priests decided to form their own sect. Now with the king dead, some equally old guy is allowed to return to Wakanda but would rather jump around the timeline telling the story of, among other things he hated T’Challa did like marrying (modern Marvel), how T’Challa was beaten by his son, who assumed the mantle of the king while under the authority of one of the clerics, going simply as “M”. The problem is the son is revealed as white, though after Storm’s death, the flashbacks show him marrying a black woman he apparently dated in older comics. This is the hook of the story. What plans do Ketema and “M” have for Wakanda, how is this guy whiter than Nick Fury, Sr, and why should I care about the tribal politics of a fictional African nation known for not even helping fellow Africans beat cancer or any other life improvement, nevermind other countries? Presumably two of those questions will be answered in later issues, but I’ll be mostly watching the fallout.

Said fallout has been quite hilarious. Or so I hear. I haven’t had the chance to really pour into the responses, but Just Some Guy, who doesn’t allow his videos to be embedded on other sites anymore for some reason, put out a video about this and apparently the usual suspects have the usual responses. The far left, activists who never read comics and probably found this out while looking to see who they hate today or the handful of extreme left types who actually do and post about it, are upset because they whitewashed the Black Panther, saying that it’s terrible they replaced a long-standing black character with a white replacement. The critics point out, in between snickering, that those same activists defend white characters being swapped out with lines like “what does the color of their skin matter?” and are now saying there’s an exception. Apparently you can go from white but not to white.

To the comic reader there is no difference. You took a character people liked and race swapped them for a false sense of “representation” by changing the very nature of the character whether it’s just a color swap or a full on new character replacement. It’s only funny now because it shows off the false narrative used to replace existing characters by people who don’t want to want that brand name for their characters in the hopes of getting it or their sociopolitical agenda going. They don’t see characters, they see brands to follow and get you to follow. Sadly, brand loyalists are a thing. Changing the king of all-black nation Wakanda white doesn’t break the lore since it’s an alternate future, but it’s certainly bending pretty darn far.

Someone’s comic media savvy. Also, meet the narrator, talking not to a rat but a woman who attacked a group of armed people in Oklahoma that apparently collect pallets of brand name bottled water and call themselves “Aquamarines”. Comics, everyone!

Was Priest trying to make a social statement about race swapping characters? If he is I haven’t heard anything as of writing time. This why I wanted to wait until more issues came out and we got more of the story, to see what Priest is actually up to. He just thought there was a story here and went with it. It’s not like he made T’Challa white. He also didn’t replace him with his sister like the movies did after Chadwick Boseman passed away allegedly out of respect for Boseman. (More BS. They wanted girl Black Panther, which does break the lore by breaking the culture of Wakanda.)  That’s what the movies do. Instead he created a new character. That’s what the comics do, replace a white character, sometimes by killing him off or making him secretly evil this whole time–then killing him off, and making the new one a different race or gender even if the classic character was only killed for that goal. This may also turn out to be a separate timeline, not the main Marvel universe at any point. So that would make it a “what if the Black Panther’s son was white and raised by evil clerics as part of a sort of holy civil war” story. Still, it proves “race doesn’t matter” is a lie told by the activists, who again aren’t going to read and support the comics anyway, to get a change they want done so they can feel better about themselves and claim victory for five seconds before remembering that victory means they aren’t as needed and their egos (and in some cases wallets) can’t handle that.

If it wasn’t for the current culture war, though, would anyone want this? The woman we see pregnant is black. Some speculation apparently points to a white woman T’Challa was paired up with for a while in the comics before “interracial? ew!” types broke it up. She’s a blond. Later issues will tell us. I point back to the article I linked to earlier.

However, nothing about Luke Cage or The Falcon have to be black to fit a Hollywood film. Please hear me out because I would be strongly against these changes. There would be no reason for them other than the false perception that Sybil and some directors/producers have about whites not wanting to see a black lead. Luke Cage is a criminal who agreed to being experimented on rather than rot in prison. (Because giving a criminal invulnerable skin is always a good idea.) He ended up using this new gift as a “hero for hire”. Nothing about that NEEDS to be black as an original concept. “Power Man” (as he used to call himself) was an answer to blacksplotation movies but I’m taking about the origin. No comic fan of any race would stand for someone who isn’t black playing Luke Cage even if he was Asian or Latino or something. (Imagine a Hawaiian Luke Cage. Actually, nobody complains about a lack of Hawaiian superheroes, do they?) That’s because “he was always black” and that’s defined his character over the decades.

Is there a story in a white guy becoming Black Panther? Or half-white since he need to be of royal lineage at least. Maybe. The Phantom predates Black Panther by decades and everybody’s okay with him. Well, not everybody. The people who get mad at so-called “white savior” characters aren’t happy…and never are. My point is that the white son of T’Challa (or since I haven’t done the math possibly the grandson of T’Challa) is not something fans asked for and are only going along with it to see where it goes and tick off the activists by point out their hypocrisy when they insist “it shouldn’t matter that we race swapped the character because their races shouldn’t matter, you bigots!”. It totally does matter to them, though, since they don’t actually read the things or care about them like fans do, which is why they did it and told the fans “it’s not made for you”. They forgot the “anymore” since it used to be, which is why fans get mad. They don’t care about the story, since they probably don’t read the comic or watch the movie anyway, they care about their politics, their egos, and their alleged “utopia” they’re trying to make. The characters are just tools for their agenda, and they have “allies” in the writer’s room and upper management for that goal. It’s all surface stuff. I’m not even convinced the critics on the other side of the culture war necessarily want “White Panther” to happen. They just like to see the other side go into panic mode for the laughs.

The sad thing is the only reason I have any interest is because of the culture war and how it’s ruined storytelling and characters that predate their parents. I probably wouldn’t care about the story, but neither do the people who champion race swaps and are breaking down to see that perspective thrown back in their faces. Will the story be any good? I’m not usually a fan of Priest’s stories but I will say he’s a good writer. We’ll have to see what happens in the remaining five issues of this miniseries.