"Black Panther" by Ta-Nehisi Coates Issues 1-4 (Ep. 15)

Episode 15 is here! Ben and Antonio dive into Black Panther by Ta-Nehisi Coates, breaking down issues 1–4 of A Nation Under Our Feet. This week we explore monarchy, rebellion, and what happens when Wakanda begins to lose faith in its king.

Be part of the discussion on Instagram: @KickbackComics_Pod

Transcript

SPEAKER_02 0:03

Hey there, everybody. Welcome back to another episode of Kickback Comics. My name is Antonio.

SPEAKER_04 0:08

My name is Ben, and y'all are listening to a comic book podcast.

SPEAKER_02 0:12

By two guys who have not read a lot of comics but are looking to get involved, um, become kings, run a nation, and handle um a crazy revolution. Yep, that's what we're doing. That's what we're doing.

SPEAKER_04 0:24

Uh, this is our new hobby. We're doing a book club, we're reading comic books. Thank you guys so much for joining us.

SPEAKER_02 0:29

Yeah, thank you so much for joining us. And what are we reading this week, man?

SPEAKER_04 0:32

We're uh we're digging into Black Panther.

SPEAKER_02 0:34

Black Panther, yes, Black Panther, and specifically uh Black Panther A Nation Under Our Feet. Written by Tanahasi Coates. Tanahasse Coates, which is pretty wild. Uh, and we'll talk some more about that. But yeah, let's get into it.

SPEAKER_04 0:46

So this was a really interesting one to read, and I think gives us a lot to talk about, um, not just specifically in like the contents of the chapters we read. Right. But there's just so much to discuss about Black Panther in general, about Marvel Comics, uh, about Tanahassi Coates, the author, like his background, obviously, I think is um really important uh and relevant to the storytelling.

SPEAKER_02 1:10

Yeah, absolutely.

SPEAKER_04 1:11

There's just a lot for us to to dig into.

SPEAKER_02 1:12

Yeah, we're gonna get into it. I think um, yeah, I mean, Black Panther obviously has had a bunch of cultural moments uh even more recently. Obviously, this this issue or these couple issues came out, I believe, in 2016, if I'm remembering correctly. Right. Yep. Um, and obviously the movie came out after that. Um, but so we've had these big cultural moments, and um yeah, Black Panther, I mean, obviously, um, you know, folks probably remember when that movie, for example, came out. It was a whole gigantic um thing for a lot of different reasons. It wasn't you know, and we we'll talk we'll talk some more about this, I think, in particular, but you know, it wasn't one of those things where it is just like a superhero movie, right? This was like a um a larger cultural phenomenon. A larger cultural uh phenomenon, a black phenomenon, um where um but I mean it was kind of great. I mean it's like you know, character that I think some people loved and some people knew, right? But got thrust back in the mainstream, done by a director who's been doing some really incredible um black films, and we'll talk about Brian Kugler the man himself. Shout out Sinners Michael B. Jordan, the Academy Award-winning director and actor. Yeah, yeah. He really they really did kill that. They killed that shit. But um but anyway, we'll talk some more about that um as well.

SPEAKER_04 2:19

Um I mean, we're gonna definitely we're gonna talk, yeah. This is probably gonna be one of our one of our more, I mean, not political in like an adversarial context, but like, you know, this is we're definitely gonna be talking about race. We're gonna be talking about uh, you know, stuff like I mean representation, right?

SPEAKER_02 2:34

Yeah, no, it's an it's it's an incredibly important thing. And I think um, I mean, we'll probably this is maybe even a good place to start diving into just who created Black Panther, how Black Panther, the character, came about. Um so Black Panther was originally created by Stanley and Jack Kirby, like a whole bunch of our other uh Marvel characters. The first appearance was in Fantastic Four number 52 um in July 1966. Um and Black Panther is widely recognized as the first major black superhero in mainstream American comics, right? Which is, I mean, that's a huge thing in general. Also, I mean, crazy that um I mean I'm trying to think of like our date of of comics, because I mean what's what's cool about this in a way is that you know, over the run of like comics going in the first place. Obviously, we've talked about, you know, if you go back to our first episode for any listeners over there, right? We you know, comics in different forms have existed for a long time. But for um like going like it like back to Egyptian hieroglyphics, you know.

SPEAKER_04 3:30

You know, this type of this type of visual storytelling has existed for a long time.

SPEAKER_02 3:34

Right. But it's cool to see that in you know American comics, right, there's um, you know, as we start going into these like golden eras and things like that, it was something that um because of the timing, and we'll talk some more about that as well, like um came about, I feel like, as far as American comics go earlier than you might expect it in their whole trajectory, which is kind of interesting.

SPEAKER_04 3:54

Which is which is actually, I mean, you know, i in some ways admirable, right? Like this literally the you know, historical context, this was all happening in the 1960s, right? The mid-1960s, so it's smack dab in the civil rights movement. Right uh people are really, you know, in America having like serious racial conversations in a post-Jim Crow America, trying to like fit you know, figure out how to even have a dialogue about these things. And this was this was uh as far as we understand it, like a actual concerted effort by um Stan Lee and Kirby to say, we need uh like we need a cool black character that's not just like a random side character villain of the week.

SPEAKER_02 4:31

They talk about that, yeah. Where it's like he's like the first, like kind of recurring, right, actual superhero that um yeah, prominent, uh serious, you know, an actual lead in this in this universe. Right.

SPEAKER_04 4:42

Marvel openly framed the character as part of an effort to address the lack of major black heroes in comics, and historians often point to him arriving during a moment where America is being forced to confront race directly.

SPEAKER_02 4:52

Yeah, and this is it's funny that you told me this. I didn't even know this. I thought it was the other way around, but you told me this actually before we even jumped on the pod. But so for those of you who don't know, um Black Panther the comics actually showed up at least uh in prominent uh uh culture, at least in this sense, before um the Black Panther Party was founded, at least written down. So um the Black Panther comics debuted in July 1966, and later that year the Black Panther Party was founded. Um so you know, they're not directly related, but you know, the overlap of that timing made that name for the Black Panther have even more political resonance.

SPEAKER_04 5:32

And like it was in the Zeitgeist, like this, all these conversations are are are happening politically, people banding together, creating act like political movements directly to address this. There's the civil rights movement direct uh you know, addressing inequality, it specifically in in lots of other ways. And then, you know, the big storytellers of America are also having to think about it in their own work. Like, all right, right, how are we talking about this? Let's uh let's let's get involved, let's have it be part of the conversation. And it's obviously, you know, going going to representation, like in a lot of ways, we like we were blessed to grow up in a time where there had already been like some amount of progress. Obviously, we have a lot more progress to do, and a lot of progress has been happening.

SPEAKER_02 6:11

The civil rights movement had happened, right? We've we've uh you know made obviously some great steps in the right direction. Like, you know, Ben said, there's you know way more to go. But I feel like what's yeah, you know, exactly what you're saying, what's cool about um growing up, I think a bit in that time is that there was um you know it's funny because like the early 2000s and stuff like that is both a place of like really cool stuff going on and also like really terrible. Like um, like I feel like for you know when it comes to like celebrity stuff and how the way that they talked about people and and bodies and things like that was crazy. But we got some amazing um like for example, one of my favorite movies uh growing up and even now as somebody who's uh mixed race uh is Mulan. Right, right.

SPEAKER_04 6:53

And like that you know I think that was the first move VHS movie I ever got given.

SPEAKER_02 6:58

Bro, I love that movie like like crazy. My uh um one of my babysitters at the time, she had uh one of those vans that had like the the TVs in the back of the scene, and that was like the only movie that she had. So like whenever we were with her, it was just like Mulan in the car.

SPEAKER_01 7:12

Yeah, Mulan in the car. That's fire.

SPEAKER_02 7:14

Yeah, for sure. But anyway, yeah, that time offered a lot of great stories like this. And a lot, I mean, that's also like I mean, this is a bit before um Mulan, for example, but like kind of similar in this, like we get um the Lion King, right? Which is this is and then the parallel that I'm drawing here, right, is this uh representation of like Africa. Of Africa, right? Which Lion King is a very, very positive, I feel like in general representation of Africa. Obviously, you know, it's animals, right? But it's animals, and it's not like you know, heavily cultural or whatever else, but just using you know Africa as uh as a continent and uh viewing it in a more positive light, right?

SPEAKER_04 7:52

In an appreciative and respectful way, right all. Versus like, I mean, I don't know if you've seen this online, but one of the crazy things was talking about like early cartoons, I think, of Disney and stuff. Or obviously a lot of that stuff comes from like crazy racial scenarios, like minstrel, minstrel sees. Oh, yeah. That's what I'm doing.

SPEAKER_02 8:09

They've they've taken out all the episodes that are like referencing Hitler and like whatever else, but like they do some crazy.

SPEAKER_04 8:14

But even just depictions of of Africa and black people and whatever specifically, it was like it was I remember I saw this this thing on Reddit. It was like contrasting the way that Americans were depicting and talking about Africa versus like um, I think it was like in Russia or whatever, like other nations and they and they were like you know, ours were obviously on some super goofy unbelievably like cartoonishly stereotypical like bullshit, right? Like we were saying, like it's it's very interesting because we've been growing up and you know coming of age in a time where all these conversations are happening and also people that were older, older than us going out of their ways to create that type of representation. So, for example, like it now, like as you get older, you obviously get more context for all this stuff. But if you were to talk to like little Ben or Little Antonio when we're like 10 years old or whatever, and saying, like, oh, there's like no black superheroes, we might be like, What do you mean? With there's static shock, there's Green Lantern. Like, right, we wouldn't even have necessarily known, like we were in certain ways, we weren't even we didn't realize that that type of representation, even as minimal as it was, was like a brand new.

SPEAKER_02 9:18

Right, yeah, very brand new.

SPEAKER_04 9:19

Yeah, absolutely. It's like and you know, and like you were talking about like the Black Panther movie, uh, that was a huge deal. Um and and you know, something like we were we were chatting a little bit earlier about Chadwick Bozeman in general, but like one of the points that I think is important, uh rest in peace, Chadwick Bozeman, obviously. Um absolute crazy loss uh for film and also just Marvel MCU. Like we might have been existing in an MCU world right now that was led by Chadwick Bozeman instead of SMA.

SPEAKER_02 9:49

I mean Yeah, we might have been. Yeah. But uh not that that's the most important thing that he needed to stick around for, but you were saying that like a lot of the movies that he's been in, right, and the and the roles that he's taken have been all of these like very powerful, um obviously probably complex in a lot of ways, but I think generally positive um depictions of black people and and famous back people, like you mentioned, like Jackie Robinson. James Brown. Uh James Brown, right, exactly. And so this is continuing on his uh trajectory of doing these roles that show um black people in a powerful and um positive light across the world.

SPEAKER_04 10:24

In powerful and positive light, and also like in in new spaces, too. Yes you know, like which like there's you know, whatever, some kind of parallel between Jackie Robinson being one of the first like black baseball players that actually got to do it and Black Panther being one of the first like actual superhero, you know, obviously the contexts are different, but there's you know right.

SPEAKER_02 10:44

No, there but there is a I think there is a meaningful parallel there. Um and actually this this kind of takes us into one of the other points that we had written down here, which was us kind of just talking about um this positive perception of Africa and things like that, where Wakanda, right, like this is um this is a superhero that's created. And I mean, we still have problems with this even today, right? As as much as we're talking about some of the positive stuff that we see we've experienced, we still deal with like super stereotypical casting, stereotypical ideas on who um I mean a variety of people are, but like who black people are like in general. And Wakanda is um and Black Panther in general is like the antithesis to that way of thinking, right? So this is an African nation that was never call uh caught never colonized. It's technologically superior to a lot of the outside world, culturally culturally rich and politically complex, um, and it's not defined by the West in basically like any way, right? This is a very um uh I can't remember if this is something that I'd said, but not only is it superior kind of to the outside world, but they have very much like hidden themselves from the outside world. They have their society and it's has not been yeah affected by quote unquote the West and whatever else as well.

SPEAKER_04 11:53

Which again, I mean, props to Stan Lee, like it's a pretty admirable endeavor for somebody, especially in the 60s, to be like, all right, let's create this iconic black character and let's go out of our way to make core traits and qualities about him and about where he's from, like be in direct contrast in opposition to some of the like negative things that might have been being talked about in that time. You know, how well they pulled it off, I'm not here to comment on. I'm also not I haven't read that much. I haven't read all of it, right?

SPEAKER_02 12:23

I'm not sure that's probably there's probably some crazy shit there.

SPEAKER_04 12:26

Like he de Stanley definitely wrote some borderline unforgivable stuff too, I'm sure.

SPEAKER_02 12:30

Like I don't I I don't have enough context to know. But we can acknowledge the positivity of taking something that uh could have been, and again, I think it would have been um, you know, for better or worse, a way less memorable character had they not kind of taken this like strong stance.

SPEAKER_04 12:45

There's a re yeah, there's a reason that this character has has been uh you know an enduring, an enduring figure, and one that was so important in 2018, like when the movie came out, right? Like we can have got on our in our dossier here, we've got a little part on the movie. Um we can jump into that for a second. It's like, you know, Black Panther came out in 2018, directed by Ryan Kugler, starring Chadwick Bozeman, and it you know, was a mass global cultural event.

SPEAKER_02 13:10

It's huge. I mean, it's kind of crazy thinking about it now. I mean, it I mean, this was also again like kind of another um it's funny, I didn't even think about this when we were talking about this before, but this is another kind of like perfect moment type of thing where it's like the comic is coming out in the midst of like the civil rights movement, and this movie's coming out in the midst of um a whole other like I mean, not exactly I guess like I guess it kind of is still to a certain extent like a civil rights movement, but I think that's a good thing.

SPEAKER_04 13:32

It is it's like our I mean, our current most recent manifestation of I mean that which is another thing I want to talk about later when we talk more about Tanahasi Coates, but it's kind of like this whole thing, right, is like like progress, quote unquote progress. It's like it's it's you know, to it for another film reference this year, like it's one battle after another. You know what I mean? Like it's literally just like all of these generations, uh like us now currently doing this too, like m making as much progress and pushing things in the direction that we believe it should be going. Right. And that needle doesn't move. A lot of people, you know, there's like the the quote that's like the arc of history bends towards justice, right? Right, which which may be true, but the only at least my take, the only reason that's true is because people are willing to push it. Push it in that direction. Yeah, absolutely. Um in small ways, you know, some people dedicate their lives to it. The you know, the very least we can do is make sure that we hold ourselves and our groups accountable in small ways, uh being willing to have conversations, being willing to uh, you know, learn and listen. So another thing just to acknowledge, like it's you know, just like having conversations about race is something that some people find so difficult.

SPEAKER_02 14:49

Right.

SPEAKER_04 14:49

And is such a yeah, like and I guess understandably so to a certain extent.

SPEAKER_02 14:54

Especially depending on where you come from and how you grew up and things like that. Right.

SPEAKER_04 14:57

But it is just one of those things where it's like it's just it's an important thing to do, even if you are like nervous about it. You know, I've everybody's mileage may vary or whatever, but it's like I don't do you know what I'm trying to say.

SPEAKER_02 15:08

Yeah, no, I totally understand what you're saying. I mean, I think that I mean in the the core of this, right, is that it is like just an important thing to do. And I mean, you know, we'll we can there's a million things I could say on this, whatever else, and you know, growing up mixed race and things like that. But um, you know, having these conversations and like you said, uh people being willing to listen, people being willing to learn and just be open to another way of thinking, right? It's just an important thing. And so, you know, what we saw again, this this film came out uh during kind of like one of the heights of like uh Black Lives Matter and a bunch of stuff there, and so um interesting parallel that we can kind of draw between when that came out and when the original um you know Black Panther came out as well.

SPEAKER_04 15:46

For sure. At the time it earned seven Oscar nominations, it won three Academy Awards, including a historic costume design win for Ruth E. Carter, who later won again for Wakanda Forever. Um so again, and the costuming, I mean, just just like actual actual African uh patterns and colors and context. Like I think uh what I understand, like Wakanda is like the way that they went about it is it's like a big melding pot of all these different bunch of stuff, yeah. Yeah, all these different actual tracks, like the these, this, these characters are gonna be dressing inspired by these guys from Nigeria, and then these other guys are respond like inspired by stuff from South Africa and whatever.

SPEAKER_02 16:25

Um Right, very, very true. And um, you know what? I didn't even get we're not even gonna have time to get into this like crazy, but also the music, right, that came out of that. Uh I mean, not only the music in that movie, which was amazing, and and um shout out to Ludwig. Yeah, Ludwig, my guy, bro. If you ever hear this, just know that uh I appreciate you. Um but uh that music, but then also Kendrick Lamar doing his whole soundtrack, right? Like, and there's there was some again huge bangers on this, right? It was not it was not one of those things where it's like it's a it's a movie that just like has a score, it's a movie that just has an album that goes along with it, right? It was this again, like we said, this whole gigantic cultural moment perfectly timed with um what was going on kind of politically at the very least, at the same time as well.

SPEAKER_04 17:10

And it's also just at the peak of like Marvel's pop cultural significance, you know. Everybody and and it's crazy to have you know all the this this story that is centering black character, black story, black iconography, black imagery, also the whole directly African-American perspective, not just African, like connecting it to um like California, which is also where like Ryan Kugler's from. Oakland. Exactly. And so all of all of that context, the fact that that not only got to be given a platform in storytelling and in movies, but like the heart, the beating heart of pop culture at the time. Right.

SPEAKER_02 17:48

When you were I was not just pop culture in a everybody was doing like the arms like crossing thing, like you'd see like kids, like everybody was doing that that shit for a minute. And I like it.

SPEAKER_03 17:56

And the freaking politicians trying to jump on the crazy, bro. It's like a Kamala, dude. What comes in?

SPEAKER_02 18:01

Yeah, bro. People got lost in the sauce. That that's if you ever see the politicians doing it, just know that it's ending. But um Right, it's done. It's a rap. Yeah, it's a rap seven. But but any I'm sure that they've done that too. Uh Pokemon go to the polls, all that kind of shit like that. So um but anyway, grandma. Yeah, rest in she got hit by that bazooka bazookie. All right. Um so a little bit of context for everything that's going on here. Let's jump into uh this actual trade paper back here. We're looking at issues number one through four. Um, this is called A Nation Under Our Feet. Um so um so again, like we said, this is the first trade paper back of Tanahasikoat's um 2016 Black Panther Run, uh published in August 2016. This is issues one through four. Um and then we actually also get a little bit of the original issue. Um actually, is it this is the original issue, right? Where Black Panther's first appearance.

SPEAKER_04 18:52

Yeah, in a it's not a Black Panther, he didn't get his own comic until later on, but his first appearance wasn't in Fantastic Four.

SPEAKER_02 18:57

Yes.

SPEAKER_04 18:58

And uh yeah, this this collected edition has in the back the whole edition, which was really, really cool to look through and also just interesting for us, like as new, new comics, new comic book guys, yeah. Understanding really what this was like back in the day and that how the tone of it, like how uh it's just it's just it's uh it's such a yeah, it's super fascinating.

SPEAKER_02 19:18

I think um yeah, it was just fun to have that in there. And um also funny enough that we got this through um comicsology, right? Uh and which we you may end up looking through for some other things. But anyway, um Which we can also just shout out right now.

SPEAKER_04 19:32

Comixology was originally a company that was independent. Uh it's like a subscription you can do to get a bunch of access to a ton of different comics. Marvel has their own one that's just for Marvel. I remember that. DC has their own one that's just for DC. Comixology gives you like a mix of Marvel and DC and whatever else. And all the other ones, Dark Horse, Boom, whatever. Um of course, uh it was bought by Amazon, so now it's bundled into Kindle, which is part of our larger And Amazon Prime and whatever else.

SPEAKER_02 19:59

So if you already got Prime, you already got Comicsology, I think it is. So at least part of it or something like that. Some of it, yeah.

SPEAKER_04 20:04

And then I think it's like a couple buck add-on a month to get access to the larger catalog. But you know, whatever. Anyways, if you guys are interested in checking out comics, but you don't uh you already use Kindle, like the Kindle app or whatever, you want to get that on your phone, like just check that out. There's gonna be a bunch of stuff that's free, and there's gonna be if you're if you want to maybe pay the extra couple bucks a month, that's a really easy way for you to check out a lot of comics without having to go to Barnes and Noble or also makes it really easy to read along with us.

SPEAKER_02 20:27

So there you go. But so anyway, for this um for this group of issues here, we've got our creative team. So we've got Tanahassi Coates, who's the writer. Um, we've got the primary artist and pencil, Brian Stelfries, um, who's done. I wish I had all of the the stuff that he's done off the top of my brain right now, but he's definitely a very accomplished um artist. Um the color artist artist Laura Martin. Um, and then I guess the with the lettering and editorial team, um, there are a couple folks in here, I guess. So Joe Sabino and Jeff Youngquist. Um I feel like there was somebody else. Maybe we'll take a look and make sure that we get that at the end.

SPEAKER_04 21:00

Yeah, there's there's some little blurbs about them in the back of the book, which I think it's probably worth our time just to just to read those out really quickly. Yeah, definitely. Um so yeah, Tanahasie Coates, he's a national correspondent for The Atlantic where he writes about politics and culture. In 2015, Coates published Between the World and Me, which won the National Book Award. Coates is also the recipient of a MacArthur Fellowship, a national magazine award, and the George Polk Award. He lives in New York with his wife and son. So again, this is this is his first foray into comic book ranking. This guy's really about that too, which is a good thing. This guy's really uh a journalist, journalist, and somebody that I definitely am familiar with just from um you know keeping up with politics and whatnot. Um then Brian Silfries, it says he has worked, he's worked in the comic book industry for over 25 years as a writer, penciller, inker, uh color artist, and painter. He's worked for almost every major American comic books publisher and has the distinction of producing over 50 consecutive covers for Batman, Shadow of the Bat, um, and being one of the founding members of Atlanta's Gajin Studios. His most recent work includes Boom's uh Dayman and Marvel's Black Panther. There you go. Laura Martin, winner of multiple Eisner and Eagle Awards, Laura Martin is one of the most acclaimed color artists in comics, starting with Jim Lee's Wildstorm Studios. Some of her earliest professional work include coloring John Cassidy's Planetary and Brian Hitch's The Authority. After a period as art director for Cross Gen Comics, she began working with Marvel and serving again as Cassidy's color artist on Astonishing X-Men. Other credits include Jay Michael Straczynski's Thor and Brian Michael Bendis's Siege. And then Joe Sabino, hailing from New Jersey. Sabino majored in computer animation at Friley Dickinson University. He started at Marvel helping launch Digital Comics Initiative and soon transferred into the infamous Marvel Bullpen. After two and a half years at Marvel headquarters, he made the transition into being a freelance literary with Chris Iliopolis uh virtual calligraphy group. He coaches and plays ice hockey in his spare time. There you go. Cool, cool group of folks. We don't always go that into detail on uh who they are, but we thought we might. We thought we should. So there you go. Um shout out shout out the team.

SPEAKER_02 22:58

Yeah, shout out to the team. Um but yeah, so again, like we talked about, super interesting. Um uh uh also, I mean, I also I guess this this coming out was also again part of again during like Black Lives Matter stuff and everything there. But having Tanahassi Coates um who is outside of, as far as we know, I mean, who knows how much of a comic book fan he was previously. I'm assuming at least enough to to to do this here, but a very interesting uh take on how to go about writing comics um for this. And so um, you know, one of the things that we have written down here is that it's at least in these first couple of issues, right, it's less um kind of standard superhero comic uh and more like this kind of political uh yeah, what do we have? Political crisis story about rulership rebellion, um, you know, Wakanda believing in its king, all that kind of stuff like that. So really um interesting take on this kind of story so far too. And this is um this is one of the many, I guess, Black Panther number ones that there have been over time.

SPEAKER_04 23:55

So maybe actually this is the time for us to talk about the Marvel continuity just a little bit. This is, you know, this is our first as for kickback comics, this is our first foray into Marvel's actual like Earth 616 official continuity, which basically started with Fantastic Four number one in 1961. And that's one of the crazy things about Marvel, and one of the really difficult barriers of entry entry getting into comics in general, is anytime we're gonna pick up a comic like this Black Panther story, it's basically a couple chapters in a story that's been happening since 1961, uninterrupted, right? Um, which is nuts. Some people, that is what they love about it, uh, and is really important to them, and that larger continuity, the fact that all these different stories interact and um affect each other and have ongoing connections to stuff they may have read 20 years ago. That's a really cool thing, also for new, new fans, new readers like that.

SPEAKER_02 24:50

Maybe a little bit daunting sometimes. And I think, I mean, we'll talk about this again, like we said, maybe a little bit as we start going through the actual um the actual issues themselves. But I think that there was, at least for me, a little bit of a feeling of like, whoa, like there is some stuff that I just like maybe don't know or you know, am kind of have like a proxy to, but uh don't you were not alone in that. Yeah, so but we'll we'll talk some more about that.

SPEAKER_04 25:12

But yeah, so so in conclusion, the th the way that they try to make jumping on access points is sort of uh two ways. One is by doing little side stories that are like their own little standalone universes, which mostly is what we've interfaced with. Like when we read Spider-Man Married with Kids or whatever it was called, that's like a uh a new ultimate right. It's like a side side universe, not the main one, right? And then also when we went into DC, we read uh Absolute, Absolute Batman, Absolute Wonder Woman, Absolute Superman, same thing. They're like these cool, new, interesting interpretations that are off to the side of the main continent. Right. Right. So this is our our first uh our first time getting in getting in the uh Yeah, and it's interesting.

SPEAKER_02 25:50

So we'll we'll talk about it. We'll talk about it. It's cool. But so um yeah, I'll read the summary here. So Wakanda is in political turmoil after years of war, outside pressure and internal damage, and T'Challa finds himself ruling a nation that is beginning to turn against him. Uh a revolutionary movement called the People, led by um Tetu and amplified by Zenzi, sparks unrest across the country by channeling public anger and trauma. At the same time, former uh let's see, what is this? Is the Dora Melaje uh members Ayoa and Anika begin moving in a more radical direction while T'Challa struggles to hold together a nation that no longer sees him as unquestionably legitimate? Um rather than opening with a kind of like simple villain conflict, the books the book sets up a deeper question, which is basically can Wakanda um survive in the way that it is right now, where you know we've seen this like when I think of like Wakanda, whatever else is this thing again, strong, like very unified um nation that has um you know the Black Panther basically at the helm of it and it's very strong. But in this story, it's a it's a bit different than that, which is very interesting.

SPEAKER_04 26:52

Right. We're seeing it um on the on the back foot, which is crazy. I mean, for us, right, jumping in, it does its best, like they do their best, the team here, creative team, do their best to give us a little bit of that context and everything. But just from I, you know, after finishing reading it, I went and and researched this, and this definitely is like this context is coming, like this book is this story is starting directly after a bunch of large-scale conflicts, like one with a whole arc involving Doctor Doom, Wakanda being drawn into to global and cosmic events, internal strain on its own political system. Um, I guess there was a whole secret wars event in 2015, which was a really big deal. Uh so this is literally like you know, Black Panther is picking up the pieces of a whole bunch of crazy shit that went down right before this story. And we don't uh, you know, I haven't read any of that. You haven't read any of that. So we just had to do our best.

SPEAKER_03 27:45

Um Yeah, to kind of piece it all together.

SPEAKER_04 27:47

But oh, which again, tying back the I just remembered the final the final thought of uh when I was trying to set up context for Marvel's main continuity, right? I said one thing they do is create these side standalone universes, the other thing they do is basically reset to number one issues, like first issues. And so, like like Antonio was setting up before, before I jumped in, is this is Black Panther number one, right? Which is from 2015 or 2016 or whatever. Black Panther number one. In the back of Black of our uh this collected edition, they showed a bunch of other times where Black Panther was um not exactly rebooted. I think that's maybe the wrong word because the continuity isn't changing, but they sort of say, okay, they're signaling to the readers that are. This is another jumping off point. Yeah, this is a point where you can start reading the story and you're gonna it's not gonna matter if you're maybe enough context to be able to read it without having read everything that comes before that.

SPEAKER_02 28:43

So there's a bunch of previous number ones.

SPEAKER_04 28:45

Yeah, the first Black Panther number one was in 1977. There you go. The next Black Panther number one was 1998, the next Black Panther number one was in 2005.

SPEAKER_02 28:55

Um That's interesting though. So but so it also shows that like, because again, this was what, 66 or something like that when the first one came out, right? So it was 11 years before he got his own uh thing, which is also maybe um kind of a acknowledgement of some of the conversations that we were having before, where it's like, again, amazing that this superhero comes in, right? But we also see that like, unlike maybe some other superhero characters who are popular and jump in, right, he doesn't get his his own again, issue number one until 11 years later. So that's an interesting kind of side part of that there.

SPEAKER_04 29:23

But but it does add to some of the significance of what we're reading, just in terms of because this is this is you know signaling to us that okay, this is Marvel is sort of planting a flag in the ground, being like, this is everybody, this is an opportunity for you to come check out Black Panther. We've got a brand new author, we've hired this like uh you know political figure, political journalist, we're gonna see his take on it. You know, so it's a you can sort of see how this is analogous to some of the stuff we've been talking about before.

SPEAKER_02 29:52

Yep, yep, exactly. So to get into this, Ben, tell me, what did you what did you think of this overall? Did you uh did you enjoy it? Did you feel the um non-comic book original writer type of ness from it? Or how did what'd you think?

SPEAKER_04 30:07

Yeah, I mean, I it was it was a fun read. It was uh it was really cool. The art is awesome as well. It feels very uh very modern in a way. Like it's sort of um I don't know exactly where we'd place it on that Scott McCloud realism scale. It feels uh still pretty uh you know, comic booky and cartoony, I guess you could say, but at the same time, realism is uh being pretty taken into effect. Yeah. There's some other, I'm just like scanning through it right now, and I see this is uh look, here's some Kirby crackle, which is something we talked about before, which is uh a type of um like circles that sometimes comic artists will incorporate that is sort of riffing on Jack Kirby. Um I'm pretty sure his name's Jack Kirby, right? Yeah, right. Yeah. I always forget his first name. I end up just saying Kirby, uh, which I feel I feel a little bad about. But yeah, I really I really enjoyed it. I mean, it's it's a it's a really it's a cool story, and there's a lot of uh like pages where I really enjoyed um Tanasi Coates' writing. I did find it uh kind of hard to follow. I think for two reasons.

SPEAKER_02 31:11

One, I think maybe you I could feel a little bit that this was a very good writer's first foray into comic book writing, which needs to be so concise uh and um I mean really I think again, kind of easy to follow, but like one of the things that we talked about, I think, a while ago, right, was like the the thing about comic books, right, is like that the the the panels are important, but the spaces in between the panels are just as important. We're trying to fill in the blanks that are, you know, again, like between these panels. And I think um I think that there's a lot of like good stuff that goes on here, but I I I agree with you. I think for me I felt like a little bit um like I I felt like I was jumping around like locations a lot, and I think also like um you know, this is maybe another thing that we talked about where us coming into this story at this point is a little bit difficult, right? Where I feel like there were people whose names weren't mentioned until kind of towards the end of the issues, but they were people that were kind of showing up um pretty consistently.

SPEAKER_04 32:07

Oh yeah. There were, I mean, just just characters, that's the other piece of it, right? Just straight characters and location and context that we really just don't have. Um and they did not do, you know, they are assuming they'll just have a character arrive and they'll say their name and assume that we are Marvel guys and we know who that is. Right. And I don't know who these guys are. I have no idea.

SPEAKER_02 32:31

Um Yeah, but I I wonder if like the kind of like Wakanda people on that side are maybe like a newer um thing like for this storyline. I don't know, but yeah, I think, you know, and beyond like the character stuff, I think the other interesting thing very much for me with this, and you and I talked a little bit about this already, is like the the story here, um it's it's not cut and dry superhero story, right? It's not like you know, this this actually this is a great kind of um first uh the first issue, right? We start seeing, and I I honestly didn't even fully contextualize what was going on in these first couple of pages until I had read the rest of it, right? But what we basically witness in the first couple of pages is um T'Challa Black Panther um standing on this uh this area called the Great Mound, which is I think one of the founding places of Wakanda. Um and there, I think there are um miners um who are working here, but there's some kind of like uprising that's going on, and um T'Challa's men are like lasering down, at least to unconsciousness as far as I mean, maybe more or whatever else, these people that are Wakandans, right? Which when you you know think of people who have seen um the movie, I guess maybe the closest that you get to like the confrontation stuff like this was um with uh I'm trying to remember his his character's name. Killmonger?

SPEAKER_04 33:57

You're talking about Michael B. Jordan?

SPEAKER_02 33:58

Well that and and then um there was one other character um who I think I had written down somewhere in here as well, because his his son in this is the um the white gorilla um kind of faction.

SPEAKER_04 34:12

Um yeah, the guy in the uh yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. He's the the the gorilla character. I'm blanking on his name as well. He's really cool. They sort of he's like in opposition to them in the first movie, and then they they win his loyalty. He's one of the people that's like trying to chat ta uh challenge T'Challa to be able to rule. They do like ritualistic trials of combat. You can challenge the leaders. Yeah, which is which is super interesting. Umbaku. And it just came to me.

SPEAKER_02 34:38

You're exactly right. Um But so um the interesting thing that we see here, right, is that it's uh it starts off with like I would not say painting T'Chala and Black Panther and the ruling class of Wakanda in a very positive light off the writ, which is super interesting.

SPEAKER_04 34:54

Yeah, he's in he's in direct conflict with laborers. Right. It's crazy. We see like black and I I think part of the deal is there's this uh there's this woman, it's not Tetu, it's the other one. Um his stepmother? No, the woman who's uh who's like her power is like making their eyes turn green and rise up against it.

SPEAKER_02 35:10

Yes, that was another one where they didn't say I feel like they didn't say her name until the very end of it. Right.

SPEAKER_04 35:16

Because we're kind of I think she's a character that has already been a player and we're just supposed to unknow who she is, and and we don't. But the deal is she so there's all this um dissent and Zenzi. Zenzi Zenzi. That's her name. Thank you, thank you for finding that.

SPEAKER_02 35:31

Yeah, she's kind of like a um I think that they maybe even reference like her as like either like a witch or like a you know, some kind of the thing, the angle that's cool for her powers, right?

SPEAKER_04 35:40

Is obviously so so Tatala is f Black Panther's fighting all of these people that are rebelling um in like opposition to him, and all their eyes are are glowing green while he's fighting them, right? So it's like this sort of mind control thing, but they the writers are having it be way more nuanced than just like some witch controlling.

SPEAKER_02 35:56

Right, it's not just simple mind control. It's like they call her like a revealer, right? It's like she is bringing the the intense feelings of the people that she interacts with to the forefront, right? And these may be feelings that they already have, right? This resentment towards monarchy, this resentment towards um the ruling class and things like that. We're starting off with like almost like police brutality in the beginning, coming from our like hero, the Black Panther, and then the kind of quote unquote uh bad guys who are at least opposed to um uh T'Challa in this are people that are from uh Wakanda, they're from um a specific region, the Nijandan um region. I think this is like uh when I was looking at that's other like the southeast or the or the northeast. But right, there's a map in the back that was. Yeah, but so but so basically the villains are people that are Wakandans, right? Like normally, like if you think about Black Panther, it's like okay, the people who came and like pillaged like African communities and things like that, right? Those are like the overall villains and the people who are colonizers. Right, colonizers, right? That's the thing. And now it's this battle, this internal battle like they talked about, right? Where um, you know, it it does get, I'm assuming, you know, as a lot of these monarchy type situations do, right? It sometimes gets complicated when this is um you know being handed down. And even if you are, you know, in your mind, uh a just ruler, right? You have to um interact with the people and genuinely understand their their needs and wants. And even then it's it's probably pretty impossible to be a perfect ruler.

SPEAKER_04 37:24

So even these issues too are I mean, while some of it is relatable just to you know, for different nations, there's a lot of stuff that is uh like specifically African, I feel like, uh like um like mineral extraction, that type of thing. Like one of the things is uh these are some of these people that are in revolution or opposition to to chala are miners. Right. Uh which again, as you know, as we understand, huge thing, different uh different colonies and and people coming in and basically taking advantage of the natural resources, whether it's like emerald mines or diamond mines or just you know, you know, stuff for our iPhones. Like there's a lot, it's this is a an ongoing issue. It's a historical issue in Africa and an ongoing issue in Africa of people in power just pillaging out valuable resources. Um and it's interesting to see that that same kind of a dynamic, like you're saying, take place within this country. Not even like it's not someone else coming in and doing this. It's just it's I think it's vibranium they're mining, which is the which is like this material that's important to do that. Right fame, realistically. Um but it is, yeah, that's striking, right? On the in the back of the book here, I can read there's this little Wakanda thing, and you were talking about the the border with um uh Nijonda, right? Yeah, yeah. Uh look, yeah, so it says here, Wakanda is the most scientifically and technologically advanced country on the planet. That level of advance uh of advancement has not always led to peaceful relations with its neighbors. Fortunately for Wakanda, its borders are protected by hills, mountains, and the sprawling Lake Nyanza. The only exception to this is the open Nigondan border. Nigonda is Wakanda's poorer neighbor to the south, and according to legend, that poverty is not an accident. The Alcama fields, which for centuries functioned as the breadbasket of Wakanda, is believed by the Nijondans to have once been theirs. In Nigondan history, it is not the vibranium of the uh Nema Nagai, the Great Mound, that allowed Wakanda to advance to such illustrious heights. It is the seizure of Alcama. The Nigond uh the Nigondins, envious of Wakanda's rise, have never forgotten this ancient injury. So this is another interesting thing, is that context is given to us on a map that's in the back of the book.

SPEAKER_02 39:39

Right. Yeah, that is a kind of an interesting. I wonder if you put that in the front. Maybe it's a different experience. Right.

SPEAKER_04 39:45

I don't know. It would like this is all stuff that I guess if if we had been thoughts from not comic book guys. So I certainly don't want it to come across like uh like any kind of intense criticism. Right. But it it it is a difficult thing. It's a difficult thing. I mean, it's just an inherent thing of um of reading a story that is just um uh such a piece in a larger tapestry of stories.

SPEAKER_02 40:06

Yeah, and what's also interesting here too, um, with this story is that um obviously it is a Black Panther story, but one of the things that we talk about is um it it I think spends also a little bit more time than you might originally respect, like or originally expect with like a villain, where um Tatu, who is this kind of like shaman type guy who's one of the main leaders of the rebellion, um, and and Zenzi, um, it focuses a bit on them and it also focuses on these two other women, um uh Anika and and Ayo, who um are lovers as well, but um one of them I think was supposed to be like executed um for like uh either attempted or some kind of assassination-related thing, and they get broken out of prison and then they kind of go off together. And um what's interesting about that too is that they're kind of working on like a similar side to the rebellion, but there's actually this very interesting passage and conversation that happens towards the end of these issues where they kind of acknowledge to each other, and that is like the rebellion leaders and these two women, they kind of acknowledge to each other that they're not a hundred percent on the same page. Um, they share a similar enemy, I guess, in the ruling class and maybe even to Chala himself, but they're not exactly on the same um wavelength when it comes to what their goals are, too. So it's kind of this three-pronged um story that exists here, which is pretty interesting.

SPEAKER_04 41:30

Something something that happens in the the storytelling a lot in this comic, too, is um, that I think is is part of the way that Tanahasi Coates is going about writing the story and his collaboration with the artist as well, is they'll have they'll sort of have T'Challa doing an internal monologue that gives us context for like Wakanda history or T'Challa's family history in general. And then that will sort of just be monologuing over panels of him doing like action. So like this is this one chapter.

SPEAKER_02 42:06

Yeah, like you said, it's like monologue-based action, which is interesting.

SPEAKER_04 42:09

But it feels like the two things um maybe are more disconnected than they need to be, because there's not like it's it's not exactly telling the story through the action beats. It's just we're watching T'Challa do action beats and then over top of it reading like an example for this. Like he says, When I was a boy, my uncle Sion ruled Wakanda in my stead, and when I was of age, he stood aside and I was crowned. He did this happily, too happily. I believed his happiness was a mask for intrigue, a scheme. Only with the crown upon my head did I come to understand, heavy is the head, they say. The proverb does no justice to the weight of the nation, of its peoples, its history, its traditions. That's cool. In the background, it's just it's him like beating the crap out of these like dissonance that are on the Nigondan border region, as it says. So it is it's an interesting thing where like the writing is giving us a lot to ponder and it's sort of reflecting on these uh like heavier, heavier topics, um, talking about just lead like big themes of Black Panther in general. True leadership, what what kind of sacrifices it takes to be a leader, how to inspire your people, how to connect with your people, you know, all that type of stuff, which is very cool to read. But also does in this context um not really seemingly have much to do with what T'Chala is doing in that moment.

SPEAKER_02 43:25

Yeah, I think. Yeah, it's interesting. I wonder what um uh uh Tossi Coat's main like reference point is for this kind of thing. Because it's like I wonder if they're like, you know, if you thought of this like a movie kind of context, does that make more sense having like some kind of voiceover during like the action or something like that? But um, but you do get some really great um lines out of this stuff uh uh as well to be clear. And like one of the things that's interesting in this kind of first um or one of these groupings here that Ben was just talking about is one of the quotes is Sachala remembering his uncle saying to him, Um, power lies not in what a king does, but what in what his subjects believe he might do. Which is also interesting because you know, there is, I think, a positive spin on that. But I think when you first hear that it sounds more um negative to a certain extent. And what in the way that T'Challa kind of talks about it is that he kind of hides away a certain part of his power to keep the mystique of being this super, super powerful um uh uh person and maybe even beyond person, and you know what he says is so um so some amount of my might I've kept from the world, allowing legend and myth to fill in the gap, right? Um so it's about being a leader that um is uh you know, I don't know if he's maybe referencing exactly like godlike here, but it's like being this um uh yeah, fe uh figure with mystique, which is a very interesting kind of way, and maybe even a more um harshly realistic way to think about ruling, which is probably a specific um Tasi Code's kind of perspective that's brought into this here.

SPEAKER_04 44:57

For sure. Um oh here, this is the passage I I was thinking about earlier. So it shows so to continue the story, um the passages I was reading before were T'Challa entering into this conflict, fighting these guys. That part ends with him walking up to a woman in a hood who turns around and reveals herself as um this like witch character. Because you see, what's her name again? It's it starts with this uh uh Zenzi. Right. So Zenzi, it's so all all of the dialogue has been internal in into Charlotte's mind. He sees Zenzi, he says, Do not try to get in my head, witch. And she turns around and says, Why trifle with your head, my king, when I can so easily devour your heart? Then we cut to uh a whole different setting, which is a like a academic conversation with this guy who was like a He's a philosopher and like a teacher, and he he was like a tutor to like the um the royal court to a certain extent.

SPEAKER_02 45:51

Absolutely.

SPEAKER_04 45:51

He has some kind of background with T'Cralla's mother. He the the guy Tetu, who's one of these uh revolutionary political leaders, is like the shaman, yeah. Right. They're having a conversation, so then that later on that that comes back.

SPEAKER_02 46:02

That's his son. Right. Right, which is crazy. Um I mean, also I think makes a lot of sense. Um in this I mean, yeah, if you have somebody who's like very philosophically looking at um uh you know the way that um monarchy works and and all this kind of stuff related to um colonization and so on, right, there is some I think confusion that can come out of that and some intense feelings, probably some rightfully so for sure.

SPEAKER_04 46:26

Yeah, no, no kidding. But but so then from that conversation, it cuts like Antonio was saying before, sort of jumping around to from location to location, it cuts directly back to T'Challa in combat. This time he's being influenced by the witch's powers, so he's sort of in this like ghost realm, and he's you get more internal monologue. He's saying nothing here is real, and yet everything here matters. Um that a thing is unreal does not make it untrue. Uh, you know, basically he's realizing what her powers are and he says, I was wrong. My enemy is not uh a uh I was wrong. My enemy is not a beguiler, but a revealer. She brings out of all of us the awful feelings that we have hidden away and makes them manifest. So I know now that this is who I am, might, shame, rage, and now they know too. So then it cuts to the basically aftermath of his battle where he's you know beating the shit out of all these these thugs, thugs or revolutionaries or whatever, depending on how we're framing it. Right. In his mind, they're thugs. And then it's showing all these older older men, women, and children uh sort of standing around, and he says, These men are responsible for crimes against your country. They will be brought to justice. Your king will provide for you. And the kids turn away and are like hugging this woman, and she says, These men were providing for us. Right.

SPEAKER_02 47:46

Um which is a very, I think that's you know, again, as far as like revolution and things like that go, is a very real sentiment and story, right, where it's like, you know, we've been disenfranchised within this um situation in whatever way, and these people who are viewed as either, you know, intense, violent, whatever else, right, are providing for their community in one way or another. And there's a safety that they feel um with those people, however um dangerously they may be viewed, right, they are safer than the alternative in this case, which is interesting.

SPEAKER_04 48:20

Like it's all well and good that you're our king based on you know your ancestry and whatever, but these guys you just beat up were the ones feeding us. It's pretty, you know. There's it's and and so again, I think this whole chapter or this little whole passage that we we are examining right now is is very uh representative of I think some of the like really cool parts of this story and also some of the more challenging parts is that like it's the the ideas that we're trying to examine are very cool. Yes. I but there also feels um you know there there's it feels like there's a little bit of a disconnect between those ideas that we're trying to examine and what's like the the action and story beats that are actually taking place um on the page.

SPEAKER_02 49:03

Right. I think that I think that that does make sense. And we kind of have a similar again thing here where we jump from that situation that he was into uh Necropolis, the city of the dead, and I think that um T'shallah here is kind of channeling ancestry, um, thinking of his sister Shuri, who, you know, um in this iteration, she's she's dead, as far as I I know. I believe in this. I mean, they end up describing her, they say Queen Shuri did not live and Queen Shuri did not die, which is an interesting thought. I mean, and that may be just because of the spiritual out spirituality of the situation, but well, I think we have these chapters where I think we see Shuri in uh in like maybe in uh Black Panther.

SPEAKER_04 49:40

Oh, the Dijal the Dijalia, the plane of Wokandan memory. Yes. So it's like the Wakandan afterlife, right? Right, exactly. So I I mean we can assume Right that she is. We can assume she's dead, but maybe isn't permanently gonna stay that way.

SPEAKER_02 49:53

Right. I think actually this jumps into kind of one of the next interesting little passages, again, where we have the kind of this monologue, but we get it from um Tetu's perspective, right? I kind of love I I wrote this and I the way I described this when I was reading it is is it's kind of like a a poem, realistically, where um Tetou is is think of this and he says, I well this is interesting. I I can't even honestly discern whether or not this is like hind his internal monologue or if it's something else. I think it is his, but anyway, the the text is Once when I was when I was tree, African sun woke me up green at dawn, African wind combed the branches of my hair, African rain washed my legs. Once when I was tree, flesh came and worshipped at my roots, flesh came to preserve my voice, flesh came honoring my limbs. Now flesh comes with metal teeth and chopping stick chopping sticks and fire launchers, and flesh cuts me down and enslaves my limbs to make forts, ships, pews for other gods. Now flesh laughs at my charred and beaten frame, discarding me in the mud, burning me up in flames. Flesh has grown pale and lazy, flesh has sinned against the fathers. Now flesh listens no more to the voice of spirits talking through my limbs. If flesh would listen, I would warn him that the spirits are displeased and are planning what to do with him, but flesh thinks I am dead, charred and gone. Um flesh thinks that by fire he can kill, thinks that with metal teeth I die, thinks that all the voices from root to limb are silenced. Flesh does not know that he does not give me life, nor can he take it away. This is what the spirits are singing now. It is time that flesh bowed down on his knee again. And so, I mean, this is obviously a very spiritual passage, and I kind of just love the way that it's it's written, but um it's seemingly kind of like uh Tettu is is able in one way or another to visit this kind of spirit realm. I re I I recognize this tree actually that's in these images here from um the movie, definitely from their from their spirit realm. But um, you know, it's acknowledging his his thing also seems to kind of be also towards like not exactly like environmentalism, but he derives his knowledge, I feel like, from uh the environment. Like he talks about, you know, growing up and having so many questions about the world. Um, and he kind of couldn't answer those questions with people and then takes this kind of wilderness um expedition and then comes back um with powers realistically, but also kind of the answers to his questions. So this is talking about how um you know the earth and and and to a certain yeah, I think it is kind of like the earth and the resources and everything like that. Um, you know, Flesh thinks all of these things can be taken and destroyed and and owned by Flesh, but it is it is not. Um and it is time for Flesh to bow down his knee again, which is pretty interesting. So Yeah.

SPEAKER_04 52:28

The writing's great. It's very I mean, and and it's cool, it's always cool to have uh nuanced and interesting villains that have their own perspective. We get some insight into there's validity to their perspective. Um it's not just, oh, here's some diabolical, laughing, you know, joker type guy that obviously the heroes need to be in opposition to. It's it's um you know, it's a much more complicated scenario. So it's uh which is you know maybe we take for granted sometimes. I think that is is definitely true. Um take for granted in media. You you know what I mean.

SPEAKER_02 53:05

Yeah, I know what you mean. I know what you think.

SPEAKER_04 53:06

It's very easy to have this is bad guy, this is good guy.

SPEAKER_02 53:10

Yeah, and so now, you know, um I think one of the other again interesting parts of this as we get kind of towards the end here, and this is I think another example, um, not to be that guy, but I think another example of like jumping around, I think, quickly is that we have these moments where Black Panther um uh ends up confronting Tatu and Zenzi, and I can't even tell it's like he he like blasts her away. Um, and I don't know if he knocks her out or kills her, but it seems like the other guy almost has to revive her later on. But I think he I think he knocks her out. Right, but we see this whole kind of shaman situation um and um Tachal is talking about um how it says one of the one of the internal monologues things is my child is dying in front of me, right? In a reference to the country, yeah, my country is falling before my eyes. Um, and then we jump to I think part of the storyline with the other two women um and uh the kind of like white uh guerrilla tribe, which is um a little basically the son of Mbaku. Um and then we jump around. I I wanted to ask you actually specifically what you thought of this. Um there's this little moment on I think what what page is this here for us? 73 in mind, but um this this moment here um where there's a father and daughter out kind of again looking seemingly in the in the spiritual realm. Um this is kind of a continuation of the of the poem from before where it says, you know, once I when I was tree, my ancestors slept in my outstretched arms, African soil nourished my spirit, African wind combed the branches of my hair. Once when I was tree, African rain washed my limbs, African sun woke me up, green at dawn. And um, you know, in this moment it's like these two characters that are kind of um, you know, they're dancing in the rain. So there's some kind of like positive feeling that it seems like either the revolutionaries are feeling, and I think I think that that is what it is. They they're collecting more people, right? And so they're seeing the tides change or feeling some kind of tide change. And I think um, you know, one of the things that we jump into in the next issue is that uh how that kind of weighs on T'Challa as well.

SPEAKER_04 55:15

And I think a cool thing about this is emphasizing the connection to Africa, like the continent. Yes, you know, it's and and uh being nourished by her soil and her spirit and her rain, you know, all that type of stuff, like like connection to the earth, um, not just to the uh the ruling class of that earth. Right. You know, I think is part of what's trying to try to emphasize, and I think works.

SPEAKER_02 55:38

Yeah, here's a here's another actually question for you. Um and I don't even know if I let you answer the last one, but this one here, the the guy that has no one man written on his chest. Do you recognize who that is?

SPEAKER_04 55:49

I have no idea.

SPEAKER_02 55:50

Yeah, so this is another one of the things where we're like trying to figure out because there's this really I feel like supposed to be like a powerful moment where they're like revealing this character that's like kind of cloaked. I can assume it's Killmonger. Right, that's kind of what I'm thinking too. It g it gives me that kind of vibe. But so that's the other thing is that there's this this the kind of quote that they end up using in this rebellion is no one man, right? And so it's you know, maybe the concept of democracy going against monarchy, right? Or some kind of um form of that, which is which is a very interesting thing. And this is another moment where also we see T'Challa is like the one who I feel like even in the movies and whatever else, when you see people in like the war room type situations or whatever else, right, it's the end it's like the evil people, right? But T'Challa is the one who's like having these meetings with his cabinet and discussing how they're gonna deal with the rebellion and how they're gonna do whatever else, right?

SPEAKER_04 56:37

And like you said before, there's multi- there's like there's differ there's the there's the people from Niganda, uh the the southern country that they border. That's a threat to them. They have the people, like the miners and everyone inside the country that are uprising. Then there's also the the Dora Malaje. Right, I think there's the Jabari as well. Yep, there's the Jabari. Um, let's see, there's something it says here. The Jabari tribesmen and several of the Dora Malaje have sided with Anika and Ayo. They have begun assembling communes, calling for elections, writing and enforcing laws. My king, uh, this is not mere hooliganism, this is revolution.

SPEAKER_01 57:12

Yeah.

SPEAKER_04 57:12

Which again is and then it's showing, you know, raised the these other people, uh renegades overran uh Mandala's forces, they raised the citadel of the Jabari forefathers and and convened tribunals. So it's showing that there's like there's rebellion. This is not just like a small thing. This is like they're taking over like cities and things like that. Um and thing that's uh I think uh really one of my favorite scenes in the book is this one that happens with T'Challa and his mom, which sort of comes just after. So it begins with them up like having a meal together up on this building, like overlooking the city, on this crazy kind of it almost looks like a diving board. Yeah, it does. But so this conversation is is basically his mother trying to give him advice, don't just put down this revolution violently, kind of, you know, saying, Um, let's see, some of this is worth reading. I th I mean so much of this is worth reading, but let's let's read this passage here. So uh she's saying what to Tichala When I first came into Aconda, it was a f it was a fashion um it was a fashionable time. The entire court was in the thrall of philosophy. It was believed their advanced society needed to develop an advanced morality. You know your father as a warrior, and he was that, but he was also an enlightened man. He invited the seers into court. Your father believed in a new age, but the constant wars killed his faith. I suspect I suspect you know the rest. What it will tell you is that uh Chengir. Yeah, Chengamir. What it will tell you is that Chengamir was the most honorable of that lot. He was a tutor to me, personally, in Wakandan philosophy and its possible evolution. I grant you that we have not been in constant contact since the old days, but Changamir is not a revolutionary. He renounced violence. And Tatala says, and yet here we are. And this is again, this is Tatu's death. Father, the guy who is the philosophy professor that we visited earlier. We just didn't, again, know his name was Chang. I don't know that I fully realized what his name was even in the time. Right, yeah, exactly. Because we're sort of meant to know who who Changamir is.

SPEAKER_02 59:02

I think Yeah, and actually one of the one of the conversations that happens just before that has some great stuff as well, where um T'Challa's I guess this is like his kind of like stepmom or whatever else, but um uh she and Changamir are talking, and I think one of my favorite uh passages that comes out of there, um they're kind of going back and forth about kind of I think the realism of a society that is as ideal as kind of the way that they describe it, where um she says to him, um, oh yeah, the one of the conversations basically he says, You are mistaken. Tell me precisely how I'm mistaken. No, I will not do the work uh of your agents, I won't enroll in your national lie. And she says, It is it is a lie, one that makes your life of philosophy possible. We studied a lot together, and yet in all our time we never studied a single nation founded on truth or candor, right? Which is a very interesting um thought process. And obviously, you know, the the thought process of the revolutionaries and maybe even this philosopher here, right, is that there is a way to do this. Um, but uh, you know, there's a lot of violence that is even going on here as well, which is which is a whole other thing. So um, and this actually leads us into the one of the uh moments that I talked about a little bit earlier, um, where uh these two um women here, Ayo and Anika, um and um and I think it's uh Tetu are talking right now. And maybe uh yeah, just Tetu, I think. Um I don't think Zen Z is there, but they're talking. One of the things they say is Um, you know, we are not blind to recent events, Tetu, nor are we blind to Demisa uh Damisas Sarkis. And actually, this is another interesting thing, is that they have there's two names that T'Challa ends up going by also as well. There's one that the kind of rebellious people are starting to call him, which is that the one that I just said, which is this Damisa Sarki, which means um orphaned king. Right. And originally they're normally called, um, I think the Black Manther is normally called Haruma Fall. Um and what's interesting is actually Tetu calls him that, but the other women don't. They call him the Orphan King uh nickname. But so anyway, they say, you know, even in your eyes, um, especially in our eyes, we know who you are, we know of your battles with the king. We think may we think you may well prove to be a true friend of our cause. But right now, all we share are kind words and a common enemy that is not yet enough. So um again, they're not even seeing eye to eye. There are kind of two sides to this rebellion, which is interesting, and also acknowledges that um, you know, it's not all people that are coming from the same area or the same walk of life that are participating in this rebellion. And so maybe there's extra stuff that's going on there.

SPEAKER_04 1:01:35

It's also just really, I mean, you can you can feel the Tanaha Tanahasie Coates political um, you know, perspective and influence in those words, right? Like the part you're talking about, like the noble lie of the nation, you know, that's a that's a really interesting thing with uh like thinking about America or also just countries in general where we have to come up, not we, but the founders or whatever, have to come up with some kind of concept or story that we can all like tell ourselves that we're a part of and unify in. And like that's one of the things with you know, America in general, where we are like the shining beacon on the hill, and we are democracy, and we're this newest republic in the world, and we're about equality and and the the Constitution is about the you know, all these all these little democracy and freedom and everything. Equality and but the pursuit of happiness and opportunity and and uh you know all of the American dream. Right. All and as we know, like these are all ideals that are important and we can value and I think ideally are American at their core. However, the question remains to what extent do we actually live up to those ideals? And to what extent are we just another, you know, war-mongering, uh evil nation of plunderers? Yeah. And we uh, you know, sometimes we are that. We're that right now. And it doesn't feel great. No, it doesn't. But it's like, you know, example, like like what she's talking about, is like those kind that kind of lie or those kind of ideals is what enables you to um like this other character to even have these type of philosophical philosophical philosophy discussions, philosophical discussions. Right. Um and you know, I guess I obviously um I see what he's getting at. I see the mirror that he's sort of holding up with to us as well. You know, because it's like obviously T'Challa's intentions are noble, and we side we also fought with that because he's the Black Panther. And you know, but also we have to acknowledge the I guess it's trying to have us acknowledge that the reality of what Kantra's ruling class is not exactly. Right.

SPEAKER_02 1:03:32

They live in they live in the golden city, right? And they're these people that are right miners that are off to the to the side, which is interesting again, because they they have like a massive amount of wealth, so there's something weird that's going on there.

SPEAKER_04 1:03:42

Oh, imagine us not equally distributing the wealth of our own. How crazy would that be? Yeah, it will almost be like all the wealth gets funneled up to this tiny little microgroup of powerful evil people.

SPEAKER_02 1:03:52

Billionaires, huh? Interesting. Anyway, um what a comic book uh comic book notion. Yeah. Um one of the things that T'Challa ends up doing, kind of taking a step, I think, in the right direction, right, um, based on his his mother's uh advice, is to uh, you know, they say giving those who love you something more than uh recitation and ceremony by giving that which all great kings ultimately offer, which is inspiration. Um meeting with the people um and everything like that. Yeah. So right.

SPEAKER_04 1:04:21

When and that's the conclusion of that uh Oh, actually.

SPEAKER_02 1:04:25

One thing I want to say real quick is that she she talks about this. Um actually, were you gonna say something about the rest of their conversation or are we gonna say that?

SPEAKER_04 1:04:31

Yeah, I was gonna I was just gonna read some of the things.

SPEAKER_02 1:04:34

I'll talk after that then, because I think I'm probably about to say what you were about to say.

SPEAKER_04 1:04:37

Yeah, because we're just gonna we're gonna connect the dots of everything we've talked about for the the past like few minutes here, right? So basically we're talking we're talking about this guy, uh Chang Changmire, right? Is that what we're saying his name?

SPEAKER_02 1:04:47

Yeah, well that's how we're saying it. I feel like there's definitely a different way. Changir. No, it's definitely not that.

SPEAKER_04 1:04:52

Chang I don't dude, Changmeyer. I don't know who this guy is. I don't know. I'm saying Chang Chang Changmire. Changamir or Changamir. Yeah, Changamir. Um But he says, indeed, make of Changemir what you will. You requested uh my counsel and my intelligence, and I've offered it. Um D D D D. I do not think your problem is the Renegade d'Ormelage. Your problem, Tatralla, is the people. What your father understood, but Changemeyer never did, was that the first rule of any government was to safeguard the people. Tatralla says, We have failed at that. Doom, Namor, the Black Order, and threats that are not even known to them. Or to us readers, we don't I don't know about that. Um but there is more. What Changamir understood, and your father ultimately did not, is that protection is not enough. Force is not enough. To what end does all our weaponry angle us? Uh what are we really protecting? Our lives are not enough. What do our lives mean? Tatralla says, Are you really asking me this, mother? We are protecting our heritage, our traditions. Uh his mom says, You are smarter than that, Tatralla. The people know this story well. You are going to have to give them more. For my people, I have battled world breakers, death cultists, and men who would make themselves gods. For my people, I lost the only woman I ever loved. There is nothing. Nothing more. There's nothing left, Mother. I've given it all. No, Ticharla, let us not miss words here.

SPEAKER_02 1:06:05

This is exactly what I wanted to talk about. Get into it.

SPEAKER_04 1:06:08

No, Ticharla, let us not mince words here. You have never given willingly. You feel the weight of the crown, but you have never felt the great honor of being king. Your people are a burden to you, and you have never let them forget this. You say you've given it all. You are wrong. You have never truly given yourself to your country. And then how am I this is the part you just read, which is how how am I to do this, mother? Uh by giving uh by giving those who love you something more than recitation and ceremony, by giving that which all great kings ultimately offer inspiration. And that ends with them down in the cr they've they've now, over the course of this conversation, come down from this point over top of the city, and they've gone down on this like little hovercraft thing, and the conversation ends with them hugging and embracing the people.

SPEAKER_02 1:06:49

Yeah, yeah, exactly. And so we're getting definitely to the end of issue four here. This does lead to an interesting point where we get introduced to another villain. Um, and um oh actually, one thing I was gonna say first is that I did look up um it's uh Chengamira. Chengamire. Chengamire, which uh is a historic title for the rulers of the 17th century Rosvi Empire in modern-day Zimbabwe. So that's where that comes from. Sick. So um anyway, that was the one other thing that I wanted to add here. But um we're getting to the end of this and we get introduced to another character, Zeke Stane, who um I ended up looking up. I don't know uh all the deep stuff about this, but he is originally like an Iron Man uh villain. Um so again, like superhuman uh intelligence kind of stuff. Um but in this case, what's interesting, and it really honestly kind of confuses me, and maybe again this is one of the points that they're making, right? Is that there's this whole um uh rebellion that's going on, right, and in this kind of backdoor conversation that um Tetu who is having, and again, he's like in his whole like ceremonial kind of garb, he's just brought um Zenzi either back from being knocked out or whatever else. He's got the the face paint on that um looks really cool, and then he's having this conversation with um this guy who, for all I know, uh he's a white guy. Maybe he's not, but in comparison to the rest of the folks that are around here, um he's not Wakandan. He's not Wakandon, as far as we know, um, but probably not. But basically, um, you know, they're uh talking about this whole situation and going against um T'Challin, there is this white guy in the back room who's bankrolling probably a whole bunch of this shit, um, who is classic arms dealer type scenario. Right, classic arms dealer type scenario.

SPEAKER_04 1:08:38

Um and uh But right, hit that conversation you're saying, like, oh, you can talk about all the the well-meaning conversation, and but if you actually want to get this revolution done, you're gonna need to you know do some freaking bombs and whatever. It's sort of like the villain angle that you can see.

SPEAKER_02 1:08:54

Yeah, and that's and that's exactly what happens, is that we go to this next scene where um we see T'Chala um uh and his mother down with the people again. They're they're having um, you know, a good time, right? And they said this is again one of these um texts that show here which says, you know, you say you want a revolution, but are you ready for the future, friend? Let me tell you what is coming. Panic in the streets, fire in the sky, casualties. And we see a bomb going off in the middle um of this crowd of people. And it continues on saying, agony. The casualties king T'Challa were extensive, both the injured and the dead. And so this is um going on seeing that there, again, there's this explosion. T'Challa ends up picking up his mother, who's been uh really badly injured. Um, and you know, this is uh one of the more intense showings of violence from the revolutionaries in this whole uh couple of issues here. And then we go back to the war room where we hear again about his his mother's injury, uh injuries, and then this is I think another part for me that felt like again, who is the who is the villain here, right? Um, where T'Challa starts to say, no more mercy. We know what this is, it is war, and war is our nation's trade, which is also kind of a crazy thing to say from a very uh isolated nation. Um, but he goes on to say, it has been so for generations. We are Wakanda, we will not be terrorized, we are terror itself. I when I heard that, I was like, okay, now I'm I'm really like unsure. Because I get again, we will not be terrorized. Okay, you got me there. If you cut off the sentence right there, I'm chilling. But then you say we are terror itself, I'm like, oh no.

SPEAKER_04 1:10:26

But again, that's that's that this is good writing. And this is why the Tan Tanhasy Coates, that's what he's bringing to the table here, right? Which is like just very tr very real of uh like rebellion and stuff in the real world. It's like, okay, so the let's say the the resistance, whatever that is, whether they're terrorists or or not, that's all just you know, semantics, right, when it comes down to it. Right. They may have a noble cause, they may be right on paper with their argument, but then the reality of what they're gonna go about is blowing up a bunch of civilians to try to, you know. Again, he's bringing us back down to earth and and relating this to these like real-world parallels that we can think about where all of all these conflicts are um are terrible and so complicated and basically impossible to there is no right way, there's no right decision to make almost ever.

SPEAKER_02 1:11:18

Um I mean I think you know it shows here that it takes even someone who kind of some of the things that are talked about earlier is like, you know, finding the way to control and compose your emotions. Um that's one of the pieces of knowledge that his his mother kind of imparts on him as well. But we see here that T'Challa is like, um, and I didn't even notice this first time I'm reading it, he his claws are on the table and he's like tearing through the table with his fingernails, um, or the claws, I guess it in in this case. Um, and he looks, as he says that line, we are terror itself. Um he looks like scary. He doesn't look like heroic necessarily, or you know, he yeah, he looks just intense.

SPEAKER_04 1:11:58

Again, he had just his his mom had come to him and tried to appeal to him and saying, Hey, T'Challa, we really gotta think about the people, not just and he was sort of open to it and went down and tried to embrace the people. And in this little moment, what it feels like to him is he went down and tried to embrace the people and they immediately tried to blow up his mom.

SPEAKER_02 1:12:19

Right. And this is the very much like the you know, see, I knew this, you know, you a revisionist type of, but I, you know, I knew this was gonna happen. I knew, you know.

SPEAKER_04 1:12:25

And now he's back in that war room with all this cabinet around him, and he's got the suit on, he puts him, pulls a mask up, and there's no uh his mom is not in the room to be like telling him to chill.

SPEAKER_02 1:12:36

Yep, yep. Yeah, that's actually a great point. I didn't even think about that. Yeah, his mom is not there to temper his uh his emotions. Um but anyway, that's about to be terror itself. Yeah, crazy. But so that's the issue, end of issue number four here. Um, really interesting read, like we saw, you know, we talked about, and you've probably heard in this episode, it's it's I think um idea-wise, it's definitely like dense. Um, and I think that you know, if we had even also the additional context of some of the um stuff that had gone on with the other Doctor Doom or whatever else previously, I think it would be even uh even more so. Um But I I I enjoyed this, I think for sure. I um, you know, we talked about I think some of the things that um we felt I think a little bit more unsure about. And I think but it is also I think just interesting for us to experience like this is comics as a medium, right? And you take somebody who's a great, great writer, and we see great writing in here, right, but it's a different medium, and and that skill, right, is something that's being worked on, and and I I I guess I don't know off the top of my head. I'm assuming that he wrote this whole maybe run or whatever.

SPEAKER_04 1:13:38

Yeah, he does, he does. Yes.

SPEAKER_02 1:13:40

Which would be interesting to keep to keep reading and I wonder how it develops, and I wonder how his style develops over time, right? Getting into that. Because he's there's actually even like a little um excerpt or or blurb at the at the end of this with um uh interviewing the artist, right? Is that what you're about to do? Yeah, I believe so, yeah, with Brian Stelfries, where they talk about um, you know, yeah, uh Tanahasi is a accomplished writer but hasn't worked in comics before. How's collaborating uh with him been different? Um and you know, Brian Stelfries talks about it being fascinating and that most established comic writers have a fixed style or methodology, um and he's still evolving as a comic book writer. It's really cool to see him not only learn the language of visual storytelling, but also create new ways of doing that. That's another thing, right? Visual storytelling is not something that he's uh, as far as I know, right, has really jumped into deeply. He's like a political journalist. Right, exactly. Um but so I mean this guy also says, yeah, I think he says, I think Marvel brought me on to help and learn the roads, but I find he's teaching me quite a bit as well. So well said from uh Brian Stelfries for sure.

SPEAKER_04 1:14:36

Aaron Ross Powell And it's also I mean we've talked about this on episodes before, but it's one of the coolest things about the comic medium is like we have these uh even in singles single stories or single timelines or whatever, we get so many different people's perspectives. Sometimes it'll switch between different authors, sometimes it'll switch between different artists. Uh it'll go back and forth between like we've read we've read stories before where it switches even just in a little six-chapter chunk, it'll switch back and forth completely different art styles. Yeah. Um, certain chapters will be one author and then it'll hand it back off to another author before that arc of the story is even done for one reason or another. Very true. Um, which, you know, can be, I guess in some ways can be jarring or can feel weird, but it's part, it's just part of the comic medium of which we are trying to uh you know learn about and uh participate in.

SPEAKER_02 1:15:23

And it's pretty cool. Indeed. Indeed, it is. But so this was an interesting read. I think um, you know, if you guys do end up doing this, uh reading this as well, definitely take a look also at the um the piece in the back, the original uh Fantastic Four issue that has um the Black Panther in it. Um it's cool again, like we talked about earlier, to just see the the comic book style, not only the art, but the writing and the um the uh kind of voiceover. Uh what what what word am I looking for? I kind of monologue-esque type of stuff going on.

SPEAKER_04 1:15:51

And how there's like an uh an actual narrator. Narrator, yes, yeah, that's what I'm looking for. And and uh you can really feel the the Stan Lee of it all, where there'll be the actual story going on in the dialogue, and then it'll say, And that, dear reader, is what we're looking at right now. Back back over to Wakanda, where we see what Tatala is up to.

SPEAKER_02 1:16:12

It feels yeah, it feels so much of the of the time, which is super, super cool. But definitely take a look at that as well. Um, yeah, it's interesting. I mean, we also get to see actually the um the evolution of the Black Panther suit kind of there too, because even in this original one, he's got like a cape, it's almost like um uh a little bit Batman y in some ways. Um but uh cool, and I think actually, I can't remember if it's this artist or somebody else says that they talk about like that they really enjoy the very like sleek look of of Black Panther, which is the one that we ended up getting here. So that's another interesting part of this.

SPEAKER_04 1:16:49

This is also our f you know, it's cool our first uh you know read of a Black Panther thing. Like this is certainly not gonna be the last, I'm sure we'll read it as we read uh more like Avenger stories and other team-ups, and you know, who knows what we're gonna read, but Black Panther definitely is gonna be is gonna be popping up um you know in the future for sure.

SPEAKER_02 1:17:07

Um yeah, anyway, so this was um Black Panther issues one through four from twenty sixteen. Um any final thoughts, Ben?

SPEAKER_04 1:17:15

No, man. Good time. I think so.

SPEAKER_02 1:17:16

I think I think we had a I think we had a actually I do have one that hit me. The the thing that we didn't touch on as much is one of the other things that T'Challa is dealing with is his responsibility to Wakanda versus his responsibility to the rest of the world, right? Because what it seems like is the background for some of this is that um he was off like saving stuff in the world, maybe during either this Doctor Doom thing was either happening in the world or was happening in Wakanda, right? Secret wars, right? So he had to step away, which is the other reason why Shuri, I think, was queen at that time as well. Um there there might be some other reason for that as well.

SPEAKER_04 1:17:50

Right, for death.

SPEAKER_02 1:17:50

He feels that too.

SPEAKER_04 1:17:51

And so what's his responsibility to his family, what's his responsibility to his nation, what's his responsibility to the rest of the world?

SPEAKER_02 1:17:56

Right, yeah. And can you balance all those things? And it seems it's pretty difficult too.

SPEAKER_04 1:18:00

And that's similar, that's you know, that that matches up with some of the themes of Ryan Kugler's uh like the first Black Panther, where it's like, hey, you guys have all this uh there's there's you know, there's people in Oakland struggling. Right. There's and uh, you know, not just Oakland, there's there's people all around the world, but in that situation it's like keemonger from Oakland, yeah, yeah. Right. And like, you know, places that uh Wakanda app places all over Africa that are really you know going through it in one way or another. And um to what extent is Wakanda just supposed to like stay invisible and have be like super advanced and hoard its resources, and and what responsibility does it have to um help? Right. And what which again is with great power comes great responsibility. The the core of the core of Spider-Man, core of uh Stan Lee's writing, core of um this modern American superhero storytelling. And it's uh you know, it's just so cool. I'm I guess can like I'm just it's fun we're doing this, bro. It's fun we're reading these books um and and taking them seriously and trying to talk about them. Uh and I think it's a it's a worthwhile thing to do. And uh thanks to everybody who's been joining us and jumping in. Thanks to everybody who is joining us in the future and and coming back and listening to this.

SPEAKER_02 1:19:12

We appreciate you from the past and in the future, yeah, facts and in the present. But anyway, thanks so much, guys, for listening. Um, this has been kickback comics. We'll catch you in the next one. Peace.

unknown 1:19:22

Peace.