Black Panther

Two princes orphaned at an early age by villains, have turned their backs on luxury to adopt the lifestyles of caped crusaders, using only their finely tuned intellects, infinite willpowers, and relentlessly trained bodies (along with as many gizmos as they can stuff in their belts) to stand up against adversaries with astounding powers.

He IS Batman.

Two things come to mind.

1. You'd better not fuck this up.

2. For God's sake change the title. The last thing we need is some idiots raising hell over Marvel/Disney promoting supremacy groups.

Eh, just call it The Black Panther. That removes some confusion, and beyond that who cares if people are idiots about it.

Were the Black Panthers intentionally infiltrated and radicalized and or sabotaged by the FBI before they could actually make much meaningful mark on USA culture? I was under the impression most people thought of them as a joke, its not like they're the Nation Of Islam or anything?

Even if Black Panthers were some scary or controversial American group, the facts that Panthers really do tend to be black and the film is set in an African nation(where panthers, including black ones, live) should ease any fears pretty quickly. That and the character was already in the popular Ultimate Alliance video games and the Ironman cartoon shows.

@Cider Re your issues about Black Panter joining Avengers himself: That's always been the Black Panther's thing. No monarch acts a a superhero, especially for a team based in a foreign country. But millionare playboys don't build suits of armour either. With the level of realisim you seem to want there is no way you can justify the Black Panther bring more than a purely ceremonial title. But that way you don't have a superhero film.

Aldis Hodge from Leverage has been talking about wanting the role more and more recently. He even encouraged people on his Twitter feed to "bombard" Marvel with support and requests. Sadly I doubt he'll be included in Avengers 2 but I'd like to at least see him get his own film and maybe join the team in the third installment.

There is a reason why he wasn't the first Black Marvel character to get their own series despite being the first to come into prominence. Panther's a Guile Hero. He's not one to usually beat down waves of mooks most of the time because he has his own mooks to do that. His big brawls are fewer between than most's.

He's been an Avenger, he's been a replacement Fantastic Four, he's even been stuck in Daredevil's roll but are any of those periods really acclaimed? I assumed we wanted to see the film emulate Kirby's, Mc Gregor's and/or Priest's approach where he's mainly just trying to run his country and being the responsible contrast to say, Doom, Namor and Magneto while doing it.

Movies are equivalent to limiteds or one shots, he doesn't need to be in a situation that calls for regularly stabbing people or soaking up bullets and if they're fleshing out his origin there will be plenty of actions scenes there.

Yes. He's one of the most popular Avengers.

Err, I would not say BP is one of the more popular Avengers. In fact I'd rank him somewhere in the middle, beneath;

• Cap
• Iron Man
• Hulk
• Hawkeye
• Thor
• etc. etc.

Hulk isn't that popular as an Avenger. Do you even know how many Avengers there are?

Um, yes. A fuckton. In no particular order; Spider-Man, Wasp, Ant-Yellow Jacket/Golaith, Wolverine, Justice, Luke Cage, Iron Fist, Spider-Woman, She-Hulk, Echo, Dr. Strange, Storm, Ares, Hercules, Wonder Man, Ms Marvel, Vision, Beast, Bucky/Winter Soldier Cap, Red Hulk, The other Yellow Jacket, the other Ant-Man, War Machine, Teen Tony, Sentry, and the list goes on and on and on

Your point about Hulk not being popular as an Avenger is also kinda stupid, so Black Panther wasn't popular as an Avenger on account of the writer never really using him all that well. I mean look at this wiki; between Jack Kirby and Christopher Priest's runs with the character (where his tenure as an Avenger fell) does he get any regonition for his acts in that time? Limiting it to their time on the team, Hulk was still more popular than T'Challa was.

My point stands; the amount of people who have been on the Avengers and are more popular than T'Challa is in the double-digits (abliet low-double digits). Said characters also have mainstream regonition and the average person on the street will have at least heard of them. They've also had books that sold better than BP's, appeared in more forms of media than him, etc. etc.

• The Roy Thomas run on Avengers is considered to be a classic. It made the Avengers what it is; Lee and Kirby were better on Fantastic Four. Black Panther is present for much of it including a several issue arc in which he dominated the book.

• Black Panther was present for some of Steve Englehart's career making Avengers run, some of Gerry Conway's forgettable run and some of Jim Shooter's popular first run.

• Thor, Hawkeye*
  when he was absent
  and Black Panther were the most the Avengers that had the most fan requests to make a return to the team.

• The Black Panther stories by Don Mc Gregor are perhaps the most highly regarded and set much of the groundwork for Priests later run. They are also seen as a significant step in the movement towards book length story arcs in comics. I haven't read them either.

• The fact that this wiki doesn't have any information on a character between their debut is an oversight not limited to Black Panther. It's called recentism.

• The average person on the street does not know who Hawkeye or Black Widow are. They do not know any comic book superhero that doesn't have a film.

• Hulk is popular as a solo character. His use in the early Avengers stories seems to be because Stan Lee was fond of him.

The point still stands that there are a lot of A-List characters who have been Avengers, saying BP is one of the most popular ones is still laughable considering that list contains Iron Man, Wolverine, Spider Man, Captain America, Storm, etc. He's certainly in the first half, but I still would not say he's one of the most popular Avengers considering his over-all popularity.

The concept of A-list is meaningless. Storm can't carry her own book and wouldn't even be considered for a solo film. A lot of people wish Wolverine weren't an Avenger. None of this applies to Black Panther. As far as his popularity as an Avenger goes he beats both of them, and probably Spider-Man too. As a solo character he only beats Storm, overall he beats none of them. But that suggests he should be in Avengers 2, because he is more popular as an Avengers.

Edit: Re A-list. If you're trying to say Black Panther isn't in the top 1/26 of Marvel characters you're probably right.

edited 18th Sep '12 3:32:30 AM by C0mraid

I couldn't take you seriously after you said Black Panther is more popular than Storm, who:

• Was in a very sucessful movie trilogy
• Was in a very well recieved 90s animated series
• Was in a good 2000s animated Series
• Has been in every Marvel Vs Capcom game
• Has been around for less time than T'Challa but reached greater popularity in that time
• If you asked people on the street if they knew who Storm was, you'd get more people who knew of her than you would get for the Black Panther

As for the concept of A-List being meaningless, um, no. There's a reason why we have a trope called Wolverine Popularity, it's because some books just sell because of who is in it. Some people may not have liked Wolverine being in New Avengers, but those books sold and Wolverines three solo adventures sold. Spider Man sells a lot of books each month, ditto Batman, ditto Superman, etc. etc. So saying his popularity as an Avenger beats Storm is just laughable considering the sheer amount of people who think that her marrying BP was a massive mistake, and despite the vocal internet people still bought the books where Wolverine was an Avenger in greater numbers than people who bought Black Panther.

Face it, his best recieved runs where at times where he wasn't an Avenger, they were respectively before and after his time on the team.

EDIT: I'm saying that in terms of who sells the best, A list would be Spider-Man, Wolverine, etc. The massive sellers. I have no idea where he would fit in terms of list.

edited 18th Sep '12 3:45:10 AM by Shaoken

As an Avenger. Not overall but as an Avenger. Overall Storm is a more popular character. But she isn't going to end up on many favourite Avengers lists.

The concept of an A-list is meaningless. If you restricted it to the handful of household names like Wolverine and Batman it'd be fine. But you also include Captain America who most people on the street wouldn't know. As far as sales go, books like Wolverine will sell if they're written halfway competently. Books like Captain America depend more on the paticular creative team.

Well this argument really is boiling down to the nefarious thing that is, people's tastes. I know some people who weren't impressed by Panther's time on it, some who were, and really with characters like him and Storm it's really going to be up to someone's point of view.

Anyway, back to the topic at hand, if they do a film it should just be a solo one. There's a larger universe than just the Avengers and they should show more of it. Possibly use this one to set up other movies outside of mainland America.

And I still think he should turn up in the Avengers films. Dr Strange is the guy who should be kept solo.

One more point about the A-list thing; you are conflating popularity with fame. The X-Men trilogy made Storm more well known, but it didn't make her much more popular because she wasn't well fleshed out in them. Even more so with Cyclops, he's now the least popular X-Man among people who can only name 6 X-Men.

Does the Black Panther even have any villains besides the Sound-Klaw guy and the dude that dresses like a white gorilla?

...Calling it now, Klaw will be the villain of this film.

edited 18th Sep '12 4:49:38 AM by DeviantBraeburn

Eric Killmonger, Malice, Achebe, his step brother, his future self. The last two aren't really out for his blood though.

And there is a difference between being a popular character and being a popular Avenger. Black Panther spent pretty much all of his time in the Avengers being shot, beat up, tied up and shot some more(Vibranium, what's that?). For that matter, Hulk as an Avenger didn't work. He not only left early on, his leave did some good for the team, as shown in the story itself.

I wouldn't mind a splinter cell of Hydra being the villains of a Black Panther movie. I think some comic stories had something similar to that.

The shot at 1:11 looks like the spiritual plane in the comics where T'Challa can commune with the spirits of past Black Panthers.

Maybe that's why his dad is doing voice-over in the first trailer.

That seems like a safe bet, given the overall 'magical' quality of the scene as well as the fact that T'Chaka will be in the movie in some capacity.

I wonder if there will be some sort of 'vision quest' type thing, maybe involving the Heart Shaped Herb.

That would be a good way to get rid of Killmonger without killing him.

'Killmonger.' Really.