Should One Man Have All That Power?

Since I've started working for Black Nerd Problems, the feedback for my articles and even The Blog has definitely evolved. I get my share of trolls just like everyone else, but for the most part, I like you people. Even when you don't agree, you get it. But there's always a bit of an oddball that just has to stand out. Recently, I received an email about an article I did a few moons ago on what the moral to a good Black Panther movie should be. One response I got (which my editor refuses to run and rightfully so because as well written and thought out as it is, the goddamned thing has a higher word count than War and Peace) was a letter to Marvel, griping about the direction in which they've taken the Black Panther in the past ten years or so. And yeah, it's totally valid to say he's been put through the ringer. He's lost his kingdom to his sister (by the way, I've never liked the way fans talk about that with this overtone that sounds a lot like misogynistic "you lost your throne to a girl" bullshit), he got divorced from Storm who moved onto a relationship with the dearly departed Wolverine. He became the keeper of the spirits of all Black Panthers before him and lost that. He's lost Wakanda thrice to Doom, Namor and Thanos. I get it. He's had it hard.

This section of fandom (because the guy who wrote the letter isn't the only one by a long shot) has a problem with this because the Panther, though an awesome, formidable hero, hasn't really been given a chance as a truly marquee character. They seem to think, as far as I can tell, that returning his throne to him and making him this indomitable Batman of sorts again will put him in the spotlight he deserves and...I don't know...maybe they think he'll finally be worthy of joining the Marvel Cinematic Universe in his own film (which, according to some, is on the way sooner than we think).

The author of said letter also seems to believe that the Black Panther falling from grace is some kind of hazing unique to him that other characters (I'm assuming via context that he means white characters) are somehow immune to. Even though it's understandable as far as kneejerk reactions go (after all, we live in a country where it's practically a federal case if Jennifer Lawrence's boobs leak to the web but not Jill Scott's), it's still wrong.

Tony Stark, as karmic penance for being a war profiteer, has a piece of shrapnel from one of his own bombs stuck in his chest. He's also been a booze hound who has lost his company at least twice in recent memory, lost his memory, been an enemy of the state and, recently, engineered superhero death machines that he doesn't remember making.

Captain America, the Marvel Universe's greatest champion, has been on the run from his own country, shot in the chest, and even renounced his name when he didn't like the direction the country was going in.

And these are two of Marvel's biggest franchises we're talking about here. If Marvel were to absolve the Black Panther from being put through a gauntlet in his heroic and personal life (and this is what Reginald Hudlin lost sight of during his run), you're opening your character up to becoming a Goddamned Batman where the problem becomes that you've allowed your character to become too invincible in the eyes of the collective consciousness. And when was the last time that was exciting? 300? I mean, sure it was cool watching the Spartans be tougher than basically every other lifeform on screen, but that was only cool because we all knew they were going to die by the end of the movie.

"Excuse me, but you're in the shot. They can't
get my abs clearly."

(Having said that, it would be awesome to see a scene in the Black Panther movie where T'Challa is one deep against a horde of mercenaries charging towards Wakanda, giving them work like Gerard Butler did in that one scene of 300. But I digress.)

I mean, just think about Cyclops. After the years of fanwhining about how boring and vanilla Scott Summers was. Now, think about him finally losing his shit and, lately becoming the new Magneto. Who would have guessed that the Captain America of mutants would have turned into that wayward older brother who changes his clothes and rages against the machine to piss off his dead father figure? That's a much more interesting character!

It's natural to want the good guys to win. That's why comics are absorbed into pop culture so easily. No matter how cynical or apathetic our society becomes, we want to see someone triumph during those times when we don't think we can. Jerry Siegel's father was shot and killed in a department store robbery. When he created Superman, he was giving birth to the kind of hero he wished could have saved his dad, a hero who would never let us down in those times when our friends, our jobs or our justice system does.

But the connection between the hero and his/her reader can't always be so simple. Otherwise, the audience starts to resent the hero in the same way you hate hearing "I know how you feel" from your friend who gets all the pretty girls in high school. The greater the test put before your hero, the louder we cheer when they see their way past it.

Moral of the Story: It's not about the fall. It's about the climb back.

Stuff I Read This Week 4/30/14

Avengers #28: Avengers came off of having a really good run during and after Infinity. Jonathan Hickman's penchant for world building gave rise to some goddamn good superheroing in the past year. The latest story from the past few issues involving alternate universe Avengers coming into the 616 dimension has had some potential, but has also some weird pacing, making for a strange read. 

Fortunately, business starts to pick up again in this issue that mainly centers on Bruce Banner in an awkward sitdown with Tony Stark. This leads to some hard truths about the manner of the Avengers' new format as well as some of the threats the Illuminati has kept at bay from the shadows in Hickman's New Avengers series (which, by the way, has gotten so slow, I'm not sure it's actually moving anymore). This is awesome because a). it gets back to displaying the world building elements that Hickman does so well and b). because we get to see more of the cunning Bruce Banner that fans have really wanted to see over the years from Hulk lore. It's nice to see that his place in the Marvel Cineverse has inspired a more fleshed out presence from Green Goliath's more enlightened side. Salvador Larroca's pencils are as strong as they've ever been. He gives off a very clean, almost cinematic storyboard style that pulls off some truly engaging scenes. The look of Banner keeping his anger in check, holding back "the other guy" is compelling and ominous.

Bottom Line: Delightful art, coherent, nicely paced tie in to New Avengers....it's nice to see Hickman getting back on track. 8.5 out of 10

Silver Surfer #2: Dan Slott and Michael Allred got the new Silver Surfer off to a strong start. Slott borrows a lot from Doctor Who, but as any Whovian can tell you, there are certainly worse places to draw inspiration from. After all, while comics have the capacity to act as gospel and lead in parts of pop culture, they also have a history of, to their benefit, being very derivative as well. 

This issue picks up with the Surfer flying off under duress to combat the mysterious Never Queen that threatens the people of the Impericon. We gain some insight into exactly what makes our hero's foe such a threatening one. Meanwhile, Slott also gives us ample time with his accidental partner, Dawn Greenwood, displaying what makes her such an appropriate companion (see what I did there, Whovians?) for the Surfer. In many ways, she's reminiscent of Clara, the Doctor's latest traveling buddy. It's great to see a female character take herself out of the damsel in distress box for a change (looking at you, Laurel Lance from Arrow) and take charge of a situation. There's a page in particular where Slott teases readers with a few possibilities of things to come for this unconventional team-up of sorts. There is simply NOTHING complain about art-wise in this book. Some fans have complained about the more visually lighthearted it takes, but honestly, Marvel could use a little more of that. Dawn is portrayed in a way that's stylish but isn't oversexualized and the Surfer has very dynamic poses that jumps right out at you. 

Bottom Line: Another great installment that makes future adventures out to be very promising. Thus far, this is one of the best relaunches of the Marvel NOW initiative. 9.5 out of 10.

Why People Should Suck It Up and Get Over the Iron Man 3 Thing (SPOILERS AHEAD).....

Seriously, there are SPOILERS in here. Last chance.

Well, Iron Man 3 has finally come and, as I predicted within 15 seconds of seeing the big Mandarin reveal, the entire internet fell on the floor kicking and screaming like children (Bell Biv Devoe calls that "the crybaby"). For those of you that don't care about seeing this movie, but want to know what I'm talking about, here's the breakdown.

The movie version of the Mandarin (Ben Kingsley) is the (white) supposed head of a terrorist organization known as the Ten Rings, the same group that held Tony Stark captive in the first movie. Stark infiltrates the Mandarin's home only to discover that he is actually a drunken, drug addicted British actor named Trevor Slattery, who is just a front for Aldridge Killian (Guy Pearce) and A.I.M.'s war profiteering scam. At some point throughout Killian's final battle with Iron Man, he screams "I am the Mandarin!!!" Denzel Washington Training Day style.

As a result of this twist in the narrative, as I said before, the internet lost its collective mind because they didn't get a RDJ/Ben Kingsley superpowered slugfest even though the slugfest they got instead was FUCKING AWESOME. The thing about comic nerds is that they're very random about how and when they decide a movie's handling of the source material is careless. X-Men First Class was taken seriously, the Scarecrow got beaten up by Katie Holmes, Dr. Doom was basically portrayed as Donald Trump with superpowers and Ghost Rider got two movies. But somehow, THIS is just too much to handle. To understand why this is a silly grievance, you have to understand who the Mandarin is in the comics.

Depending on the writer, the details have changed slightly over the years, but basically the Mandarin was a Chinese man, oppressed by Chairman Mao, who stumbled upon alien technology in the form of ten powerful rings and used them to become an evil would-be conqueror. An evil Chinese would-be conqueror who looks, dresses and talks like a villain from a Shaw Brothers kung fu movie.

In other words....this guy.

Over the years, they've changed his clothes and motives for hating Iron Man, but as far as his goals and ideologies, long story short....this could be considered pretty fucking racist. In 2013, with the borderline xenophobic political climate, there is just no way in Hell you can market this to a worldwide audience with children in good conscience. None. Granted, I'm not saying that you HAVE to characterize the Mandarin this way to do it justice, but it IS racially problematic for Marvel and, ultimately, Disney. If they cast a Chinese guy, the Asian community would quite possibly maul the studio and rightfully so. If Ben Kingsley's version (dressed the way he was) had been a superpowered badass, the movie would have been accused of "whitewashing" a Chinese character and we saw how that worked out for M. Night Shaymalamadingdong with The Last Airbender. Or you can write the Mandarin out altogether, but then you have C-List Iron Man baddies like the Living Laser. Sorry, but outside of comic book, no studio exec in the universe thinks Living Laser is a good name for a movie villain.

My point here is that Shane Black handled the "Mandarin" issue in the most realistically feasible way possible. So suck it up.