The Back Panther Movie • Stan & Jack’s Creation or Jack & Stan’s. Which is it?
Friday, February 23rd, 2018Welcome to Friday’s Mega Comics Group Updates!
The Black Panther is here! Finally!
YES! Finally, after months and maybe years, we forget which, the Black Panther movie is finally here! None of us here at MCG.com have seen it yet but some of our friends have and according to them the movie lives up to the hype!
From Wikipedia:
Black Panther is a 2018 American superhero film based on the Marvel Comics character of the same name. Produced by Marvel Studios and distributed by Walt Disney Studios Motion Pictures, it is the eighteenth film in the Marvel Cinematic Universe (MCU). The film is directed by Ryan Coogler, who co-wrote the screenplay with Joe Robert Cole, and stars Chadwick Boseman as T’Challa / Black Panther, alongside Michael B. Jordan, Lupita Nyong’o, Danai Gurira, Martin Freeman, Daniel Kaluuya, Letitia Wright, Winston Duke, Angela Bassett, Forest Whitaker, and Andy Serkis. In Black Panther, T’Challa returns home as king of Wakanda but finds his sovereignty challenged by a long-time adversary, in a conflict with global consequences.
Black Panther was announced in October 2014, and Boseman made his first appearance as the character in Captain America: Civil War (2016). By the end of 2015, Cole and Coogler had joined; additional cast joined in May 2016, making Black Panther the first Marvel film with a predominantly black cast. Principal photography took place from January to April 2017, at EUE/Screen Gems Studios in the Atlanta metropolitan area, and Busan, South Korea.
The Plot – SPOILER ALERT – Centuries ago, five African tribes war over a meteorite containing vibranium. One warrior ingests a “heart-shaped herb” affected by the metal and gains superhuman abilities, becoming the first “Black Panther“. He unites all but the Jabari Tribe to form the nation of Wakanda. The Wakandans use the vibranium to develop advanced technology and isolate themselves from the world by posing as a Third World country.
In 1992, King T’Chaka visits his undercover brother N’Jobu in Oakland, California. T’Chaka accuses N’Jobu of assisting black-market arms dealer Ulysses Klaue with stealing vibranium from Wakanda. N’Jobu’s partner reveals he is Zuri, another undercover Wakandan, and confirms T’Chaka’s suspicions.
In the present day, following T’Chaka’s death, his son T’Challa returns to Wakanda to assume the throne. He and Okoye, the leader of the Dora Milaje regiment, extract Nakia, T’Challa’s ex-lover, from an undercover assignment so she can attend his coronation ceremony with his mother Ramonda and younger sister Shuri. At the ceremony, the Jabari Tribe’s leader M’Baku challenges T’Challa for the crown in ritual combat. T’Challa defeats M’Baku and convinces him to yield rather than die.
After Klaue and Erik Stevens steal a Wakandan artifact from a museum, W’Kabi, T’Challa’s friend and Okoye’s lover, urges him to bring Klaue back dead or alive. T’Challa, Okoye, and Nakia travel to Busan, South Korea where Klaue plans to sell the artifact to CIA agent Everett K. Ross. A firefight erupts and Klaue attempts to flee but is caught by T’Challa, who reluctantly releases him to Ross’ custody. Klaue tells Ross that Wakanda’s international image is a front for a technologically advanced civilization. Erik attacks and extracts Klaue as Ross is severely injured protecting Nakia. Rather than pursue Klaue, T’Challa takes Ross to Wakanda where their technology can save him.
While Shuri heals Ross, T’Challa confronts Zuri about N’Jobu. Zuri explains that N’Jobu planned to share Wakanda’s technology with people of African descent around the world to help them conquer their oppressors. As T’Chaka arrested N’Jobu, N’Jobu attacked Zuri, forcing T’Chaka to kill him. T’Chaka ordered Zuri to lie that N’Jobu had disappeared and left behind N’Jobu’s American son, Erik, in order to maintain the lie. Erik became a U.S. black ops soldier, adopting the name “Killmonger“. Meanwhile, Killmonger kills Klaue and takes his body to Wakanda. He is brought before the tribal elders, revealing his identity and claim to the throne. Killmonger challenges T’Challa to ritual combat; after killing Zuri, he defeats T’Challa and hurls him over a waterfall. After ingesting the heart-shaped herb, Killmonger orders the rest incinerated, but Nakia extracts one first. Killmonger, supported by W’Kabi and his army, prepares to distribute shipments of Wakandan weapons to operatives around the world.
Nakia, Shuri, Ramonda and Ross flee to the Jabari Tribe for aid. They find a comatose T’Challa, rescued by the Jabari in repayment for sparing M’Baku’s life. Healed by Nakia’s herb, T’Challa returns to fight Killmonger, who dons his own Black Panther suit and commands W’Kabi and his army to attack T’Challa. Shuri, Nakia, and the Dora Milaje join T’Challa, while Ross remotely pilots a jet and shoots down the planes carrying the vibranium weapons. M’Baku and the Jabari arrive to reinforce T’Challa. Confronted by Okoye, W’Kabi and his army stand down. Fighting in Wakanda’s vibranium mine, T’Challa disrupts Killmonger’s suit and stabs him. Killmonger refuses to be healed, choosing to die a free man rather than be incarcerated.
T’Challa establishes an outreach center at the building where N’Jobu died to be run by Nakia and Shuri. In a mid-credits scene, T’Challa appears before the United Nations to reveal Wakanda’s true nature to the world. In a post-credits scene, Shuri helps Bucky Barnes with his recuperation.
All in all, the movie script seems to be fairly close to Black Panther mythology as we have seen it evolve over the years in the Marvel Comics.
Mark’s Remarks:
Millions of people will see the credits for the creation of the comic book super hero the Black Panther which will rightfully go to Stan Lee and Jack Kirby on the silver screen as the movie shows this year. There have been the disputes over the years about who created what in the Marvel Comics Universe. We don’t really know if T’Challa was more Kirby or Lee. I like to think that it was a 50/50 collaboration.
Having created and co-created a few characters of my own, as this web site testifies, I’m well aware of the emotions which can be involved on part of talented folks when credit is due. Where writers and artists are concerned it is a matter of perspective. From the view point of the writer, he thinks in words so the names, the way the names are spelled, the descriptions of the character and his crew, equipment, headquarters, his relationships with other heroes or cast members of the story and the story itself is the most important part of creating. For the artist it’s all about the image, how the hero looks, his costume design, the design of the character and his crew, equipment, headquarters, his visual relationships with other heroes or cast members. The way it all looks is the most important part of creating for the artist. There are instances where the writer and artist are the same person the values of importance will be split. Artists often think of themselves as writers as well as artists, whereas writers seldom think of themselves as visual artists. If you think about these concepts from the perspective I’ve outlined here you may gain a new understanding as to why Stan & Jack often had different recollections about who created what on the comics they collaborated on.
Some would say, “Well it’s not that, it’s who come up with he idea first.” But again, the concepts above still apply. First ideas are often rough and they often change as the concepts are batted back and forth between collaborators. This explains why the characters often changed so much with each subsequent appearance. Look at the Inhumans, the Black Panther, the Silver Surfer, Galactus or any of the characters Stan and Jack worked on and how they evolved in these early Fantastic Four stories. Remember when the Inhumans were returned to their home city of Attilan and were trapped by Maximus, isolated from the world by what was called a Negative Zone. But only a few issues later this barrier was not called a Negative Zone anymore and that name was used for the region of subspace discovered by Reed Richards from then on.
So you see, the initial idea may not be what it evolves into. Even what we might call a character or concept can change to fit a storyline. That’s true collaboration, or if you prefer c0-creation. Yep, that’s it in a nutshell. That’s the way the creative process works over time.
Onward!
Mark
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Archives Spotlight
Archive’s Spotlight is designed to look at all which has come before and add new comments as well. This posting we are reviewing Project New Man 3 Page 1-5!
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Project: New Man #3 – Page 1-5 – We have art changes pages 1-5. These are minor, halftone changes but each whole page is affected. When the art for most of these pages were originally done Mark used a product from Grafix Art Systems called Duo-Shade which had two hidden tones, made visible with separately-purchased developer fluids. Dark tone developer revealed the darker tone, Light tone developer revealed the lighter one. Comic book artists used this technique from time to time throughout comics history. Some of these famous artists include Roy Crane, Alex Toth and Wally Wood. The product was officially called “Doubletone Drawing Board”, but was more commonly referred to as Craftint or Duo-Shade. There was also a 1-tone paper called Uni-Shade. Mark used this technique on the Bearcat and NewMan chapters he drew. The other artists uses other halftone techniques. To make this issue a little more consistent throughout, we’ve taken the original scanned art and bleached out the original tones and added Duo-Shade techniques in Photoshop. More pages in PNM #3 will be updated in prepping these books for printing with Ka-Blam Comic Book Printing and digital sales at IndyPlanet as well as DriveThru Comics. We should have some of that posted next week.
CU Next Week!
Fair Use reference to intellectual property of other companies are intended for historical and informational accuracy only. Mega Comics Group™ or Mega Graphics, LLC™ does not represent or have any relationship to any other company or entity or their intellectual property unless otherwise clearly noted. Mega Tales™ and © 2010 Mega Graphics LLC, unless otherwise noted herein. Project: New Man™ and Humants™ and © 2010 Freazie White, Jr. D.B.A. Legacy Comics. Tess, the Living Tesseract™ and © Stephen Greg Legat and Mark Poe. All rights reserved. Mega Graphics LLC, licensor.
