What the film director of the Dark Knight's doing now with the Odyssey makes clear he wouldn't be a good choice for it anymore

Christopher Nolan, the filmmaker known for his Batman trilogy, Dark Knight, nearly 2 decades ago, is soon going to be releasing a movie based on The Odyssey, and it looks like he's decided to join the woke bandwagon, based on the casting choices, as the following report from Breitbart makes clear. This may not be comics-related per se, but since Batman and a few other comics characters do come up in discussion (along with the actors playing them), that's why it could be a good idea to take a look:

In an interview with the Telegraph, Nolan insists that he is not at all worried over the criticism. When asked about the hubbub, he casually replies, “Comes with the territory.”

“But look,” Nolan continued, “these conversations that happen before people see the film – they’re always irrelevant, because no one having them knows what the film actually is yet.” And he added that he felt The Odyssey was going to stir controversy regardless.

“But remember,” Nolan said, “I spent 10 years of my life dealing with Batman.”

“When I came on to Batman Begins, writers and artists had been working on this beloved character for almost 65 years, and a lot of freighted thoughts were out there about what he represents. And what I learnt over my time on that trilogy is you can’t worry about any of that at all,” the Oscar-winning director explained.

“What you have to do is honor the original text by interpreting it in the strongest way you personally can,” he exclaimed.

“In the end, fans of the property – even when we were doing something that was not what they would have done – enjoyed the sincerity of the attempt to put as good a version of it on screen as we could,” Nolan said.

“All I can do is make the best film I possibly can in the most sincere way. It’s very different from how anyone else would do it, but that’s what adaptation is,” he concluded.

Critics have pointed out several red flags in the upcoming film’s promotional materials: indications that the script leans heavily on a revisionist Odyssey translation by left-wing, feminist writer Emily Wilson; his casting of African actress Lupita Nyong’o to play the Greek character Helen of Troy, who is described as having pale skin and light blonde or reddish hair; and the casting 5-foot-one, 105-pound transvestite actor Elliot Page as Sinon, a Greek warrior who does not even appear in The Odyssey or in Homer’s other epic The Illiad. The character was created much later by Roman poet Virgil in his Trojan War epic The Aeneid.

When Nolan originally worked on the Dark Knight trilogy, I don't think he ever went out of his way to do DEI casting. So to say you "can't worry about it" doesn't work well when he's going out of his way to be so noticeable in his choices, right down to the casting of a woman who desecrated herself so badly. And if Nolan's not going to consider what Homer's Odyssey represents, then Nolan's only letting know that his leftism's come to the fore in the worst ways possible.

This subject was already brought up nearly 2 months ago by the Federalist as well, and at the time, they told that:

...the only relatively recent, large-scale adaptation for the screen was a made-for-TV film in 1997 with cheap production (just a small step above a typical episode of Hercules: The Legendary Journeys with Kevin Sorbo). Despite its shortcomings, the movie at least stayed faithful to the source material and maintained a brisk pace as well as a spirit of fun.

Nevertheless, in an era of reboots, it only made sense for Hollywood to give the Odyssey the epic treatment it deserved under the direction of a guy like Christopher Nolan. He could enlist the necessary talent and apply the necessary cinematic techniques to do to Odysseus what he did for Batman.

But every piece of news, particularly the new lengthy (4000+ words) puff piece from Time magazine, has quickly eroded any hope this movie is worth seeing. With his horrible casting, drab cinematography, and intent to explore Odysseus’ inner demons, Nolan seems committed to ruining his most ambitious film yet. Rather than save American cinema from its current death spiral, he has somehow brought all of its worst qualities together in this new project.

DEI Casting

The most obvious offense has been his choice of actors. Outside of Matt Damon playing Odysseus, nearly every other person in this movie has little reason to be there. Starting from the top, Anne Hathaway is a mediocre actress with too little depth, range, or charisma to play Odysseus’ wife Penelope. The same should be said for Tom Holland, playing Odysseus’ son Telemachus. Although both of them have risen to fame playing likable young adults, they will be difficult to believe as a grief-stricken queen desperately waiting for her husband and an adult son growing up in his father’s shadow.

Of course, what has elicited more outcry has been Nolan’s brazenly woke casting for the other characters. To play Athena, he cast Zendaya, an actress who suffers from incurable “resting bitch face,” can’t act, and is too young and unserious for the part. For Helen of Troy, the princess whose superlative beauty “launched a thousand ships,” he cast Lupita Nyong’o, a mostly forgettable actress who is known more for appearing in the Black Panther movies than being a paragon of female perfection. If one had to guess why exactly Nolan picked these actresses, it seems that being a woman of color had something to do with it.

On the subject of the BP movie, I recall some people said it had a questionable approach hinting at social justice propaganda, and now, several years later, one can ask whether it had any impact in the long run, after its contrived sequel collapsed.

As for men of color, Nolan has this covered by casting the rapper Travis Scott as a bard in order to communicate “the idea that this story has been handed down as oral poetry, which is analogous to rap.” Considering that the epic poem is an art form that celebrates the ideals of an ancient culture with larger-than-life characters in a larger-than-life setting while rap is a contemporary art form that glamorizes urban decay, vice, and criminality, this connection is a bit of a stretch.

Nolan also made sure to represent the elderly with the inclusion of Charlize Theron as the ageless nymph Calypso and John Leguizamo as Odysseus’ lieutenant Eumaeus. At 50 years old, Theron evidently clings to her glory days of being a bombshell/action star. Meanwhile, John Leguizamo is an unfunny 65-year-old comedian best known for spouting leftist propaganda and whining about racism.

But the most controversial decision (to put it mildly) for casting has been that of Elliot Page, formerly known as Ellen Page. Setting aside the rumor that she might play Greece’s mightiest warrior Achilles, simply looking at Page after her transgender surgeries is highly distracting, if not outright disturbing. Here was a young attractive actress starring in big movies like Juno, X-Men: Days of Future Past, and Inception now reappearing as a scrawny pubescent boy. With the transgender insanity behind us, most people would probably agree Page needs mental and emotional help more than a prominent role in a big-budget movie.

I think Nolan has a lot of explaining to do why, back in the day, he didn't go out of his way to do such forced, politicized casting, and now all of a sudden, he believes it's that big a deal, taking full precedence over merit. I guess it's because Matt Reeves and Robert Pattinson's film went that route just a few years ago, so now, Nolan's decided to follow suit. Some moviegoers argued the Caped Crusader doesn't do much of anything in Reeves' film, and what Nolan's doing to the Odyssey now in his adaptation decidedly makes clear he's abandoned all qualifications for ever producing/directing films based on Batman again, ditto other comics characters. You could also ask what the whole point was of even bothering to adapt Batman back in the day if this is what Nolan thinks now. For all we know, his new path could have people one day look upon the Dark Knight film trilogy quite differently. It's pretty surprising there could be quite a few performers here whose names I recall from the live action comics films they appeared in, right down to Holland who played Spider-Man. But, they too seem to be following the woke narrative, and if that's how it's going to be, that's why, compared to actors and actresses of the past, they won't rate high in cinematic history in the future.

Jack Kirbys visions were allegedly an inspiration for Riot Games' League of Legends characters

A guest writer at the Washington Post, who co-created League of Legends and co-founded its studio, Riot Games, brought up the history of the late, great Jack Kirby, now on exhibit at the Smithsonian, apparently for telling everybody how his work inspired their video game creations, and making a case against artificial intelligence:

The man behind this image is Jack Kirby, a Jewish comic artist who emerged from New York’s Lower East Side in the 1930s to become one of America’s most prolific and imaginative creators.

Since Kirby died in 1994, the worlds he envisioned have continued to grow in popularity, accounting for many of the biggest box-office hits in the 21st century. Kirby pioneered the visual language of modern superheroes — from Captain America to the Incredible Hulk to Black Panther — and revolutionized world-building itself. Today, any creator designing characters or imagining universes is likely building in part on Kirby’s vision.

There's something rather hypocritical for a newspaper that's hostile to Israel, the land of Kirby's ancestry, to be bringing up his ethnic background if they don't genuinely respect it. Chances are they don't have respect for Iranian dissidents either. That aside, it's supremely silly how the writer claims Kirby's worlds have skyrocketed in popularity when sales today make clear it's anything but that, and the Eternals film was a box office dud. Based on this, I hesitate to think what could become if the New Gods and even the Demon, some of Kirby's creations for DC, were adapted to live action.

Yet, unlike George Lucas, Walt Disney or even Stan Lee (his longtime collaborator at Marvel), Kirby’s name remained largely unknown outside comic fandom. Few among the tens of millions who watched “Deadpool & Wolverine” in 2024 knew that the X-Men universe was co-conceived decades earlier by this young artist.

Kirby may be finally getting his due.

“Jack Kirby: Heroes and Humanity,” the first major exhibition of his work, just wrapped up its run at Los Angeles’ Skirball Cultural Center. A documentary, “Kirbyvision,” is underway. New York City last summer named a Lower East Side street corner after its native son, and several of his comics have joined the permanent collections at the Smithsonian Institution and the U.S. Holocaust Memorial Museum.

His life story feels especially instructive now. As creative fields examine the disruptive potential of artificial intelligence, Kirby’s art exemplifies the unmatched power of human imagination.

That's the guy's reason for bringing him up? Because if he's not interested in researching and telling everybody how Marvel under Joe Quesada destroyed all of Captain America's potential beginning in 2002, along with what made other creations of Kirby's work, then what good does it do to make points about how AI is no substitute for human-illustrated art? I'm sorry, but this is all cheap stuff, that once again misses a chance to inform everyone what went wrong in the past quarter century.

At Riot Games, we originally built video games to deliver bombastic fantasies that embody specific archetypes or play experiences. Over time, we faced the challenge of retroactively weaving these diverse creations into a single, coherent world, worthy of storytelling.

It’s no small task to make a sad mummy, a star-forging dragon and a pyromantic schoolgirl feel as though they belong in the same universe. Comics have long solved a similar puzzle, uniting a Norse god, a billionaire inventor and even a talking raccoon and sentient tree into a believable ensemble. In that sense, our process drew from Kirby’s legacy: build boldly, then discover the connective tissue, the humanity and purpose that binds characters into something greater than the sum of their parts.

Kirby and his collaborators pushed us to treat narrative not as an accessory but as a responsibility, convincing us that the rudimentary characters in our early game could inhabit a universe rich enough to connect people across cultures and generations while asking timeless human questions.

Oh, another discussion of responsibility, without harkening back to where none was on display in the early 2000s, all shortly after September 11, 2001, when Quesada - and Bill Jemas - not only put Captain America in the Marvel Knights imprint, they even put him in a Blame America scenario. That was unacceptable, went against what Kirby stood for, and now, a quarter century later, all some technologist wants to talk about is how Kirby served as inspiration for video game designs. Sure, it can be great to draw inspiration from Kirby's visions, but if they really respect him, they wouldn't ignore just how bad use of Kirby's creations back in the comics became after the turn of the century until now. IIRC, the Knights imprint wasn't as monumentally successful as some apologists might make it out to be, recalling Cap's run under that imprint lasted possibly less than 2 years, and then the imprint label was dropped, but the damage had been done, and now it's gotten to the point where race-swapping propaganda has all but forced Steve Rogers out of the role. And that story where Cap was written saying "hail Hydra" is another repulsive moment in terrible comics history now soiling Kirby's creation.

Creative people are told AI will replace them. But AI has no lived experience. It can mimic and remix the raw material of human creativity, drawing on patterns it did not originate. That’s why its work, however dazzling, reflects the archive it was trained on rather than a life it has lived. It cannot create from personal memory, conviction or emotional truth, the forces that Kirby transformed into art. In the AI age, his legacy reminds us that while technology may assist the creative process, the most enduring universes are born not of algorithms alone but of human imagination, alive with the sparks that only come when people create together.

Yes, but this doesn't excuse how abysmal artistic merit's become in over 2 decades, and there's decidedly no excuses for a computer game producer obscuring that either. And if human imagination's going to be corrupted, can you expect AI to improve upon that?

I also looked at the reader comments, and for example, we have:

It’s hard to read any article about Jack Kirby that doesn’t reference how ill-treated and under-appreciated he was. He was constantly shuffling from company to company, most of which exploited his talent and failed to enable him fully. What we got was spectacular, but there was so much more that just wasn’t supported.

Yet none of that is as troubling as how Marvel took his and Joe Simon's creation, Capt. America, and exploited Steve Rogers for the sake of apologia for Islamic terrorism and Blame America propaganda. Speaking of Simon, he later reportedly drew a picture of Cap socking Osama bin Laden, and that's all buried today, 15 years after his own passing. Why, even Simon's hardly known outside comic circles by today's standards. Maybe even Will Eisner's in the same situation. Yet none of that matters to the Riot Games manager? For shame.

Another comment made a good point, but simultaneously risked contradicting it:

I watched a video essay recently talking about how Japanese Manga has surpassed American comics in most ways, because American comics are mostly locked in and unchanging. Spiderman can go on new adventures, his villains can come and go or rotate, but his story can never end. Popular characters can be killed off, but will be brought back, reducing any impact on the readers.

It had some good points, even if it ignored that popular and long running Manga titles do the same things at times, but they do tend to be the vision of the creator and last only as long as they are willing to work on them.

One of the strengths of American comics, I think, is that a new writer/artist can take an existing character and re-imagine them. The X-Men weren't as popular as they would become until Chris Claremont's epic run with them, for example.

Kirby is a titan and probably more impactful than Stan was.

Just what definition of "reimagining" would that be? Because there's only so many politicized "reimaginings" going on today at the expense of classic creations, whether it's race/sex-swapping or forcing LGBT and Islamic propaganda down the readers' throats, and the aforementioned Iceman stands out as a X-Men cast member who was a big victim of such propaganda. As for the point that manga can also emphasize resurrections, a point that should be made is that the problem with mainstream USA comics either killing off characters or resurrecting them is that they're not doing it organically or altruistically, but for the sake of publicity, and even worse is when a character who's on the good side is forcibly turned into a monster, as seen with 2 women in both Identity Crisis and Avengers: Disassembled, Jean Loring and Scarlet Witch. Must I point out the latter is a Kirby creation? One more reason why the alarmingly forced approach to her in WandaVision and Dr. Strange in the Multiverse of Madness is sickening. So we have all these situations that cropped up since the 90s where heroic characters are killed/villified in contempt of the original visions, while only villains are allowed to be resurrected, or worse, somehow become heroes instead. That may not be so common now, but the damaging impact of such tactics is still proving hard to shake off.

All that aside, this does make a vital point that, if mangakas can write about resurrections, then it's not inherently wrong for USA comics to do the same, provided the goodies and their civilian co-stars are allowed the same privileges as villains could disturbingly get.

Here's one more reader comment:

I wrote about how Hitler did not start the hate against you know how but this is 2,000 years old but the media like WAPO want to pretend that Hitler started all this giving cover to religion to continue to preach their hate & WAPO censored it - let's see if this revised version makes it in

I assume this alludes to Islamic antisemitism, and it's already old news neither Marvel nor DC want to seriously tackle the issue, recalling how the former even went so far as to preach for the sake of the Religion of Peace with a race-swapped Ms. Marvel who's a Muslim, and the latter did the same with a Muslim Green Lantern, in a storyline that was also built on making "infidels" look bad. And all this at the expense of the Jewish community that created the comics now exploited for the sake of woke propaganda. Well if the Wash. Post censored any statement on that, go figure, they're still as repellent in their leftist politics as before.

With that told, much as I'd like to credit some video game producers for drawing inspiration from famous artists, their failure to defend classic creations from abuse spoils everything. Nor do they make a case for artistic merit, and why it's bad to resort to publicity stunts as Marvel/DC have been doing for quite some time. If how modern comics are written/illustrated doesn't matter, it's pointless to claim they're fans of Kirby, one of the best artists who brought about what they claim to be inspired by.

Movie columnist doesn't think Marvel films should adapt new Black Panther Knights story, while co-writer Joe Quesada is sadly invited to a Tennessee store gathering

A writer at Moviefone says she doesn't think the Marvel cinematic universe should adapt Christopher Priest and Joe Quesada's new Black Panther storyline under the revived Knights imprint, where T'Challa is all but replaced by a white cast member:

When Chadwick Boseman passed away, he left a hole in the Marvel Cinematic Universe that, let's be honest, likely no one will be able to fill. He perfectly embodied T'Challa in 'Black Panther'. He knew how to light up a room with his smile and laugh.

There has been a lot of debate about whether the role should ever be recast or if there should be a new Black Panther altogether. For now, Shuri (Letitia Wright) has taken up the mantle, as fans saw in 'Black Panther: Wakanda Forever'. She fit seamlessly into the story, and it makes all the sense in the world for her to continue representing Wakanda.

While many have been calling for a new Black Panther to step into the MCU, the recent Marvel Comics' storyline is not the way to do it. Here's why.

[...] The first reason Marvel should choose not to adapt this storyline is probably the most obvious one. We already have a Black Panther in Shuri. Letitia Wright is confirmed to reprise her role as Shuri in 'Avengers: Doomsday' so it makes no sense for Marvel to replace her and bring in a new Black Panther. At least not yet. She has a lot more to give us.

We also already have another Black Panther lined up to take her place, when the time comes. In the post-credit scene for 'Black Panther: Wakanda Forever' it is revealed that T'Challa had a son with Nakia (Lupita Nyong'o). He is named Toussaint and he is being raised outside of Wakanda.

For Marvel to set a storyline up in a post-credit scene and then completely abandon it is not unheard of, but it would be particularly frustrating this time around. They cannot get away with never talking about him again, and if they do decide to retcon his part of the story, fans will likely be outraged. Rightfully so.

Realistically the studio can do whatever they want and claim that it works within the story because of how they have set themselves up. With the multiverse blown wide open, there is no reason they can't have a new Black Panther step through a portal from another universe and try to take up the mantle.

That said, to do so would be extremely lazy writing. Even with the multiverse established, Marvel needs to stop relying on it to explain away situations. Viewers are getting sick of it, and for good reason. Surely this is how The Fantastic Four is going to enter the MCU. 'Avengers: Doomsday' is probably going to use that explination a lot, and honestly, that should be the last time Marvel leans on the multiverse for help.

Considering the 2nd BP movie did far less well than the 1st, it should be apparent that even these "replacements" aren't impressing upon the audiences, given how politically correct the sequel became. So what's the columnist trying to prove? Besides, if the upcoming Avengers movie yet to open isn't crafted well, then Shuri's role becomes moot.

Now since the subject of Quesada comes up, Knoxville's 6News reports that a local specialty store sadly invited him to a convention they're holding:

Fans lined the sidewalk at a Knoxville comic bookstore over the weekend to meet former Marvel Comics editor-in-chief Joe Quesada and celebrate the latest release from the entertainment giants.

Nirvana Comics in Bearden hosted the special signing event in celebration of the launch of Marvel Knights: The World To Come, a six-issue comic books series co-created by Quesada. [...]

“When Nirvana Comics called, I had heard about them. I had heard what a great store this was, from other creators as well,” Quesada said. “So I thought you know what? I think it would be so much more fun to do my first signing in a store as opposed to a big convention and just hang out with real hardcore fans that come into the shop all the time.”

It's a shame somebody representing the industry is willing to make him a special guest even at a local convention, and completely excuse and absolve him for all the harm he did to Marvel when he became their EIC, including - but not limited to - destroying the Spider-marriage. Aside from all that, Quesada's also a very mediocre artist, so what they see in him I'll never know, apart from how he may be one of the biggest representatives of PC storytelling, and that could have what to do with their choice of invitations. I have no interest in getting an autograph from somebody like Quesada, who did zero in the long run to salvage its collapsing fortunes, and when Bill Jemas left Marvel, the company wide crossovers began again non-stop, becoming one of the worst staples of the industry over the past 2 decades and ruining all organic storytelling in the process. All Quesada accomplished was explaining why Marvel should've gone out of business in the early 2000s, which would've prevented much of the woke humiliations from coming about. Instead, we now have a publisher in tatters, all because Quesada wanted to limit everything to his narrow view of how to run a comics company. This is why, as I'd once noted before, I don't want to buy anything his new publishing outfit is producing.

What Christopher Priest says about his revival of the Marvel Knights take on Black Panther

Adventures in Poor Taste interviewed Priest about his new Black Panther series with Joe Quesada, under the revived use of the Marvel Knights line, where T'Challa may end up going to the Great Reward

In 1998, Christopher Priest was part of an elite group of writers tasked with crafting high-quality stories for Marvel Comics characters under a brand new imprint, Marvel Knights. This series launched standalone titles that offered fresh takes on age-old heroes, often brandishing a darker edge and grit. Priest’s Black Panther run was one of its pillar tentpoles, and that book took T’Challa in brave and daring new directions that inevitably ingratiated the character for a new generation.

One of those "fresh" takes included Brian Bendis' direction with Daredevil, if memory serves, getting his secret identity revealed, and there were even worse directions taken with Hornhead's stories, including the tale by Kevin Smith that set the Knights edition in motion, where Karen Page was killed by Mysterio just a few issues in. I'm sorry, but when they speak of "edgy" they fail to be clear what they actually mean, and the Knights edition of Capt. America was insufferable with its Blame America direction post-911. And as for this new BP tale from the revived Knights line, Priest says it took awhile to complete:

Perhaps the most surprising aspect of The World To Come? It’s been finished for quite some time.

“That was written a long, long time ago,” Priest said with a laugh. “It’s taken Joe Quesada a long time to draw this book, and not because he’s slow.”

Priest explained that Quesada’s job as Marvel’s executive vice president and creative director took a toll on the comic’s release schedule, putting the project on hold until the time was right. That time, however, is now.

I seem to recall several books were fashionably late when Quesada was EIC, like the Black Cat miniseries the aforementioned Smith wrote, but was delayed in completion for nearly 2 years, and even then, the finished product - establishing Felicia Hardy had been a sexual assault victim - was abominable, and wasn't worth the wait. Many mainstream press sources, unshockingly, gloss over the worst moments of Quesada's tenure as Marvel's EIC. If he couldn't get certain items published on time, and couldn't get his contributors to commit to schedule, what is there to appreciate in his time as their EIC? And then, returning to the main subject, Priest makes matters worse with the following:

“I did 60 issues of Black Panther,” Priest said. “I did everything with that character that I could think of at the time, including blasting him into outer space. Ta-Nehisi Coates acquitted himself much better in that regard.”

Well, this sure doesn't make me think very highly of a guy who to my knowledge does happen to be left-wing himself, and whose record is very mediocre as a whole. If Priest's going to sugarcoat a writer who made divisive political statements, he's only making me lose more respect for him than I'd like to. Why, what makes Coates' writing any better than say, Stan Lee and Jack Kirby's, the former who's probably just mentioned once here? Priest continues:

“You know, I can’t read that stuff without cringing,” Priest said. “Like, ‘Wow, really?’ I felt like maybe the first couple of issues were pretty decent. Back then, Joe and I were having a difference of opinion about like, I was really focused on increasing readership by bringing more aspects of the Marvel universe into what we’re doing. Joe wanted Marvel Knights to be more insular. Like the Netflix Marvel series, where they didn’t deny the MCU, but they weren’t that worried about them.”

As Priest admitted, “30 years later, I go, ‘Yeah, Joe was right.”

Even so, Priest didn’t shy away from including more out-there characters in Black Panther.

“I had the Hulk go to a big disco,” Priest said. “The fun part was this ‘Enemy of the State’ stuff, where it’s revealed that Black Panther only joined the Avengers to spy on them. And that pissed off a lot of readers!”

Whether it was more insular, the problem with the writers assigned to the Knights line is that their directions later wound up influencing the flagship titles in the long run. The Knights line ran about 8 years before discontinuation, and honestly, the whole notion BP just joined Avengers to spy upon them is decidedly cringeworthy, because it contradicts the premise T'Challa's a dedicated crimefighter. And what about the MK volume of Captain America, along with DD's? There wasn't anything to cringe about there? If it really wasn't part of what until that time was 616 universe continuity proper, it's decidedly a relief, but even so, that doesn't make it immediately acceptable to depict BP as though he's doing something bad to his best buddies.

Priest continued by talking about the realities of the industry and the difficulties he had to deal with when writing Black Panther as a part of the larger Marvel machine.

“Once we transitioned Panther back to the Marvel Universe, I came under enormous pressure to raise sales,” Priest said. “It’s always a big mistake to subjugate creativity to commerciality. I think that at some point, the retailers are the ones who are gonna set the tone, where they will buy a first issue of almost anything, but those numbers will go down with #2 and collapse with #3. And at some point around #4 or #5, those numbers will settle into where the retailers think, ‘This is where the demand is.’ And there’s no escaping it. There’s no getting around it. And once those numbers settle in, the publisher has to decide, ‘Do you want to keep going or not?’ But if you’re gonna keep going, I think you have to dance with the ones who wrung you.”

As a counter to that dynamic, Priest is acutely aware of who he and his fellow writers’ focus should be when telling stories.

“Our obligation was to the fans who were reading the book, and we should stop turning ourselves inside out trying to attract those who are not,” Priest said.

Unfortunately, that's just what Quesada and Bill Jemas were doing, and even the latter's successor, Dan Buckley did pretty much the same. If we take Smith and J. Michael Straczynski as examples, along with Garth Ennis and Grant Morrison, they were trying to use "celebrities" whose audiences might follow them to whatever mainstream comics they wrote, and rely on them for moneymaking, based additionally on their political/ideological perspectives. And it didn't matter if the specific writers didn't understand or respect the series in question, as seen in Straczynski's run on Spider-Man. Even Bendis' run on DD was pretentious. And then, these same writers continue to get jobs with Marvel/DC, even though they have no talent for writing their stable of characters.

Priest added, “I did my part, but Black Panther has a lot of dads. Not the least of which of course is Ta-Nehisi and Brian Stelfreeze (who is not mentioned nearly enough). A lot of what you see in the motion picture is derivative of Brian Stelfreeze. There’s a lot of Brian on that screen. And nobody ever talks about Brian, and that’s a little irritating, and I’m guilty of that.”

What's irritating here is Priest's boomeranging back on sugarcoating Coates' resume, at the expense of Lee, as much as Kirby. I'm sorry, but I don't think any of these writers since the turn of the century have proven themselves the most truly worthy successors to Stan the Man and Jack on any of the comics published under the Knights imprint.

Aside from praising Isanove, Priest is quick to note that Quesada is more than the artist; he’s also the co-plotter of this book (and not in name only).

“The story is as much Joe’s as it is mine,” Priest said. “Which is why I kept insisting, and then finally demanding, ‘Do not print this book if you don’t put his name first.’ He needs to take the lead position on the story. The story’s by both of us.”

Quesada's involvement is decidedly but one reason I'd rather avoid this new series, based on where it's going:

Back to the meat of the story (Black Panther), Priest says that he’s not trying to hide his death whatsoever.

“Oh, he dies on page 2, so… ‘Woah, what happened here? Did somebody put something in his soup?’ We’ll you’re gonna have to read to find out,” Priest said. “The story is not about him dying, it’s about how we got to this point. And I think that’s the more significant thing. That’s the good stuff that we don’t want to reveal.”

Priest added, “We know sooner or later everybody dies. Now, the question is what happens to all the toys? It’s very scary if Black Panther dies, because he’s got a lot of toys that we know about and a lot of toys we don’t know about. And we established in our series, 30 years ago, that in a desk drawer, he’s got all these plans for how to defeat, you know, Batman. He knows how to take down Galactus. He’s got all these like, contingency plans. Or as Jack Nicholson said, ‘All these marvelous toys.’ So the crisis is, what now? OK, Black Panther’s dead, what now?”

And this sounds like a failure to make a proper distinction between fiction and reality. Or, more precisely, to understand that the way in which T'Challa goes down has long become revolting and forced.

Speaking of T’Challa’s demise, Priest recalls the controversy he encountered when first writing the character.

“We got a lot of hate mail because I gave Black Panther an iPhone,” Priest said. “And this was long before there was such a thing. And we kept getting those hate mails about how absurd it was that he had this device that could talk to people, and there’s video. How absurd, you know? And I’m like, ‘Well, first of all, go back to Fantastic Four #52.’ This guy was a high-tech genius.”

Assuming this is factual, I will definitely agree it's bizarre a certain segment of "fandom" wouldn't want T'Challa to be portrayed as a master technologist and scientist, as he was in the Silver Age upon debut, and seemed almost oblivious to how this was a sci-fi universe as it is. I'm guessing it's just some troublemakers who didn't really care about Marvel comics anyway. But this doesn't excuse the cheap path they're taking now, even if T'Challa's demise is only brief.

“I really believe that subversiveness and new ideas are what’s needed,” Priest said. “That there’s really too much of this mimicry of the silver age going on these days.”

Writers can be afraid to break the toys given to them. But playing it safe doesn’t lead to interesting stories; it makes for forgettable ones.

“There can be these people that grew up reading comics,” Priest said. “Where they finally got their hands on Spider-Man, and now they want to do what they’ve always done. When what we need is real innovation. And you need people who are not going to treat them like they’re precious…and are gonna take chances. And if you fail? You fail. It’s comics. We bring people back from the dead all the time. But we need to try, and get characters out of cul-de-sacs.”

On the other hand, Priest respects the original material, but he doesn’t stop there. He uses it as a jumping-off point to modernize the character and take them to places they’ve never been.

And this obscures the grevious errors made when JMS was writing Spidey. I guess it's okay if he breaks the toys for the sake of making both Gwen Stacy and Mary Jane Watson look awful? Please. Also, how is Priest respecting the original tales if he had BP spy upon Earth's Mightiest Heroes? That's hardly an admirable act. And what new ideas are there today, in an industry where left-wing politics dictate the narrative? That's why in the long run, it's failing.

“People keep thinking because he’s wearing his costume that he’s a hero, or that he’s somehow noble or even a moral leader,” Priest said. “He’s none of those things. He’s the sovereign of a nation. That responsibility is the only thing he cares about. And Black Panther’s always doing like, terrible things behind people’s backs. Because that’s the nature. He’s a sneaky guy. And he’s always stayed at least five steps ahead of his enemies.”

But if he was written doing terrible things to good people, is that a good example? Hardly. At the end, Priest says:

“Our Black Panther is our world to come,” Priest said. “It’s completely our own vision of the near future. It is not tied into any other bit of Marvel continuity, which gives us enormous freedom to do things like have Lockjaw show up, so we’re very happy about that. I’m glad that’s finally coming out. It’s been a long and interesting journey.”

Even if this is similar to a recent Sub-Mariner tale set in the future, it's still coming way too late, and I personally am not interested in owning the Knights series. I vaguely remember seeing a volume on a store shelf many years ago, but couldn't decide and never got the chance in the end to buy it. But, now that I own 3 Epic Collections gathering all the most essential tales, what difference does it make? Far as I'm concerned, I have the whole true BP run in my collection, and that's what counts.

Now, as if this couldn't get stupefying enough, ComicBook says Priest and Quesada have now done what until recently most might not have thought them capable of doing as they would with a white protagonist: they're conceiving what could be called a reverse race-swap:

Marvel Knights: The World To Come #1 comes from the creative team of Joe Quesada, Christopher Priest, Richard Isanove, Richard Starkings, and Comiccraft’s Tyler Smith. Much of the conflict takes place in the Republic of Wakanda, 8 Years Before The World To Come. An older T’Challa is engaged in a tribal challenge against his son Ketema to decide who will rule over Wakanda. Ketema is wearing a full-body Black Panther costume, keeping his identity a secret. However, it’s made clear that T’Challa is his father and we’re assuming it’s by blood.

We flash back to T’Challa’s marriages to Storm and Monica Lynne, with Monica shown to be pregnant with a boy. The tribal challenge between T’Challa and Ketema continues until the boy finally gets the upper hand on his father. Ketema stands above a bloodied T’Challa and takes off his mask to reveal that he’s a white male with blond hair.

Obviously, this is a pretty big development for the King of an African nation. Is Monica Lynne Ketema’s mother? Is T’Challa his biological father? The finale of Marvel Knights: The World To Come #1 opens up several questions. It’s worth pointing out that when we flashback to T’Challa returning to Monica to propose in the rain, she ditches her significant other at the time — who appears to be a white male — to accept T’Challa’s proposal. Perhaps he is secretly Ketema’s father, but T’Challa helped raise the boy as if he were his own.

However, Ketema clearly has resentment towards T’Challa. He mentions being raised by the clerics of Wakanda, possibly since the King of Wakanda couldn’t be seen raising a white child. T’Challa also calls Ketema his only son, but the cover of Marvel Knights: The World To Come #3 shows T’Challa standing with a Black boy and a white boy, signifying that they are both meant to be his sons. It’s a lot to digest, which makes reading each future chapter all the more appealing.

Forget it. All this makes clear is that, given the chance, woke writers can and will make a mockery out of a Black protagonist at the drop of a hat, and that they're definitely willing to troll the audience when it could be completely avoided. Most hilarious is how they make the new character blond, when they could just as well have made him a redhead or dark-haired. This controversy-baiting tale may not end with T'Challa remaining in the afterlife, but it's still appalling they even have to spend so much money for its making, all under the defense of "creativity", and even being "edgy".

Making matters worse, Comic Book Movie also comes off sounding like this is okay, and maybe it's not a shock they'd take that position at all:

The Marvel Knights: The World to Come collection has just launched with its first issue and is already revolutionizing social media and conversations among those who closely follow the comic book universe. And no wonder: the new bearer of the Black Panther mantle is an unexpected, controversial figure, and, for many, difficult to fit in. The reason? The new Black Panther is white.

It should be noted the real reason this is appalling is because these kind of stories aren't built on writing merit, but on controversy baiting, and putting a new protagonist into the costume at the original wearer's expense. One of the most grating problems about this kind of story is that it also relies on the notion a veteran hero can only pass on the baton by dying. It won't be a surprise if some will say Priest's a sellout to a form of wokeness that was bound to happen, perhaps by being naive to the notion Black and Asian protagonists were immune in contrast to whites. But as we're learning fast, that's clearly not the case.

Anyway, based on Quesada's involvement with the writing as much as the art, that's why it'd be best to avoid this story and not pay all the money they're surely hoping people will pay for the sake of a story that's unlikely to be widely discussed in the coming decades. Stories built and marketed based on trolling the audience and dedicated fans do not have high value, and as is rather obvious today, the time's long past where Marvel books like these could work anyway. Let's also remember Quesada was part and parcel of Spider-Man's downfall as a comic. And the Knights imprint was decidedly overrated, including the take on Daredevil, where, last time I looked, the demise of Karen Page still remains canon, no matter what continuity it's set in. Plus, what Marvel universe is there now where BP could be transferred back to? It's all a shambles today, no thanks to Quesada for one.

"Superior" Avengers builds on wokeness emphasized by the cover illustration

Marvel's latest event, One World Under Doom, isn't just relying on a sad cliche of crossovers. As this Newsarama article boasts, it also features LGBT protagonists, such as a son of Dr. Doom, and an alternate world take on Killmonger, the villain from Black Panther's world:

"KILLMONGER STRIKES! Is this a sign of budding romance? Or MURDER?" reads Marvel's official description of Superior Avengers #5. "The pieces are falling into place, and the team is ready for their true mission to begin. But who is playing who?"

As stated in the solicitation text above, the assassin Kristoff is currently locking lips with on the cover is in fact an alt-reality version of Killmonger, who is one of Doom's secret enemies masquerading as one of his personal Avengers.

Years ago, most publishers usually knew better than to push these kind of shock-value visuals on the audience for the sake of publicity stunts. Now, they're literally shoving it down everyone's throats, and it's clear it'll be years before they're willing to cut it out. All that aside, the advertising of this story suggesting it's some kind of murder investigation is just one more thing wrong with it. We don't need those kind of themes being repeatedly pushed on the audience either, yet this practice sadly continues as well, and that too is just as bad.

Man, as this kind of marketing makes clear, Marvel as of today sure knows how to drag down the reputation of their earlier stories very badly. Making matters worse, they even allude to titles like Superior Spider-Man from the past decade, with Dr. Octopus in Spider-Man's body, and that was awful too.

Former Power Rangers writer says the way they cast Black and Yellow Rangers was a "mistake"

Entertainment Weekly (via the Daily Wire) says some former staffers on the live action children's series Might Morphin Power Rangers (which was adapted to comics, if memory serves), including mogul Haim Saban's contributors, think the way they cast the Black and Yellow Rangers with Black and Asian performers was a "mistake":

One of the key creative minds behind Mighty Morphin Power Rangers is owning up to a pair of casting choices widely decried as racially insensitive.

While crafting the first season of the children's superhero crime-fighting series, "None of us are thinking stereotypes," said former Power Rangers head writer Tony Oliver, speaking on "Dark Side of the Power Rangers," the latest episode of Investigation Discovery's new docuseries, Hollywood Demons.

That's why he says that the series was able to get all the way to air — and run for two seasons — with "the Black character the Black Ranger and the Asian character the Yellow Ranger." Oliver says it took "my assistant who pointed it out in a meeting one day" to realize the glaring, stereotype-driven casting at the heart of the show. "It was such a mistake," he reflected. [...]

In a 2013 oral history of the series, Saban's co-creator Shuki Levi claimed that Jones and Trang's controversial casting "wasn't intentional at all. At that time, Haim and I were new to this country. We didn't grow up in the same environment that exists in America with regard to skin color. We grew up in Israel, where being a Black person is like being any kind of color. It's not something we talked about all the time. It wasn't a big issue."

As insufferable as I've found Saban's left-wing politics, it's regrettable that skin color has to be an issue at all, and if it's not an issue in Israel, why must it be so in the USA? Yet if they're leftist, then it's just like Saban - and Levi - to follow along with the leftist playbook, and say that to have the Black and Asian performers wear the black and yellow uniforms was nothing more than insulting and stereotypical. If Saban's going to be such a left-wing loyalist, then the PC answers provided either/both by him and his staffers is hardly surprising. It's vital to consider that when Stan Lee and Jack Kirby created Black Panther in 1966, they gave T'Challa a black costume, and that wasn't an issue in their time, so why did the Power Rangers staff suddenly have a problem with what they turned out? Answer: just so they can appease the modern PC crowd.

All that aside, Power Rangers isn't something I've ever cared for, and it's worth noting that a number of years ago, all for the sake of woke brownie points, a recent 2017 movie changed the Trini character to a lesbian, as if it were literally impossible to market the film without such a retcon (it was a box office failure, as the list on the bottom of this page notes). And wasn't some of the series' material borrowed from Japanese super-sentai programs? In that case, it's not an entirely original stateside production.

Joe Quesada and Christopher Priest return to Marvel, just to imitate the 2nd Black Panther movie's setup

Superhero Hype reports Marvel's worst editor from 2001-11, along with the writer who was assigned to the Marvel Knights take on Black Panther, have returned to the company and title just to bury T'Challa, which sounds like they're mimicking the premise of the movie sequel, Wakanda Forever:

In 1998, the Marvel Knights line set a new standard for the House of Ideas. Focused on street-level superheroics and more obscure characters, the line had a hand in inspiring the MCU. Now, just in time for the 25th anniversary, the line is returning with a new miniseries. Titled Marvel Knights: The World to Come, the six-issue will center around the death of Black Panther.

As the story opens, T’Challa is dead and the world of Marvel Knights dances on the edge of a Vibranium knife. The story begins in Wakanda, with Storm and Shuri struggling to maintain order and prevent a civil war over who will be the new Black Panther. This will set up a series of global conflicts, which will bring back other beloved heroes and villains from the Marvel Knights line.

[...] The World to Come is the brainchild of two of comics’ legends, who were among the architects of the Marvel Knights line. Christopher Priest, famed for his work on Black Panther, scripted all six issues of the miniseries. Priest co-plotted the story with writer/artist Joe Quesada. The former Editor-in-Chief of Marvel Comics, Quesada also provides the miniseries’ artwork.

Gee, this sure is some way to revisit something that, for all we know, may not have aged well regardless. Let me guess: the premise has what to do with the current event, One World Under Doom? Or, is this meant to be yet another variation on the bizarre PC swapping they did in the past decade? Whatever they're doing here, this only compounds how the movie franchise has surely done more harm than good artistically.

And Quesada was a very mediocre artist years before, one more reason it'd be better to avoid this insult to the intellect that does no favors for Stan Lee and Jack Kirby's creations. I don't think the Knights line holds up well in hindsight, also recalling what happened to Karen Page in the 2nd Daredevil volume. Maybe that Knights was marketed as "street-level" heroics rather than stories allowing for more elaborate science fiction adventure is another fault. And it should be noted that Priest's only proven himself a mediocre writer at times over the years, with few real gems, and whose stories have to be taken with a grain of salt no matter the quality. Personally, I own all 3 Marvel Epic Collection editions archiving Black Panther's stories from past decades, and that's decidedly all that's needed when it comes to reading BP in retrospect. We don't need to waste time on these overrated projects from more recent times.

AIPT gushes over Coates-penned Black Panther story

Adventures In Poor Taste fawned over far-left Ta-Nehisi Coates' Black Panther story, now being published yet again in an edition of Marvel Premier Collection, and what they say sure tells quite a bit about what political angle they're coming from:

Ta-Nehisi Coates, New York Times best-selling author of Between The World And Me and The Message, offered his unique voice and perspective to the world of the Black Panther starting in 2016. The successful relaunch, which ran for several years, was critically acclaimed by both fans and critics and set the stage for the future of T’Challa and the nation of Wakanda. The first major arc of Coates’ Black Panther run is titled “A Nation Under Our Feet,” and focuses on T’Challa and his supporters quelling several anti-monarchical rebellions within Wakanda, ending with the creation of Wakanda’s first Republic.

For the very first time, Black Panther: A Nation Under Our Feet is collected in its entirety in paperback form. The seminal series has been given the honor of being one of Marvel’s first four Marvel Premier Collection books, alongside Daredevil: Born Again, Captain America: Winter Soldier, and Fantastic Four: Solve Everything. Coates’ brilliant, thought-provoking, and lore-changing work has been reviewed over and over again (Spoiler: it’s amazing), so this review will focus more on the experience of the Premier Collection. However, I would never want to ignore the artistic contributions of artists Brian Stelfreeze, Chris Sprouse, and Laura Martin, whose artwork in this series is truly superb.

Marvel’s new Premier Collection is designed to offer easy, accessible entry points into iconic Marvel franchises, and Coates’ Black Panther run is a great selection for this purpose. Not only does the series offer a “soft relaunch” of Black Panther and Wakanda, but it also perfectly sets up the next several years of storytelling, giving readers a wonderful entry into T’Challa’s ongoing trials and tribulations. That being said, a huge premise of A Nation Under Our Feet is the Wakandan people’s anger and disappointment in how T’Challa has ruled the country. A major part of this (quite reasonable) rage is T’Challa’s handling of Namor, Thanos, and the Black Order’s destruction of Wakanda, references that a new reader would not understand.

Umm, as it so happens, I already own a paperback copy of the DD: Born Again storyline from the mid-80s. The other titles mentioned are post-2000s stuff that doesn't do justice to the older Marvel stories and series. So I don't need this latest farce of Marvel's any more than I need to rely upon "reviews" like this one, which clearly were predetermined. What's so "brilliant" about the writings of somebody who wrote anti-American and anti-Israel screeds? Even some leftists have become disillusioned with him. What's so "unique" and "thought-provoking" about his viewpoint? For all we know, his take on BP could just as well be a metaphor for communism. And was it a financial "success"? Continuing failure to provide clear sales figures only makes clear they're not being on the level here.

That Marvel continues to associate with such an embarrassment, to the point of providing him the opportunity to get residuals he doesn't deserve, only makes clear they have no morality. That aside, it's head-shaking how they continue to waste tons of money reprinting some of the most worthless comics of the 21st century.

A Pittsburgh exhibit dedicated to Black American comics and creators

NPR-WESA has a report on an exhibition dedicated to comics featuring Black characters, and creators who worked in the medium:

“Collections in Black: A Celebration of Black Comic Book Culture” was organized for the August Wilson African American Cultural Center by Phillip Thompson. You might know him as DJ Big Phill, one of the city’s most popular record-spinners. But he’s also a dedicated comics collector, specializing in original art, published comics and more by and about Black characters and Black history, whether Marvel superheroes or figures from real life.

[...] There are also, of course, tributes to Marvel’s Black Panther, mainstream comics’ first Black superhero. One vitrine in the AWAACC’s spacious galleries encases the 1976 issue of Jungle Action in which T’Challa battles the Ku Klux Klan. It was among the books Thompson recalls from his childhood in Penn Hills, when he and his brothers would sneak forbidden looks at his father’s comics collection.

“I was just mesmerized by those images,” he says.

Half of “Collections in Black” is drawn from Thompson’s personal trove. But it digs well beyond characters familiar from his childhood and latter-day Hollywood blockbusters (Marvel’s The Falcon and Luke Cage also among them).

[...] Thompson also honors Matt Baker, a Westinghouse High School grad who was among the nation’s top comics artists from the 1940s until his untimely death, in 1958. Baker contributed to titles like Fightin’ Marines, Teen-Age Romances and Jungle Comics, and drew the pre-Wonder Woman female superhero Phantom Lady. Baker’s work — his women tended toward the statuesque — helped inspire the ’50s backlash against comics as a corrupting influence, typified by books such as “Seduction of the Innocent.”

“He drew white women so well it was a problem,” quips Thompson.

For the PC crowd that sided with Fredric Wertham, who, as discovered over a decade ago, plagiarized some of his "research" in addition to distorting everything for the sake of his sloppy goals. The sex-negative approach Wertham took - failing to make any proper distinctions between that and violent content - are just some of the reasons why comicdom was struck as low as it is now; who would've thought the same left-wing crowd Wertham was otherwise part of would end up siding with his viewpoints, selectively or otherwise? In the past dozen years or so, it looks like all misgivings they seemingly had with Wertham have almost entirely disappeared, and they brought back his censorsious beliefs in the past decade, which did cause creative damage.

It's great Thompson's doing these tributes, but one must wonder what he thinks of modern PC takes on these creations that've only done more harm than good? If Marvel had folded in the early 2000s, their past quality would've held up far better, IMO, and it's hugely regrettable many of these articles won't get into the more challenging subjects of modern times.

What IGN is calling "best" of 2024

Here's IGN's list of what they claim is the "best" of the year, and they too added at least one lame choice, Marvel's new take on the Ultimates:

There’s an argument to be made for including each of Marvel’s current Ultimate comics on this list. The new line really is the best thing Marvel published in 2024, putting fresh spins on old favorites like Spider-Man and Black Panther.

That said, no series has done more to realize the wide-open potential of this new universe than Deniz Camp and Juan Frigeri’s The Ultimates. In this series, the clock is ticking down until the return of The Maker (the evil Reed Richards from the original Ultimate Universe). With two years until doomsday arrives, a teenage Tony Stark and a very different version of Doctor Doom set about assembling a team of heroes capable of resisting The Maker’s Council and freeing the world from their powerful grip.

No current superhero series speaks to the state of the world in 2024 quite like The Ultimates. It’s a story about resistance in an age of disinformation and autocracy. It reinvents some of Marvel’s most iconic heroes in often radical ways. It’s an incredibly exciting read, month after month. And that’s what makes The Ultimates IGN’s pick for the best comic book series of 2024.

And that's a telling sign this puff piece was written in reaction to Donald Trump's reelection. All coming from people who don't worry about serious issues like Islamic terrorism, favoratism to transsexuality at women and children's expense, not to mention how illegal immigration in the USA has caused serious harm. Most of these propagandists don't explain clearly what they mean by disinformation either, and probably say what they do as revenge for what Trump called "fake news". That's hardly a clever example.

Regarding a teen Tony Stark, didn't that kind of plot come about towards the end of Iron Man's 1968-96 volume, in what wasn't considered a great storyline combined with The Crossing tale from the Avengers? So it's silly to think it would work much better now, or, why should it work under a direction as pretentious as what the writers of the Ultimates turn out? The original run was embarrassing, based on how it regurgitated the whole Hank Pym-as-abuser storyline from 1981, all for cheap sensationalism. What's so special about stories like those that isn't so special about say, Mr. Fantastic and Invisible Woman's wedding from the mid-60s? On which note, it's also grating how on the one hand, they think everybody will be delighted by an evil version of Reed Richards, and on the other hand, how Dr. Doom is a goodie?!? I'm sorry, but that too was one of the most aggravating things about the Ultimate line, and if memory serves, it was originally advertised as family-friendly, yet it wound up being definitely unsuitable for children. One more reason why this overrated alternate universe line is worthless.

So now it appears some propagandists are "co-opting" comics like these as icons based on the political/ideological structure they're built upon. Nothing new, obviously, but does make clear why quality collapsed while divisive leftism took its place.

Aboriginal Australian artist creates superheroes with similar backgrounds

Australian Broadcasting interviewed Scott Wilson, an artist of Aboriginal descent, who's developed superheroes with similar backgrounds, because he didn't see any significant examples in other comics:

Scott Wilson grew up obsessed with superheroes, but he never saw his own culture in the comic books he'd get lost in.

"When I was a kid, my favourite superhero was Wonder Woman. I'd twist a bath towel into a lasso and pretend it was the Lasso of Truth," he says.

Scott grew up in Rubibi (Broome), spending his time on country around the Western Australian tourist town.

Spider-Man was the superhero who really captured his imagination, and he identified with the idea of a high school student by day, masked avenger by night.

But like most superheroes, without his mask, Spider-Man is a white man.

For Scott, it raised a very personal question: Why don't I ever see myself in these stories?

Before continuing, I should point out that Bishop from X-Men counts as at least one, and if Mr. Wilson didn't do research to that extent, that's not doing a very good job. There's also Black Panther, Luke Cage, Black Lightning, Storm, and even Bumblebee from the Teen Titans. We could also consider Robbie Robertson and Glory Grant from Spider-Man's cast; why didn't he and the news writer bring them up? This is where the article flubs considerably, and undermines itself as a result. Plus, there's the vital query why seeing your background represented may be more important than entertainment value?

As he grew up and learned to make his own superheroes, Scott found the answer in creating comics that draw from the world's oldest living culture, and by sketching its newest figures.

He called it the Indigiverse. In this universe, the superheroes talk in traditional language, and draw their power from the Dreaming.

Well I appreciate he's developing his own products, but I think it's farcical already when some creators rely so heavily on the superhero theme, rather than put more emphasis on adventure themes, and making the stars of the show adventurers with sci-fi and fantasy powers without touting them as superheroes per se. You can also develop fancy-looking outfits without claiming these are superhero uniforms per se to boot. Yet Wilson's resorting to the superhero theme when it's been run into the ground by PC since the turn of the century, and simpler concepts could avail far better. I will agree however, that emphasizing traditional languages can have advantages, and it could also be a great idea if a comic starring characters of Basque descent from Europe were developed. Wilson also told of his experiences growing up:

He described himself as a "shapeshifter". Chess, rugby, basketball, art — he did everything, wanting to excel and be the best.

But it couldn't shield him from the prejudice he was confronted with whenever he did things like going to the local shops.

"[Shop staff] would check your bag … [and] I thought, Oh, that's probably just how they do it with all kids. But I noticed they weren't checking any of the other non-Indigenous students' bags," Scott says.

"I just was very blasé to these concepts of racism. I never really thought of myself as Aboriginal [when I was in Rubibi] because I was in my class with majority Aboriginal students and we didn't say, 'Hey, I'm Aboriginal.' We'd just say, 'Oh, I'm Gooniyandi'. You know who your mob is.

"It wasn't until people started pointing out ... 'Hey, they're only doing that because you guys are black'."

As he was learning to deal with these concepts of racism, and finding his voice as a young creative, a tragedy struck that shaped his art forever.

Dealing with loss

While boarding at Hale, Scott lost a beloved cousin, Adam, in a car crash.

The sudden death rocked him.

"Adam was my big brother, basically, and he loved his cars. He had this brilliant, beautiful gold car. The golden boy," Scott says.

"[He] used to drive around town. You know, all the girls used to sing out. Everyone knew him."

On this, I'm most terribly sorry for his loss of a beloved relative. And on the subject of racism, he's got valid points that were confirmed in recent years, when a report came out that in the West Australia province, there was an alarming case of racism at local schools during 2021, made worse by how Aboriginal girls were the main victims, and a combined racist/misogynist slur was used by offending students against them. Whether or not it's been dealt with, it proves that without vigilance, racism can still prevail in the modern day and age. This is stuff the woke movements in the USA don't seem to pay any attention to, and as a result, their whole platform is farcical based on the lack of altruism involved. Wilson might want to do some research on that kind of stuff, if he really wants to address the issues of racial prejudice in modern times.

And he found the ideal elective: Create Your Own Superhero. He already had the model for his superhero in mind, a Gooniyandi man named Adam Hart.

"A lot of the characters that I was forming had that anti-hero vibe," Scott says.

"I created this character that was just completely Black with all these awesome colours throughout the body, with the power to move through time, move through space. I love this idea of, no matter what the challenges ... they'll overcome their own darkness within themselves."

Again, I think it's definitely admirable he's creating his own stories and characters, but the superhero theme has still been vastly overused, maybe even overvalued, and if you can't rely on anything apart from that particular theme, it's not doing the medium much good. It's entirely possible to develop comic adventures without emphasizing the stars as superheroes, just as adventurers who could be wearing fancy outfits. The Japanese have done that with various manga and anime productions, so why not try it with comics outside of Japan too? I honestly think plenty of comic creators in and out of the English-speaking world could consider it doesn't have to be just stories described as superhero-themed that can be produced for the market. There's plenty of other ways to employ fantasy and sci-fi too.

Spider-Man crosses over with Predator

Gaming Bible reports Marvel's keeping on with the crossovers between their characters and those stemming from horror and violence-themed movie franchises, here being a combination of Spider-Man and Predator, not unlike how Avengers recently crossed over with Aliens, and Black Panther with Predator:

In recent times, Marvel has teamed up with 20th Century Studios to bring us some epic crossovers ranging from Predator vs Wolverine to Alien vs Avengers.

Thanks to these collaborations, Predator and Aliens comics have been featuring the odd Marvel hero and as Predator vs Black Panther comes to an epic end, a brand-new series is about to start.

This time Marvel Comics will be bringing the fans Predator vs Spider-Man #1.

Penned by Benjamin Percy, who was also the brains behind Predator vs. Wolverine and Predator vs. Black Panther, this upcoming series will see Percy team up with artist Marcelo Ferreira to create an epic tale.

Now that the Predators are done with Wakanda, they are turning their attention to New York City in the new year and it is up to our Friendly Neighbourhood Spider-Man to stave them off.

It is hard to deny that this is Marvel’s biggest crossover yet and it will see Peter have to take on his biggest battle yet.

Just look at how they gush over this long before it even goes to press. These stunts have become so commonplace, they're not exciting anymore, and don't make a good substitute for coherent continuity. This is no healthier an example for how to handle Spidey than how to handle the Avengers, and it's not "epic". But it certainly does demonstrate how the entertainment industry is potentially lacking in franchises with a brighter vision that Marvel and DC's heroes could team up with. But alas, at this point, such a problem will likely never be solved.

Ta-Nehisi Coates proves yet again why he was a bad omen for comics

Far-left author Coates, who regrettably wrote runs on Black Panther and Capt. America in the past decade, was recently interviewed on TV, where his hostility to the land of Stan Lee, Jerry Siegel and Joe Shuster's ancestors came to the fore as he promoted a new, offensive book he's written. As first told by Newsbusters:

CBS Mornings co-anchor Tony Dokoupil displayed a lot of courage on Monday’s show when confronted race hustler and author Ta-Nehisi Coates for his new book The Message, where Coates took the side of anti-Semitic, genocidal terrorists in their fight to exterminate Israel. Dokoupil pointed out that Coates completely omitted Israel’s perspective in the conflict and suggested Coates essay read like the manifesto “in the backpack of an extremist.”

Coates responded by claiming he was morally superior because he’s black.

And is the disgraced Bill Cosby superior for the same reason? What a sorry, unendurable case Coates is, and shameful he would do this. There's more:

The CBS anchor actually got Coates to admit that he believed that Israel did not have a right to exist, and essentially Israel needs to fight for it:

DOKOUPIL: So, I think the question is central and key. If Israel has a right to exist, and if your answer is “no,” then I guess the question becomes, why do the Palestinians have a right to exist? Why do 20 different Muslim countries have a right to exist?

COATES: My answer is that no country in this world establishes its ability to exist through rights. Countries establish their ability to exist through force, as America did. And so I think this question of right to Israel does exist. It`s a fact. The question of its right is not a question that I would be faced with with any other country.

Coates doesn’t seem to realize that his suggestion that Israel doesn’t have a right to exist because they need to fight to earn it, means that a Palestinian states doesn’t deserve to exist because they lose every fight for it.

Dokoupil hit back hard and pressed his guest to answer: “What is it that so particularly offends you about the existence of a Jewish state that is a Jewish safe place, and not any of the other states out there?” But Coates gave a mealy mouth answer about being against any ethno state, despite the fact that that was what the Palestinians wanted.

Further, Dokoupil called out how Coates’s book gave “no agency” to the Palestinians as if things just happened to them and they did nothing at all. “They exist in your narrative merely as victims of the Israelis, as though they were not offered peace at any juncture, as though they don`t have a stake in this as well. What is their role in the lack of a Palestinian state?” he asked.

Backed into a corner, Coates relied on his race-baiting. He suggested that Dokoupil didn’t get it because he’s white and that he, himself was morally superior because he’s black: “I have a very, very, very, very moral compass about this. And again, perhaps it`s because of my ancestry.”

It's a shame that later on, CBS management attacked Dokoupil for asking serious queries, and forced him to apologize. He shouldn't have done that, and if needed, he should've quit his job with them. Even long before this flap, CBS was repulsive, and still is.

It gets worse. As reported by Breitbart, this man, who again, was allowed to script Captain America and Black Panther in past years, also said:

Author Ta-Nehisi Coates openly wondered aloud if he would be “strong enough” to resist the kind of violence exhibited by the terrorist organization Hamas in Israel on October 7 were he to grow up as a Palestinian living in Gaza.

Coates, who recently released a book that accused Israel of practicing a form of apartheid, made his thoughts known during an interview on the What Now with Trevor Noah podcast. Coates wondered if perhaps growing up “under that oppression” would make him so radicalized that he would then commit the kind of violence Hamas exhibited on October 7, wherein over 1,200 men, women, and children were indiscriminately and brutally killed with full malicious intent.

“And I grow up under that oppression and that poverty, and the wall comes down, am I also strong enough or even constructed in such a way where I say, ‘This is too far.’ I don’t know that I am,” he said, a sentiment that Trevor Noah and his co-host appeared to empathize with.

During another part of the interview, Trevor Noah even said that America’s founding fathers were like terrorists when they revolted against the British Empire.

“If you remove America’s history … then it’s like, yeah, those people who fought against the British, they were terrorists,” Noah said.

So even the anti-American sentiment of both came to the fore. Do they not realize that any community that's going to emphasize barbarism cannot be given employment or any direct freedom if they're going to resort to murder and sexual violence? It's chilling to wonder: if the Jewish founders of early comicdom were at that music festival, and they were graphically raped and murdered, what would Coates say, considering he wrote Capt. America and Black Panther, and was even once offered the opportunity to script a Superman film? I shudder to think what his response would be.

Daniel Greenfield had more to say about him:

Even the firefighters and police officers who perished on 9/11 at the hands of the Islamic terrorists whom Coates now covers up for “were not human to me. Black, white, or whatever, they were menaces of nature; they were the fire, the comet, the storm, which could — with no justification — shatter my body.”

Ta-Nehisi Coates, a privileged millionaire, took a break from writing bad comic books and took his incredibly fragile body to Israel where he discovered the racism of black Israeli soldiers.

“There were ‘Black’ soldiers everywhere lording their power over the Palestinians, many of whom would, in America, have been seen as ‘white’,” Coates fumed, discovering that “race is a species of power and nothing else”. Despite damning the black Israeli soldiers, Coates can’t help reflexively capitalizing them as ‘Black’ and decapitalizing Muslim terrorists as ‘white’. Some habits of black nationalist woke language are harder to shake than imagining race as power.

But in this moment, Coates officially makes the sacrifice of trading blackness for wokeness, race as a living reality for race as a subset of Marxist power analysis. It’s every bit as potent as feminists who have spent generations denouncing men suddenly deciding that men can be women as long as they give up their toxic masculinity, put on a pantsuit and identify as ‘women’.

What of the ‘black body’ of Joshua Loitu Mollel, a Tanzanian agricultural intern who was kidnapped and killed by Hamas, who only wanted to return home and become one of Tanzania’s most successful farmers? What of Clemence Mtenga, also of Tanzania, another potential hostage, who turned out to be dead? Where did the power lie? Were they white or black?

One of the biggest problems with men like Coates is that, as Greenfield points out, he doesn't care about blacks living in foreign countries, and Coates' descriptions of black citizens of Israel is obscene and abominable. So, what exactly is it creeps like Coates are campaigning for? He turns his back on serious issues that've sadly been prevalent for years, and that's why his positions are entirely unconvincing. And yes, the comics Coates wrote were bad, and Axel Alonso was wrong to have given him any assignments to write books starring Jewish-created characters like BP and CA. Towards the end of the article:

That Jewish lives have no value to a man who viewed even 9/11 firefighters as “not human” is unsurprising. In his essay, Coates reveals that black people also have no value to him.

And that's telling quite a bit about a man who never deserved to write the comics he did in the past decade. One of the worst things about Coates is that, if he visited Israel recently, he did so with a predetermined position, and a closed mind on the issues involved. That's not how you solve a problem.

On the other hand, I don't think JNS editor Jonathan Tobin did an entirely good job addressing the subject:

The first thing to understand is that Ta-Nehisi Coates is something of a colossus of contemporary American letters. Since his first article was published in 2008 in the liberal publication The Atlantic, the 49-year-old has been showered with acclaim and every conceivable honor from the cultural establishment, including an obligatory MacArthur Foundation “Genius” award. Everything he writes—from comic books to memoirs about his own brief existence on the planet—is treated as a major literary event.

Though a talented writer who styles himself as a journalist, Coates mostly pens words about himself and his personal impressions of the world without bothering much with grounding his work in facts or trying to place his ideas in a context that tells more than one narrow side of a story. Indeed, he is someone who thinks writers and journalists should not be seeking to tell both sides of complex stories, believing that they should boil everything down to conform to simplistic left-wing conclusions, whether accurate or not. That is exactly how toxic ideologies like critical race theory and intersectionality work.

That philosophy is perfectly fine for comic books, such as Coates’ best-selling Black Panther series, which imagines a fictional high-tech African kingdom that was made into a blockbuster action movie. However, when it comes to his interpretations of American society and foreign conflicts, he seems to view the real world with all of its complexities as just another graphic fantasy populated only by heroes and villains.

While there's a fully valid point made that Coates' acclaim coming from establishment circles was clearly deliberate (and that's surely how Neil Gaiman and Alice Munro got as far as they did in some literary circles), why does Tobin think Coates is "talented", when here, he's legitimizing barbarism even against blacks, and why does Tobin think philosophies like CRT and intersectionality are okay in comics format? Most certainly not. A comic is no different from movies and TV shows in how it can be exploited as a propaganda pipeline, and under Marvel/DC editors like Joe Quesada, Alonso and Dan DiDio, this was definitely proven in some way or other over the past 2 decades.

Past comics editors, publishers and even film studios who employed Coates have caused monumental damage that'll take an eternity to repair, right down to how they allowed him to script comics with Jewish creators. Coates has effectively tainted and desecrated the creations of Lee, Joe Simon and Jack Kirby, in example, and this is decidedly one more reason why, when Marvel/DC close their publishing arms, it'll be for the best, if that's what it takes to prevent further abuse by political ideologues with twisted viewpoints.

Update: National Review says about Coates:

Peace overtures throughout the 1990s were met with routine suicide-bomb attacks inside Israel. The unilateral disengagement of every Israeli from the Gaza Strip in 2005 was similarly met with the democratic election of an Islamist mafia we now know as Hamas. The current multifront war, of course, began with Hamas’s October 7 atrocities.

Coates argued that Palestinian violence doesn’t justify Israel’s administration of the West Bank. But shaking your finger at the Jewish state for simply trying to preserve its existence is less than convincing, especially when you don’t want to explore why the Israelis fight back in the first place.

Correct. Here's more from Compact Mag:

It could also be that Coates hates reporting because he is bad at it. [...]

There's only so many leftists like him who are. J. Jonah Jameson would make a perfect avatar to represent them.

What's been promoted for National Superhero Day

NDTV is listing some superhero comics they say are must-reads for National Superhero Day on April 28, and some troubling propaganda turns up in what's decidedly more a puff piece than a serious recommendation list. First:

“We love our superheroes because they refuse to give up on us. We can analyze them out of existence, kill them, ban them, mock them, and still they return, patiently reminding us of who we are and what we wish we could be,” said Grant Morrison, a comic book writer. And just like that Morrison reinforced the belief of every child and many adults in superheroes saving the world.

Wow, isn't that rich, coming from a writer who made one of his first steps writing X-Men to wipe out the Genosha population, as though that sort of cliche solves anything. Not so. And lest we forget Morrison exploited X-Men for propagandizing his liberal pacifist viewpoint all over the place, in example, and later putting Jean Grey into death limbo for several years. Not exactly "saving the world", if at all. What makes overrated scriptwriters like Morrison so worthy of quotation?

Every year April 28 marks National Superhero Day in the United States. The day is commemorated to honour reel and real superheroes for contributing to society, including the brave heroes of 9/11 and the Covid-19 pandemic. This interesting tradition traces its roots back to 1995 when Marvel, a bestselling comic book publisher, took to the streets to survey children about what superpowers they would want to have if possible. Surprisingly, the results revealed that the children talked about real-life superheroes in their lives and they are equivalent to superheroes narrated in comic books. This revelation by children prompted Marvel and other publishers to commemorate a day tribute to such superheroes who save the world from adversities in actuality and fiction.

This National Superhero Day is a fitting time to reflect on the evolution of superhero narratives and their enduring impact on popular culture. From the early days of comic books to the present-day metaverse, the world of superheroes has evolved drastically, captivating audiences of all age groups with idealistic characters and narratives.

Unsurprisingly, they refuse to consider that, when wokeness takes hold, you can't say the narratives and themes have withstood the test of time well. Certainly not when reprehensible ideologues like the following are in charge of the writing:

Alternatively, other modern superheroes offer a diverse array of narratives that push the boundaries of storytelling. Take, for example, Black Panther, this Marvel Comics series debuted in 2016 and immediately caught the attention of the town. Written by Ta-Nehisi Coates and illustrated by Brian Stelfreeze, ‘Black Panther' redefined the superhero genre by exploring themes of identity, politics, and social justice within the fictional African nation of Wakanda. With its rich world-building and nuanced characters, "Black Panther" elevated the superhero genre to new heights, garnering critical acclaim and inspiring a global audience. If you haven't read this masterpiece from the popular days of comic book culture, you are missing something. Grab your copy today of Black Panther: A Nation Under Our Feet on Amazon.

They sure went out of their way to fluff-coat Coates' far-left resume, didn't they? This alone can pretty much confirm something's wrong, but what else appears on the list - mostly pamphlets sold in special packs - is almost entirely newer stuff from the past decade or so, far past the point where anything could matter. What kind of rip-off are they promoting here? And the 2010s was really a "popular" era for comics culture? Far from it, based on how bad mainstream superhero fare was becoming.

When a mainstream press source is unwilling to differentiate eras, and recommend any of the older storytelling, if at all, that says all one needs to know about what the MSM really thinks of the medium. And encouraging readers to buy even packs of pamphlets? That's pathetic too. Paperbacks and hardcovers are what to encourage buying, not an outmoded format that actually costs more (nearly 5 dollars) by today's standards.

Adding Marvel movie originals to the comics universe is no longer an event

Superhero Hype talks about a character from the Marvel movies making her debut in the Marvel comics as well, though here, it appears to be an issue from a modern volume of the What If? anthology, combined with Venom:

From Agent Colson to Darcy Lewis, there are many MCU creations who were later officially introduced into the comics. Madisynn, the party-girl who befriended Wong in She-Hulk: Attorney At Law just made her first appearance in a Marvel comic… but not where you think!

Rather than appearing in a Doctor Strange or She-Hulk comic, Madisynn’s cameo came in What If…? Venom #3. Written by Jeremy Holt, with art by Manuel Garcia, the comic explores an alternate timeline where the Venom symbiote bonded with other people besides Eddie Brock after separating from Peter Parker. In this issue, the symbiote bonds with Doctor Strange, after he confronts it Chinatown shop.

Even if this had taken place in the 616 universe proper, the time's long past where it could matter. Back in the mid-1980s, Marvel's writers decided to introduce a counterpart for Firestar from the Spider-Man and his Amazing Friends cartoon of the time into the MCU proper, and it did lead later to a significant role for Angelica Jones in the New Warriors. But today, when bad and woke writing's long trashed continuity and character integrity, that's why it no longer matters.

Also worth pondering is that, as John Nolte at Breitbart notes, with the movie sales waning, Marvel studios is scaling back their output:

No matter how you spin it, these layoffs stem from one primary problem… This “reduction in Marvel’s slate of film and TV titles” was caused by lousy products. Almost all of those “film and TV titles” stunk, so Disney chief Bob Iger has called for a slowdown of The Fail.

Marvel movies have started flopping at the box office. Marvel’s streaming shows were always so terrible and did nothing to boost Disney+ subscribers—quite the opposite. Disney+ is losing millions of subscribers and billions of dollars.

[...] Marvel lost the real Black Panther, emasculated Thor, showed us two hairy guys necking in Eternals, and who knows what they were thinking with that Ant-Man movie… But The Marvels is where audience disgust with all this gay/woke/feminist/anti-fun finally had itself heard. Enough! Can we get back to Iron Man’s private jet and stripper pole, please? You know, some fun, some sexiness…? How about going back to making Marvel movies for Normal People?

Sadly, it's doubtful they'll reevaluate how their woke directions have wrecked their prospects. But what's really sad is how Marvel wound up becoming victimized by political correctness as a publisher, and a shame they didn't stop publication in the early 2000s, if that's what could've minimized the damage. Publication of the comics had to continue for this?

An investor criticizes Disney/Marvel's woke pseudo-strategy

According to the Hollywood Reporter, a prominent investor slammed Disney's woke direction that affected Black Panther and the Marvels films:

As the Disney board proxy fight nears its deciding day, activist investor Nelson Peltz is taking aim at what he calls the company’s “woke” film strategy, particularly as it pertains to Black Panther and The Marvels.

In a recent interview with The Financial Times, Peltz questioned the leadership of Marvel chief Kevin Feige and the larger movie strategy under Disney CEO Bob Iger. Though he said he did not want either leader unseated (Peltz is outwardly campaigning to take the board seats of current members Michael B.G. Froman and Maria Elena Lagomasino), he questioned how long Feige should remain and what the strategy should be moving forward.

“People go to watch a movie or a show to be entertained,” Peltz said in the interview. “They don’t go to get a message.”

“Why do I have to have a Marvel that’s all women? Not that I have anything against women, but why do I have to do that? Why can’t I have Marvels that are both? Why do I need an all-Black cast?” he later said in the interview.

These comments recall similar anecdotes about former Marvel Entertainment chairman and CEO Ike Perlmutter, who is a friend of Peltz’s and a supporter of his proxy fight.

In Iger’s 2019 memoir The Ride of a Lifetime, Iger said he had received pushback on his idea to diversify the slate of Marvel movies and stop exclusively featuring characters who were white men. When presenting the idea, Iger wrote that one of the leaders of the Marvel team in New York, run by Perlmutter, told him “female superheroes never drive big box office.” But Iger decided to move forward.

I would just argue that it's not that superheroines don't have big box office potential, but rather, that the assigned screenwriters haven't a clue how to write them, and it's just gotten worse courtesy of the woke directions now being taken that have affected even DC adaptations. Take the Catwoman movie starring Halle Berry in the mid-2000s, for instance. That was perfectly dreadful, and the Elektra movie around the same time starring Jennifer Garner was no improvement. In hindsight, it's kind of surprising anybody would enable the 1st Capt. Marvel movie to gross nearly $400 million at the box office based on its own PC adherence, but, as seen last year, that's all changed to a serious financial disaster with The Marvels as a sequel. People are beginning to catch on to how bad these films become when they're subjected to PC.

A writer for Red State says he hopes Disney gets rehabilitated, and makes a point the company's not evil, but being exploited by evil people. While this is true, it's unfortunately very exceedingly difficult for families and others with common sense to support them monetarily now, because of the way they're going, and that's why, if anything, maybe it'd be better if all their cartoon creations and the Marvel properties became public domain, as Mickey Mouse did at the start of the year. That way, they can be rebuilt far better in decades to come.