Ta-Nehisi Coates on Writing ‘Black Panther’

Saturday, September 10th, 2016

Ta-Nehisi Coates talks about writing Marvel’s Black Panther comic:

I’m struck by how focused you are on telling a political story over a superhero story. Why did you make that decision?

I wouldn’t draw that dichotomy. I think “X-Men,” for instance, has long been a political book. Marvel has a long history of [political books]. “Captain America,” quintessentially, is a political book. I mean, it’s “Captain America.” … If you look at the current miniseries that Marvel’s been doing, “Civil War,” it’s all about profiling. I think, probably, the distinction I would make here is that “Black Panther” is much more focused on governance, which is a dry, boring word. But it’s more focused on governance than traditional superhero books, and that’s because Black Panther’s a king, he’s a monarch. There seems to be a really huge difference between him and other superheroes, so I thought that was really important.

Black Panther Comic Page

It’s reminiscent of “The Godfather,” in a way. He has this inheritance, he has this burden, but he also has this power, but it’s not necessarily beneficial to the people who are under his protection.

Or necessarily beneficial to him. It might not be the choice that he would have made had he been able to determine his own life.

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