When I was a boy, my much older brother collected comics, specifically Marvel brand of comics. Whenever he bought upgraded copies of issues, he would toss me the old ones. I glanced here and there before promptly stacking each one in my closet.
Even as a kid, under 10, comic books didn't grab me. The fantasy, the costumes and the impossibility of super powers seemed so stupid to me. Yet, I recall distinctly characters like the Falcon and the Black Panther.
I was not disturbed that such characters were black. In those days, many of my athlete heroes were black males.
A few years later during my boyhood, some of my neighborhood friends became excited over the movie Superfly. Superfly was one of many movies of its time known as Blaxploitation movies.Blaxploitation movies featured black actors in lead roles whose characters overcame "The Man" — white authority figures as foils. The typical heroes of Blaxploitation movies were pimps and drug dealers, essentially criminally-oriented black market occupations, to which urban blacks could relate. Black characters spoke anti-white racist dialogue with words like crackers and honky. Blaxploitaiton movies featured much violence and crime.
Shaft, starting Richard Roundtree, likely is the most famous Blaxpolitation movie. Shaft is a story about a private detective who has been hired by a Harlem mobster to rescue the mobster's daughter from Italian mobsters who kidnapped her.
After success from the first Blaxploitation movie, Melvin Van Peebles' Sweet Sweetback's Baadasssss, quickly, Hollywood pivoted to produce and distribute Blaxploitation movies. By 1976, a decidedly white Hollywood along with independent black movie makers produced almost 200 blaxploitation movies.
This week, Disney released Black Panther based on the Marvel Comic book of the same name. Sons of Jewish immigrants, Jacob Kurtzberg (pen name Jack Kirby) and Stanley Martin Lieber (pen name Stan Lee) created the Black Panther character in the late 1960s.
The secret identity of Lieber and Kurtzberg's Black Panther is an African named
T'Challa, a king of Wakanda, a fictional African country. Lieber and Kurtzberg's T'Challa gets his superhero powers from a tribal ritual. Kindly, Lieber and Kurtzberg gave T'Challa a genius intellect and made him wealthy along with having martial arts skill and physicality.
The Black Panther character first appeared as a guest in the Marvel Fantastic Four series (Issues #52–53; July–Aug. 1966).
By 1973, the minds behind Marvel decided to capitalize on the Blaxplotation craze. They featured T'Challa / the Black Panther in a rather prejudice sounding series, Jungle Action, during the hey day of Blaxploitation movies, from September 1973 through November 1976.
For issue #5, Marvel execs merely reprinted a story from The Avengers (issue #62; March 1969) that featured the Black Panther. Beginning with issue #6 and continuing through issue #24, Marvel had another writer, Don McGregor, devise two stories told in succession, "Panther's Rage" (#6-#18;Sept. 1973-Dec. 1975) and "Panther vs. the Klan" (#19-#24;Jan.–Nov. 1976). Both stories echoed the trend of blacks rising up against whites as seen in Blaxplotation movies of the time.
The Marvel Comics story of the Black Panther leveraged stereotypes about Africa and Africans. There are tribes, tribal chiefs, manhood proving rituals, a character with the Afrikaner name of Pretorius, a resource exploiter-adventurer who seeks their precious fictional materal, vibranium.
According to IMDB, here is the Disney story, which borrows heavily from McGregor's comic story:
After the events of Captain America: Civil War, King T'Challa returns home to the reclusive, technologically advanced African nation of Wakanda to serve as his country's new leader. However, T'Challa soon finds that he is challenged for the throne from factions within his own country. When two foes conspire to destroy Wakanda, the hero known as Black Panther must team up with C.I.A. agent Everett K. Ross and members of the Dora Milaje, Wakandan special forces, to prevent Wakanda from being dragged into a world war.
Disney hired Ryan Coogler and Joe Robert Cole, both black, to write the screenplay. However, both Coogler and Cole had to devise their story based on the creation of the Jewish minds, Lieber and Kurtzberg.
During the hey day of Blaxploitation movies, a blacklash hit Hollywood. Political struggle groups like the NAACP denounced Hollywood and Blaxploitation movie makers for the way these movie makers portrayed blacks. They claimed such movies reinforced white prejudices about blacks.
However, do not expect representatives of the NAACP to come forth to denounce Disney's reboot of the Blaxplotation movie genre.
If I were black, I would ask myself where are the real black super hero stories written by blacks. I would wonder why are blacks always willing to let others tell them what should be their stories.
Here is a promo for Disney's Blaxploitation reboot:
Enjoy a pro-Blaxploitation documentary:
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