Just gonna throw this out there. Black panther was just. So so. As a movie. When I watched it, I felt like Marvel just kinda went: you know what? we don’t even have to try.
There’s black people and comic book fans (and black comic book fans) everywhere, so we’ve got a guaranteed audience. So let’s just throw up some paper thin plot with a paper thin antagonist whose got a hard on about black people rising up instead of putting together something genuinely plausible or drawing inspiration from the real life civil rights movements (not just in America but all over the world)
That was my main impression of black panther. That’s my main impression of marvel in general, but the longer Marvel exists as a Major Motion Picture franchise, the more their movies feel like this. Black panther is very late to this game. So even before we get into the actual movies, we’ve got being made earlier going for IM.
Meanwhile, on the analytical front, we’ve got, on Iron Man’s side, a guy who quite literally had his life handed to him on a silver platter (which may or may not have had a side of some form of abuse on it but we’re not going to get into that) and made it better.
In short order he is: ambushed, kidnapped, tortured, and forced to deal with the fact that the guy who was supposed to look after him has been using his company for illegal activities this entire time. Then there was a second attempted murder on top of that.
You know what I do any time I’m faced with something uncomfortable? I try really hard to forget about it and only deal with it as much as I have to. I cut out parts of my family, some of which only learned through the grapevine. I joked about rolling my car on a highway. I wouldn’t admit that I was really fucking depressed during my first semester of college until a full year after that.
What does TS do? faces his shit head on. He didn’t have to stop making weapons. He could have simply kicked out Obadiah (or killed him, whatever works) and gone on selling stuff. Instead he brought the ire of literally his entire world down on him because he was that fucking committed to being better.
It isn’t even like he was finding the fastest solution so he could go lick his wounds in private. He did things while suffering from PTSD. and border-line alcoholism. And whatever the fuck else he has. By rights, he should have done as much as he could remotely, moved somewhere quiet, and placed his mental health above all else. But he doesn’t. He chooses to stay, and he chooses to do the things he does regardless of the state he’s in so others don’t have to.
In short, the IM trilogy is essentially the redemption arc of a man who did not, and I repeat this did NOT have to have one despite the fact that things keep getting in the way.
Meanwhile, Black Panther was essentially about T’Challa having to choose between isolationism and integration onto the world stage. But the thing is that most of his choices regarding this were made for him. He has no choice but to take action after Klaus reveals how there’s still vibranium in Wakanda and Killmonger comes for the throne.
With the main plot playing out the way it did, T’Challa is essentially just making the best of a bad situation. the only thing that deviates from this is the Wakandan Outreach Program, which T’Challa didn’t have to do, but it can be argued that stepping onto the world stage via charity is the best way to integrate without seeming threatening.
We do not see T’Challa addressing his character flaws. He doesn’t make a decision about their borders until he has to. He never addresses the fact that he was directly responsible for the bridge collapse as well as escalating things in Civil War. He’s supposed to be king, but he spent an entire movie blinded by his emotions and we never see any kind of growth from this despite the premise being set up so wonderfully.
I’m not saying that bp was a bad movie or that it wasn’t really cool to see Wakanda and lots and lots of black people who aren’t slaves in the background on the big screen. I am saying that in terms of story and character development, bp doesn’t really compare to im.
Be excited about losing Tony Stark (if that is, indeed, what happens) in endgame if you want to, but at the end of the day I can count on one goddamn hand the number of people who are going to keep pushing when shit gets desperate (and shit really is desperate), and first and foremost is Tony fucking Stark.
