Episode 45: Black Panther

up our numbers. It helps other people see the podcast. And I don't know if you know this, but we have been featured on the front page of Apple I think like three or four times, and this podcast isn't even a year old. Yeah, it'll be soon, though, It'll be soon. That's a big accomplishment. I think that's really cool. Yeah, especially to have like two nerds of color on the front page. It's just holding it down, you know, like, Hey, how's it going? Yep, yep, how you doing? Look at

these heads? I know it is just two heads of us. I love it. And uh, today we are covering black Panther. We're covering everything that is to Chaula how he came to be the film, the TV show, and joining us we have comic book writer, novelist, screenwriter, showrunner, A black Panther's Quest, Jeff Thorpe, Wow, who's that guy? That is you? I didn't even name all the things you did. Also, actor that's dead. That's dead tweeter teeter extraordin there. I can't.

They're like all my friends are like, Jeff, get off Twitter, Like it's too late. We're married. Don't you feel though that your can connect? I feel like Twitter helps me. I mean it hurts me for sure, but I feel like it helps me stay relevant with everything going on. Yes, on a certain level, that's true. Um. Also, uh, if you use it properly, you meet a lot of people you would not have or wise have met. I've had lunches and made friends with screenwriters, directors like yourself, animators

who I would have never otherwise got to meet. I put I put together these things called the battle books that I'm selling, which I got. Um. There's a hashtag called visible women. There's a hashtag called drawing well Black. There's also a hashtag called drawing well Latin, and all the other different things. But I found artists that I would have never been able to find, and they're awesome and they were affordable, And if I wasn't on Twitter, I would not know who any of them were, and

I made initial contact with them. That way, I can probably I can publicize my work in a very quick effective manner. And frankly, if I want to tell the President he's a jerk, I just tipped right over to his account, right And it doesn't change anything, but it makes my day a little lighter. Yeah, you know, I feel like it's also helped me to be a better person because I'm aware of people that exist outside of my friend group, you know, and I have a very

diverse friend group. It's constantly changing, the world is constantly changing, and I feel like I wouldn't be the woman that I am without listening to all these other voices people. The hard part about Twitter is the awful people that, of course you have to put up with. But like, for instance, I just I did not know what non binary was until last year, Right, I thought I had it all locked down and I'm all progressive and whatnot, and they started throwing out ace and non binary and

all this stuff. But luckily there's Twitter, and I don't even have to ask half of the questions, half of the questions, or just somebody else going what the hell and then someone graciously explains it and I follow follow, Right, I wouldn't have watched Pose. I wouldn't have thought to watch Pose if not for Twitter. Right. Uh, there are some gorgeous people pose. Yes, Oh my god, some of

those ladies um flutter. But it wasn't the kind of show regardless, because I generally like things with monsters or some sort of supernatural or whatever thing in it. It wouldn't have been the kind of show that I would have even looked at because it's essentially it's soap opera, right again, with no time travel. I'm fine, just put

in some time trying, right. But because of this sort of presence that my Twitter, who I follow and who follows me, there's conversations I don't even participate in that makes me aware of things that I'm I'm gonna check this album. Yeah, I mean that's that's kind of how

you know. I kind of sell people on Reddit because every time people here red and they're like, oh, it's a bad place, I was like, you can make it a good place you have control, and as if you follow the right subreddits, your feed becomes this, you know, beautiful place. I mean, you know, just like yeah, people can sneak in and you'll have to like squish accordingly. Here's a good example. There's an artist called Jennifer Meyer and after she's like an illustrator, painter, book covers, kids

books and fantasy novels and stuff. You can find her on Twitter jail Meyer. She's awesome. I was really depressed after the Trump election. Like I don't get depressed if you follow Twitter. I'm rarely depressed, right, and I'm rarely even dark. I'm just like, you know, I get angry. I don't get sad, right, But after the election, I was kind of down and I couldn't shake it. And I was not used to feeling that way for any extended period of time. I was like, I might have

to therapy or something for this. This is kind of raw every day, every day day and this somebody else followed her. Someone I followed followed her and reposted these ridiculous sketches she was doing of bunnies. And these bunnies were like dressed like wonder Woman or like having sword battles with other bunnies riding a bunny, you know, And I was like what, But they were delightful, man, they were delightful and they lifted me and I was like,

how is this happening? And so I followed her and she was doing this like while she was working on something, she'd take a break and do these weird little quick sketches. But it changed my life, Like it. I talked about this with my friends all the time. It literally shifted my perspective away from this sort of dark abyss place I was going to. And once again, had I not been on Twitter and following the right people, and now we're kind of pals. We go back and forth. I said.

I sent her a thank you note, like I know you weren't trying to do this, but had you not done this, I would have been a way different place last year. Thank you. And she was just what you'd expect the lady who draws bunnies and dressed like wonder woman to be like. And she's awesome. And that's a Twitter connection. Um. Occasionally people yell at me or they get mad at my political opinions, and okay, that's you, you know, and I fight back. It's not like I'm

all like all gracious and Gandhia's or whatever. I go right in on you do. But it's so funny because you and I don't know how long you and I have been following each other, yeah, while, But you know what, it's so because we were talking and I think I think the same way about myself is like, oh no, I'm angry on there a lot, but you're actually funny a lot like you. I mean, you know that, but like I'm saying, you in your mind, but you are too. You just do it with photography more so than I

do it. Yeah. Yeah, that's probably how we followed each other is one of us was being petty and shot down somebody and put them in their place. They deserve it. They deserve it. But what I was gonna say is that I think you're you. You're probably like me, and that you think that you're like you, that you're tweeting angrier than what you come across as. I just wanted to say, you come across as very well like I like your Twitter because it's very well rounded. Yeah, that's

what I'm trying to do. Yeah, I curated, like yeah, I like I just like a lot of stuff and there's no way well two things, let me stop. Sometimes it's too much information just of any kind, and you get to it. I'm like, all right, uh okay, I gotta go like it doesn't matter. You can tell me the greatest, most wonderful story, but it's above that line. I can't hear it. I can't hear it. I gotta go away from this. And I think everyone should step back because it's just Twitter, But yeah, you you can

learn a lot. I saw, like, how about this when there's something crazy going on in Syria and the news hasn't got anybody in there yet, my Twitter feed is showing me people on the ground, right, so when somebody comes up and well, this isn't happening, and I'm like, I saw Ahmed put his iPhone out the window to show me that did actually happen. So what are you talking about? Right? That kind of stuff or brand new

things from um what do you call it? Like a web comic that you again would never have heard of? Post one still from You're like, oh my god, who is this person? How do they paint like that? What is and you go look right, like if you use it right, it's doing what it's designed to be done for. It's just all these jerks coming in there going now I can flex because no one can hit me back, right, And I feel like, let me put it like this and then I'll shut up about it because Twitter and

panis for this. You know what it's like. It's like every time um Tucker Carlson would try to have a debate with Jon Stewart, and I'm like, look, Tucker, first of all you're asked is mediocre? Okay, just to begin with, you probably couldn't debate me. But Jon Stewart, he's not only wicked smart, he's a professional comedian. Do you understand the process by which a person becomes a professional comedian?

The open mic night at the end of the night where the only people in audience are other professional comedians. So if you got heckled, you're getting heckled by a pro. Okay, So if you survive that to become a real stand up, regular professional comedian, These regular old folks who think they're funny, they're like stepping into the ring with Muhammad Ali. Right, So you decided to go on TV right with this guy who's literally made himself a millionaire being funny every

day and you're gonna out with him. You're an idiot. You just showed your triple idiot. So it's the same kind of thing on Twitter. A lot of us, you mean a lot of people on that it's made out of words. A lot of us make our believing with words.

So some rando who's got a problem with women being geeks or about different minority group being involved with Star Wars or something like that, thinks he's gonna be all clever because he made his little cabal, his little claver and laugh right, And then they stepped to the wrong person that they might not have heard of. What that person is a pro? Done? Go away, Now go go play with your children, Go play with the other child. So that's the vibe I try to. I know it

sounds vicious, but these people are awful. I think I think that I'm all for flexing. I see, maybe I'll see you flexing girl. No, hell yeah, flex away, flex away. Speaking of flexing, look, I'm going to perfectly transition list. You are the showrunner for Black Panther's Quest, And before we get into the show, what was your first introduction

to Black Panthers? So I got a reprint, probably of the Fantastic Fur issue where he my dad introduced me to comics when I was probably about seven or eight, maybe maybe as old as ten young at seven, and Marvel used to put out these giants sort of I mean literally giant omnibus comics, not like graphic novels are today, like oversized weirdly, like how are you going to collect this type stuff? And in that was the Fantastic Four.

He already liked Jack Kirby, so my dad was like, he likes Jack Kirby, let me give him Matt And I don't think Panther was in that, but at some point I came across a reprint of that story, and uh, I was okay, the black guy whatever. But I was fascinated with the fact that his introduction was, well, here's how I'm going to meet the Fantastic Four. I'm gonna kick all of their access by myself, just to see if I feel like talking to him. I was like, okay, dude,

wait a stepped up to the money. But then he just became sort of a secondary character in the Avengers for a billion years. He was just sort of like from my point of view, he was the silhouette of Batman without being Batman. They wanted a character that kind of looked like Batman and this guy. Um, I mean, we can just keep going on this. But the Black Panther's mask used to have his face exposed for a

brief period. At his face exposed, I believe that they shifted it to a full face covering so they could sell the comic in the South. Um, and that he wasn't obviously lack. You almost never saw him unmasked. He almost never took that mask off. Even if he got hit by something, his skin would never show in the rip or whatever. That's not accidental. That's we got to sell stuff to a very racist South in the sixties

and seven. Wasn't there a period of time when they removed I know that he was for like one issue he was the Black Leopard, Yes, to try and move it away from being associated with the with the Black Panther organization. But I do know also I think that it was like the his one comic came out that was like the history of Ta Chaula, Like they also

tried to do that to to change his name. Well, the thing with that period of time, modern people think that Stan and Jack uh saw the Black Panthers and then made the character, but he predates them, yes, right, especially one whole year before there you go, so um my feeling. My guess is there was a comic book when both Stan and Jack were kids that most people don't know about, called All Negro Comics. All Negro Comics.

Number one only had one issue. There's a whole horrible saga about why there was only one issue, which is its own show. But inside that was a character called Lionman, who was an African prince who protected his country, who had a giant mound of exotic material that people kept trying to come get. And I can't help but think either Stand or Jack got exposed to that comic. They're

both New York kids, they were not rich. I'm sure they picked up every rando five cent one cent comic that they could get their hands on, and it probably flitted away and went away, and then they pulled some of that apple because it's very similar, but it's also not the same, so um yeah. And so then it went into Jungle Action. They had a book called Jungle Action, which nowadays I don't know if that would flop one of one of us is going to have to write that.

That was Don McGregor primarily, and he did a lot of sort of taking onto the clan. Um. He was ironically for an African king. He spent an awful lot of time in the US fighting ratio is interesting with a lot of superheroes. It's like, oh, these aliens, weirdly all just hang out here in the United States of America. Why wouldn't we go to China where most of the human beings are New York especially um. But yeah, so

they did that for a while. He was the feature in Jungle Action that kept trying to give him a book and it wouldn't last and all the while while I'm reading comics, he was always a second tier. People pretend now that they always were into it. But if you were, the book would have never died. So that's a lot even you're lying, right, Um, he was a secondary. He was there to be black. I think primarily he was.

I wouldn't call him as far as a token because they always wrote him fairly well, like, he wasn't he go iron man, He wasn't the cheerleader. He came to play, but he was also there because we need a black guy in there, just for that few black fans that we have out there, they might want to see them. I think stan Stan was very good about that. Yeah. I think Jack Kirby also said that too in a in an interview. I have my hands high up in

the air because I worship all things Jack Kirby. Yeah, Jack Kirby would say that he wanted more followers to feel represented. He was always that way, always that way, and you can tell when I mean again, we'd go off from just on Jack. But when he split off, when it was just him, you could see that in his work throughout he had much more prominent women. His women were hard, they were all based all the really tough ones were based on his actual wife, right, um. Heed,

He integrated all of his his little teams. They were unnecessarily in a sense like I'm just throwing a black dude, throwing a Heason dude. Why the hell not? And I think it's largely because the soup that New York was when those guys grew up was basically and it's apropos now, it was chuck full of immigrants in a different way

than it is now. Um. The immigrants were much more I think widely dispersed, so there was no dominant immigrant group, right, so everybody just climbing all on top of each other. New York is a very different kind of city in that regard than as you go further west, it becomes more and more segregated from my point of view, and obviously South, but in New York, yeah, you get broken up by neighborhood. But everybody's kind of on top of

each other all the time. So even if you don't like the next person, you've got to get along with them. You just have to where the city won't work. I don't know if it's like that now, but I guarantee it was like that when those boys were coming up. This is probably aging us giving our age away. But when I would watch and this animated show is the first one that I saw that really did that was

Hey Arnold. Do you remember that Hey Arnold had one of the most diverse cast that I can remember in cartoons, And yeah, that was on purpose, but that was exactly what you were talking about, um, And it was all different types of immigrant families and and and immigrants coming together in in that And I did I did love that a lot. I think that's where Henson got The Henson Company started with Street for that. Their model was New York Street. In New York Street, it just had

muppets on it, you know. Um so yeah, So the Black Panther rolls for a long long time is sort of you know, in the mid to late seventies, and they tried with Jungle Action. They gave him a little mini series here and there. He was perennial in the in the Avengers, he was on a lot of the different rosters in the Avengers, but again kind of just

there to be black. He doesn't really have the juice that they started him out with right when they started about taking on the whole fantom which, to correct myself, the cover that The Fantastic for he appeared in came out in July six, nineteen sixty six, and Black Panther was created in October sixty six and not even a year. So he's like there's something in the in the air, in the air, I like to imagine it was just like Hughie be like, Huie, what were gonna name this group?

And look over to their stack. This works yeah black yeah, man, oh man. I wanted to be the spot of man so that won't work. That doesn't sell our our political point of all. Right, but the spot of man's would be cool. I'm not mad at your brother did You're right, it would be cool. But you know, we could be the Black Panthers. Let's ladies would be the Black Panther or the Spider Man. They're like, are you your fool's fools? Clearly it's Black Panther. Um, so that happened, right. They

did that for a while. Um, really up until either the I guess it's the late eighties or the early nineties, when Christopher Priest, uh, he shows up and I mean

his issue I remember what issue number it was. But when he revealed what the Black Panther have been doing all this time, if there had been an Internet back then, it would have burned down that day because he basically was like, wait, I'm not with you all, I'm in spying on you all the star It's like, wait, what it's like, No, No, I'm the king of a Nathan What are you stupid? Of course you guys are crazy powerful. Why would I play the backfield all these times? Dude?

Come on, now what I look like? Right? But it was like and they were all like, oh, like even in the book, right, Priest wrote it like the adventures were like, wait, what are our friendly to challow? You know, He's like, man, I'm a king. I've been telling you this for thirty years. I'm a king. I do kings stuff like and that just blew the doors off. And I also feel like that kind of model to shallow

we know and love to he took. Basically, it was almost like the and nothing against McGregor, who I met and as a lovely guy and did great stuff for the time period in which he is. But it's almost like Priests reached back to that first issue of Fantastic four and said, nope, that guy. And I was like, oh my god, how they're gonna kill him? Why he's gonna die? They're gonna kill the black panther. There's no way he survives after that. He's gonna be a villain,

now what. I was ready to be outraged, Right, They're gonna pick the black panther, but no, and it's stuck and it it resonated. It was like he became unique. I think in that moment his blackness wasn't the uniqueness factor. It was this is a different kind of hero than you've seen before. Right, the closest thing would have been nay more this the Mariner. But he has always played as a villain. Yeah right, he's sort of a what

is it chaotic? He was lawful evil yeah right, So, which to me is fascinating that to Chala didn't end up being that since he was technically fighting against the heroes, right Fantastic four, Right, Like they're the good guys and he's beating their asses as his debut and right, well that's just your typical, like, you know, wrestling way of putting someone over. I'm the only one in here watches wrestling to prove yourself a lot of fake nerds, and I've been given all the static about my lack of

wrestling model. Well that's that's typically how you put someone over, and wrestling you have a really good person and then the new guy comes out beats the mess out of the guy who we've established is the strongest kind of jail rules and so everyone's like, oh yeah, so like essentially they Kirby and uh and late you know, put Black Panther over, which I often that I think that's what kind of always gave them a special part of my heart to not only create a black the first

black hero, but also put him over and be like this, this is like, this is what I think. It couldn't have been conscious, Right, there was no conversations like the kind we have now going on back then, certainly not across ethnicity. Right. So there's these two white aspect Jewish dudes running a comic book company. It's like, I almost feel like it had to be Jack who brought this in, right, you know, we need a black guy. What wait, what, Yeah, we need a black guy. We need a black guy.

And you've seen the designs for the original version. It was cold Tiger or something. They're terrible, terrible, terrible, Like Jack was my man, but occasionally he'd have a dude and they were like no, no, no, they we find it down a black panther. But on some basic human level, they had to know he has to come in so strong, right, he has to come in so hard, or the audience will never accept that he's appear with these people. He

will always be in the backfield. And by the way, they introduced whyatt Wingfoot, Johnny's Native American best friend, for no damn reason. Why is he? Like why and he was cool. And then this. I was just talking to some guys about this on the web, the Kiwazi tribe that they made up, the Native American tribe. People don't know, and no one's used this in Marvel, and I probably shouldn't blow this because I probably should use it for

my own stuff. There's a Native American Wakonda sitting under the soil in New Mexico in the Marvel universe called the Kawazi tribe, and they're just as high tech as Wakonda, Okay, but they have nothing's been done with them. I'm like, somebody ought to. It's probably not gonna be me because I'm not in position to do that, but that's what Jack and Stan would do, and I have to have I kind of have to feel like a lot of that came from Jack because when he went off in

his solo, it just became much more crazy. He was like black Jewish people and you know, Chinese Muslims like this whatever, Just like when you hear stuff like that. And then we did a Twilight Zone episode with Rod

Serling and how progressive he was. It kind of just really completely destroys that argument of they were a product of their time, that's always been Yeah, that's always been hard like, but you know, it just kills that argument because you see all these people and if you're if you're talking about the people who were talented enough to be like the pinnacle of entertainment at the time, there had to be more people like them who just didn't

have the same microphone. That's right. So so I think that are and I trust me old if you're on a porch and gonna let anyone get away with telling their grandfathers who was around when I am back, it's like, oh, they were probably like now, we were all woke. People were getting digital backpacks and it was actually real popular to almost almost kind of diluted the wrongness of it all,

you know, just because I've been woke before. We were getting digital grounding points back when you were back when you would lose friends. Remember that we're the only one yelled. We have to convince people it wasn't No one was putting it on T shirts and it's somewhere on the internet. Is my hour long tirade about how awful Tier Rock character Tier Rock though it's a d C character from second But yeah, so Priest shows up and sort of Really the best thing about it was I have this

thing called UM. I call this at Moore's law, Alan Moore's law for comics. I made this up. It's not a real law. Please make it a law. Always attribute me. But UM. Basically, he takes over the Swamp Thing comic and he made he told him. He says to himself, Look a lot of people, not enough because it had been canceled, but a lot of people liked the original thing. Now I want to do this all this other stuff with it. I can't really, I can't really spit on

these existing fans. That's not fair. So he came up with a story called Anatomy Lesson, which is everything you read happened. All those stories are real. I'm not changing one word of that. All those events occurred in the contact to this story. Except after this story, all the rules are different. And it was called, i think not coincidentally, the Anatomy Lesson, where you find out all this different stuff and everything you thought was true was not true,

but not in a cheap, crazy way. I feel the same way about Priest taking over Black Panther. All the things that he did with the character, they hit so hard. I think because they were in it. It was already there, like it just needed a writer to come in and go, well, if this is true, then these X the six or seven other things have to also be true. Right, If these are the conditions of his normal life at home,

why is in the US so much? Like? Why would the king of this most advanced nation on Earth spend all of his time in New York City? Doesn't he have a country to run? Like? And even who is he leaving behind to run in for him? When he's like all these questions probably were not asked by any writers. Why would they nothing against them? They got other things to deal with. But Priest comes in and goes, well, you know, and all that's in the character. If it had not been, it would have felt paste it on.

It would have felt like, oh, here's this black rider. He came in. He's gonna you know, he's gonna make him the Batman of the Marvel Universe or whatever. And I feel like the reason that he didn't get that backlash is because the character had had been already teed up for two decades for someone to come in and do it, and he just said, oh, I'll do it, you know. Yeah. But you know, then some funky stuff happened, like Casper Cole, which we'll get into. Well, that's writer's personalities.

After this break. Hey, what's up, y'all? We are back and you know, yeah, I guess we can talk about Casper Cole. You know, well, there's two things that he did, right, Priest did. He creates Casper Cole and he also creates Hunter, right, the the Caucasian half brother of Actually, you know, as as unnecessary is that is? I actually liked that aspect. It turned out to be cool, right, How what it would it be like to be the one white dude? Right, and you're part of the royal family, but you're not

part of the royal dude. Come on, that's genius. Also the way Priests did it at the time, people forget Everett Ross. They've never talked about Everett Ross, who actually was the character telling the story, right, the white CI agent. He's like, who, how is the black panther? That guy? But I gotta remember, when this book came out, it had to sort of feel like lethal weapon. There had

to be a sort of humorous component. I'm sure that was part of the pitch, right, Uh, there couldn't just be like strong black lead, Like I can see that. They would be like, oh here comes a black dude with a pit for the black panther. Oh it's delightfully funny. We thought it was gonna be all hard and political and oh this is great, go go crazy, right. I think Casper Cole comes out of the idea that they don't have an American right, they don't have a back

then everybody was. I remember this from my own trying to write, trying to sell scripts. Uh, quite as it's capt I write primarily fantasy and science fiction. Um, there's no rhyme of reason to the ethnicities and my stories. Uh, there's a lot. All you can say is there's gonna be a lot of different ethnicities and gender types of my stories. But just looking at me and going, oh he's a black guy, it's always going to be black people. That's foolish. I don't do that. Um. What I do

do is the rainbow. Right, So what would happen with my scripts would be can it be more urban? And I'm like, what are you saying? Right? Do you mean it should take place in a different city, because that's what urban means, like they meant black. I think that there was a certain like the way he was writing The Black Panthers, the way we have him, the way Kirby and Leep presented him. Was a high tech genius running the most advanced company cooks last country in the world,

and he acted like it. There was nothing street at all about this royal this you know, hereditary ruler of a nation. Why would there be is Dr Doom street? Right? But I can bet there was some kind of a vibe like we need a street version, right, And I think that's where Casper Cole comes from. You sort of a street version of the Black panth a multiracial New York City police officer. Yeah. I mean, but by this

time we had Luke Cage. So it's like, get out of here, and we've got we've gotten some cool cages like Cage that run which one not the one as Arello because I'm not to have We're not that. Look. I'm a child of the nineties, grew up in Compton. That was me. I was like, let's go. I wanted to find him and beat him down over that. I was like, you're gonna never come with an arms reach now, Like I you know what. At the time, I was up to here with all of that, so just to

have Cage be that. And also Cage was already kind of a regular, that's the thing. It was written by someone who's outside that life. Yeah, there's a difference between growing up on this as what you would think of a a street level, which would be lower middle class basically um, iron worker family or something like that in the city, bus drivers and all that, and being you know, a crip. Yeah, okay, but there's a lot of people who can't tell that difference. They shouldn't be writing Cage. Yeah,

you can't tell that difference. I'm not ironic. You can't. You don't get to be ironic about this. And the first picture that pops up when you search Brian Azarella makes you think that's the gold tooth Cage, you know. And that's what's funny is see this is this is that's the that's the majesty of being an author. And I'm and I'm just at that because there are ways we could take it. Like, you know, in my head, I didn't know what Brian Azarella looked like, So in

my head he was a Latin next dude. I thought he was a Latino dude. I'm looking at him now and uh, and I see, I see why you might have. But it was not just that it was like what they did. It was a lot of things at the same time. It's what it was done to hip hop, right. Hip hop was a very diverse sort of movement at its roots at the beginning, it started with a bunch of Latin and Black kids, just poor as hill chopping it up. And they had all they had, like trance

hip hop, they had, you know, just for dancing. They had like message hip hop, they had all of that stuff. And then the freaking West Coast came in and it was all gangster all the time. Right, You're welcome. Okay, you can say that if you want to. But even the West Coasters, like I'm thinking like dilated People's and some of the other sort of have the hieroglyphics down

down look native but you know what I'm saying. But they didn't get as much purchase, right the main line with because came over and took over and everybody had to Right, I felt like this was out of that. I felt like I'm getting enough of that in my movies, I'm getting enough of that on my TV. I see I don't. I'm not against this life because it's a life. It's legitimate to discuss and show and all that. But it's not even clo it's not even fifty, it's not

even forty. It's not of what's going on out there. So when that Cage book came out, I was like, yeah, done, well, yeah, because you know, just to you know, get just a real tap into that next truly like explained, because I know exactly what you you feel. There was an authenticity when it first came up. When n w A was coming out. N w A was like, look at our struggle and somehow it like evolved and grown into a glorification of it. And we felt that here in the hood.

Like you know, like I said, I grew up in Compton, California, was in Downey to go to high school, but I lived in Compton till about I was like in ninth grade. Then by senior year, I was back in Long Beach, uh north side Long Beach, across the street from Jordan's High. You may know Vince Staples, and like it was like it was like a whole lifestyle. Like if you remember, like the punk kids at your school and the metal

heads like gang banging became this lifestyle. But it wasn't like, no, you didn't wash out the spikes, you didn't take off the It was a real lifestyle that kids got caught up in. And also was the effect of you know, uh, you know, systematic issues that people of color dealt with in the hood and it seemed like there was no way out. It seemed like the only way to survive in those situations was to either be a rapper, a

basketball player, and or a gangster. Like that was that was the only way you survived because when you got home there was no food. So what this group of people that you called the gang, you know, would take care of you, feed you, and that's all you had, you know. That's that's the thing about this that people I mean again, we can do a whole show about this, actually the whole series about this, but there's a reality

of that life. Uh it's too simple to just write everybody off as though they just have a hard, vicious, criminal thug. There are significant number of them that are just hard, vicous, but there's also the complete lack of family structure that this thing takes the place of that. Like that's basically every terrorist it's exactly the same. You destroyed their culture. There's no unit, there's no unified families where all these testesterone testosterone filled boy is going to do.

I'm going to join up with the Taliban, or I'm going to become a crip or a blood or whatever it is. It's very simple equation. But I don't want to some outsider who only knows about it from MTV turning Luke Cage into that, right, right, if you're gonna

have the discussion, dig deep. Well, Also because you don't like if if we want to go back to the n w A analogy, you lose that that that you know, explanation of what the struggle is to kind of shine light on what the the the the sources versus like someone glorifying it and being like this is cool, thus leading to more kids wanting to do that, so much so that the Gangster Rappers themselves had to go and do an armistice. Hey stop, we're happening about this. We

know we make it sound cool, but it ain't. I remember Snoop Dogg and Game had to come out and do a whole so like, if you look at the actual lyrics, they're not always making it sound that cool, talking about my friends getting chopped down in front of the cops, beating them up and treating them like hell just for standing around, Like it's not a life you

want to do unless somebody's glorifying it. Which watch watch what I do now, uh, Which I think that's where Casper Cole came from, that same sort of soup of we need it to be hood, we need to be street, not necessarily, and even with the cage thing, not necessarily because it's in the person's mind. I don't think they're doing it to be negative or whatever they're like. Remember Marvel Comics is we used to be called Marvel pop comics,

pop art comics. Their whole reason why they always beat DC once they showed up was they try to keep their finger right on the pulse right. So whatever those kids out there are doing, we're gonna have some comics about it. If you look at that stuff from it, it was all hippies and whatever. So that was the street culture became kid culture came youth culture. In some ways, I think it's a problem, but I can see the people at Marvel, editors at Marvel going, hey, there's a

black guy we're gonna do this. Hey, I don't know this. I have no inside knowledge about this, but I would be willing to bet that that was a discussion rather than writer going hey, you know what else I want to do? I want to do this too, would be more like, hey, we need this gap field, can you can we use your popularity with the Panther right now

to fill that gap? Sure, let's go, you know, and that's where you get I think that's where you get Casper call from ohay, I was going to say the talk about the portrayal of Techaula, like how that is so important then because you have a black king who is royal, you have royalty, you have a sister shrer who like especially if we're talking about the film, like how important it was to see that, to see I'm

sorry introduced create. He created the dor Malaje, who were only two when he created them, just the two sort of wives, protector wives of the Black Panther, like ceremonial marriage. Reggie Hudlind comes in among many other things. When he takes over, he adds Shrei, the little sister, and you're like, oh, okay, and she's a genius too. All right, let's go. And it's interesting that she took off in the movie because once again we've sort of been talking about this off

off the mic. But there's a whole bunch of people who haven't been getting served, and sureI typifies of that to some degree. Right, she shows up and she feels a space that all of us could go. You know, there's this empty space you could fill up with money if you just did this, right, I don't know what you're talking about. You guys are crazy. That's some Pine the Sky progressive stuff. You guys are crazy. And then she shows up and takes over the movie. Right, everyone

wants to talk about Shrei. Where Suri? What's what's she doing? Which the most popular character you've seen it all year? You know, because there's there's a need for it, wonder woman Captain Marvel, like, there's a need for this. People want to see it. I mean, yeah, if we if look but by now, anyone who's against this has already turned off that. But they turned it off last week, the same damn last week. But but there you're I

I think you're speaking to something very very true. Whereas the sense of like, you know, if I just take a step back. There's been a lot of badass black dudes on on screen. Black Panther isn't new. It's you know, I was happy because Black Panther does happen to be my favorite comic book character as a Nigerian American. It like touches me in a very specific way no other hero. Yeah, it's like, oh, this is you even to the max.

So I've I've had that attachment. But you know I can I can go in and see you know, Idris Elba kick someone's but or you know, Chadwick in another movie, Michael b But you know, you don't have opportunities for young black women and not only see like you know, a woman who is beautiful, but someone who's smart. She like dominates the movie. Everyone wants to talk about her too. Yeah you you really, you really got like two fold.

You got your badass black woman and you've got your intelligent black woman, two things you never see you got your third one? Right? Uh n? Right? Who? By the way, is it completely different from the way she is in the comics. They just took her and made her into their own thing. But what you this is the thing we all come from. Variations of what mainstream American culture, which is white. Uh would deem minority cultures were what they would think of his niets cultures. But we know

within the culture there's all these nuances. It's not just like, oh, there's the Latin chick interchangeable with the other Latin chick, right, there's the black dude, Like I've been mistaken so many times for a football player because of my size, or if I happen to be in another the country, or you must be on the local basketball team that we've We only fly in black athletes to play basketball for MS, right. The only place that doesn't happen Africa because everybody is black. Right.

But from the point of view of these executives and their lifestyles and the people who make the decisions about all this stuff, their their job is I'm not letting them off the hook because a lot of them are just bags of but the But a lot of them are just comple ignorant in an innocent, childlike ignorance way where they literally are like, Okay, how can I put you in the quickest box? So I got to move on to the next Oh yeah, no, We'll go into

this because I don't I don't. I don't think anyone should hop on you for a quote unquote letting them off, because this is a very interesting and true thing that I think needs to be talked about. Where it's like everyone is MORENC is only aware of the world they're experienced. And if you grew up like you know, primarily not primarily, if you grew up white and a primarily white upbringing, you're you're not checking for those things. It's just not looking.

I could tell you, like, you know, look, I'll you know, I write for TV. I have I'm on a group of people who write for very popular TV shows, calls writing for Brooklyn nine nine right now, the Mars writing for Single Parents, and went on to write for other stuff. I'm not gonna say no names because I ain't trying to. I'm gonna get into a story, you know. I don't want people trying to Yeah, you know, and this isn't

like a knock or anything. This is just you know, something that I hope like if the room or someone associated or showrunner here's this, they do take notice of this. You know. One of the guys they were writing for a show, a network show with a black character on it, and they and he and he came to me one day he was like, Oh, I totally see you know how like black characters end up not being written well

and it's kind of not their fault. What ends up happening is you have this black character and it's the only black character in the show, so you're afraid to make them flawed in any way because you have inadvertently accidentally made this one person of colors represent representative. So any flaws now the writers are worried of coming off racist. You're almost too work for your own good because you don't put there and that creates a boring to have more.

Oh my god, how dare you exactly? Well? I did want to say this is because when this is one of the biggest things that I loved Girls Trip for because it was like you had all of these black women, but they all were different, Like you had the wild child, you had, the loving mother, you had, the professional you have, and it was like, oh weird that we could be like all you could have, you know, but we're all diverse,

Like we're all different. And when you see it, what happens the box office blows up and the reporters talk about it like it's an anomaly. You're not interchangeable, is what I mean. Like, we're all different. That's what happened. They went home. The people who went the first weekend went home and went, girl, did you What I want to say is I am not Gina Rodriguez. Not you're not. Of course, people are still going to make that because you're not there. You should never be there to be Latin.

That's the point tagged in all of her stuff, and I think she's I'm just like, I'm not her though, and so it's just racist at this point. She is not in the end, Like no, I could go on this forever, but what I'm saying is we are not interchanged. We are not. But you're an actor and you know this.

Many auditions have you been to. When you go to the audition, rod not not even that you're just walking cold and you see like nine thousand versions of everybody there could be your sister, Like literally, like I just always get Gina Rodriguez type. Like I'm just saying that I understand that we look similar, but we're our personalities are.

So what I wanted to say is that's why I'm I was excited that there was a film like Girlshrip and just like what Black Panther did where it showed these women all have all different types of person all different types, and the audiences qualities and yeah, right, and so what happened with Black Other people talk about kill Monger because they've never seen a brother quite like that in the movie. And as you said, you have seen a brother like to challenge in a movie before, not

quite that extreme, but he's been around. You've never seen somebody quite as smooth as uh kill Monger is the bad guy and be black that way. And the ladies you've never seen that many of different kinds of heroic black women in anything. Yeah, and anything even a bike Lee movies you've never seen, right, So of course they get all the juice. They're getting talked about the most because they're the new hot thing, and everybody tells their

friends and half the audience is female. Y'all right, like maybe the reason, oh that's a whole other show, that all the show. But let me put it like this. I went on this whole thing, Where's my Black Widow Movie? For like two years, long before anyone was like I was doing posters, Where's my Black Widow Movie? And the rule of the rule in Hollywood was women can't do action movies. People won't go see them. And I was like, literally every franchise you've ever made alien, It was I

was rinking up from TV. I freaking what Cleopatrick freaking Jones like, you go back as far as you want, right, So it was a lie. It was a lot of people kept telling themselves to be able to say no to the ladies. Basically, we don't, we don't wish to. Here's the stat we're gonna give you. The problem is you can actually go check the stats. You're you're you're

either lying or you're stupid. Those are your choices, right. So, um, with the Black Panther movie, And this is why I always say it should be if there's such a thing as should I don't really believe in the oscars. It's just like a high school popularity contest to me. But it does sell. It makes careers go bigger, it makes it makes the ideas put in some of these movies go wider. Okay, we want to see more of a

certain kind of movie. You wanted to win an oscar? Right? Um. I feel like just because of what the number of levels that the Black Panther operated on that maybe are invisible to a lot of white people, that they just went to a movie and saw a great action movie. I got some black people And that's kind of cool too. That my progressive. But I'm like that thing was working on like five levels. Yeah, are you sure you got all five? Because I don't think you did, you know,

And one of them was this nuance of female power. Essentially, Um, you see a lot of women like I'm gonna pull Jessica Chas staying out and just for no reason. But she's very hardcore. She's like choosing movies and directors and stuff where she can show women in these different lights. And I think she absolutely should do that. But because she's the solo star, she's that woman. Right. What you want is ensemble pieces because they will show a variety

of person approaching problems in different ways. Right, So like the Alien cast can be multi ethnic the next time, more multi ethnic the next time around, or like the Colonial Marines people forget Asian people, Latin people although played by Jewish woman, uh, black people whatever, but they were sort of all intermingled with each other and they all approach problems differently based on personality, right, rather than Oh, that's the Latin dude, he's gonna do this, that's the

Chinese dude. You know, he's a martial artist, you know, or a tech head or whatever. Right, you just have to be thinking about it differently. And I think that's part of the giant, weird, sort of phenomena aspect of The Black Panther, which people aren't really quite twigging to yet. It has less to do with its blackness and more to do with the variety of women being shown. Right, Um, the kinds of women you can see. They're not just good girls and bad girls. There's not just mean girls

and nice girls. There's not just smart girls and hot girls or dumb girls or fat girl or any of that crap. Right, It's just there's a lot of different kinds of people, and some of them spend money on movies. Maybe show them like it's there's seven and a half billion human beings. Show some of them, but it's not rockets, but they make it. They make it rocket science. So with the Panther, I think that's part of the big phenomenal success of the movie is that it actually pushed

a lot of those buttons. I think wonder Woman did some of that, but I don't think it had frankly had one wonder Woman in it, right right, Like once you leave Paradise Islands, he's the only one you want. A room full of special women, that's what you went like, hidden figures, room full of special women. What happened? Blew up? It's not hard, it's not it's really not hard do the math man they make, but they try and make

it seem like it is. Nobody knows anything. We have to take another quick break, but when we get back, we're gonna jump into Black Panther's question as well as the future of Black Panthers right after this and we are back and uh yeah, let's just let's just talk a little bit more about the film because something I don't know. These are some actual numbers. So the budget was two hudred million and it made one point three

four seven billion dollars. Um. That's very exciting. Yeah, man, if you're if you haven't seen it, I can't imagine you being a subscriber of this podcast. Um, but I know that it did, and I mean I think that it has influenced a show as well. Actually only in a couple of minor, minor ways, and not for any particular reason except that while they were in when they were wrapping up principal photography, they were still shooting when we started making our show. And quite as it's kept,

Marvel is like working for the CIA. So people laugh. You just laughed. I'm not exaggerating. Um, projects do not cross pollinate. There's no unless somebody at the top says we want the Black Panther cartoon to be exactly like the movie. Therefore you need to sign all these non disclosure agreement and read the script so that it can be exact. Um, it's not going to be right. I forgot to mention that you were working on the comics, right, No, no, no, I thought you did write a black well yeah. They

pulled me in after like a weird thing. Should we edit? No, no, no, no, it's you decide I want. Okay. I saw that you had wrote a black Panther that was Alexis thing that they did as part of the promos for the movie when it came out, and they approached me because I was the guy who was on the Y and I created this other character for Marvel Mosaic. I was in the mix and they're like, oh, Jeff, you know he's you know, he's running the cell. He might want to do one of is right, And it was kind of fun.

It was kind of weird because it was Alexis Diet. But by the way, it's free go read it. I had a ball well, I was looking at the cover art for it. Yeah, but yeah, so the timeline, even if we'd wished to, there really wasn't a way to do it. Also, everyone's crazy secretive about these movies, so unless it's everything to need to know and animation. As as much as we love it, we geeks love it, uh, we were not on the need to know list. What we learned about the movie was basically from whatever the

public knew. So we saw the big kill Monger mask when it came out. That's when we saw the kill Monger man. We didn't know any of the actors until they announced who the actors were, so that's I would say, that's partly why the designs for our show don't match like the movie exactly. So um, I mean they're some of them are closer than others, but on the whole, like everybody kne who Claw was because he had already

been introduced. So as soon as they mentioned Andy Serkis is going to reprise Claw where we already know what he looks like as we saw him in Age of Ultron right. So that's an easy design to do. But the rest were just designed. So you gotta give it up to the designers. For um, I'm pretty sure once they knew that Homeboy plays kill Monger, all the ladies

love him and I can't. Ironically, was in the first episode of TV I wrote him and Jeff Goldblum, we're in the same episodes I wrote for kill Manger and the Grand Mask. Um. But um, I guess they got wind of who that was going to be, so they designed the character to sort of resemble the Killer characters esemble him. But the rest of it was just us like um, and it's probably probably not the best advertising tool to say we're not like the movie, but on another hand, if freed us up right. So now you

have three versions. You have the movie version, you have the comic book version, which is wildly different in the movie, like wildly different. Um. Yeah, and before we move and I forgot to mention Tnahs Coats, who we shouldn't or else people will write us. Yeah. I mean, if you were even starting to write something thinking that you knew about Teneze Coats before two gentlemen in the room, I'd erase it and then feel about typing it. Wow. And then also there was the The Black Panther series that

was by Marvel Knights. Yes, that was Reggie, Reggie Hudlin who did that. What was turned into the show was basically an adaptation of his one of his arts. Um and uh, I liked a lot of it. It was very slavish from my point of view. They wanted to sorry. I didn't want to be the one to say it was it on. I didn't want to be the one, and he was a president at the time. Help it's helpful.

But they also were very They wanted to stick so close to the original artwork of John Remeda Jr. That I think ultimately just this is I know Reggie, Reggie's a friend of mine. I'm not saying anything I wouldn't say to him. Um. I can see why they chose to do it that way. It makes sense that he would want to do it that way. But in the long run, I think there's a reason certain kinds of art stay in the comics and other kinds of art, or best to make a move in animation, and I'm

not sure that was the happiest marriage of styles. Um. But again, there's a lot of like, it's weird because these characters people think they're setting stone because when they see them in a movie, they think that's the character. That's the character, that's a black panther. Black panther has been around since before anyone in this room was born, right, And I'm way older than these two, so that's a long time. It's the point. Um. So what I feel like when I talk to people about it is like this.

When the hell Boy movies came out, real gigs were like, oh, damn, hell Boy movie. I don't even know why they're making a hell Boy because all the all the characters. Why hell Boy? I mean, I'm glad, but damn right, And then it came out It's like, Okay, this isn't exactly the comic comics, way slower, it's way darker than this movie. It's funny, but it ain't like this. This movie is way more full of jokes and sort of sarcasm and

stuff like that. I can see what they did, but the weird thing was hell Boy was still hell Boy. And that's the point. He felt like hell Boy. He talked like hell Boy, he did hell Boy things, he looked like hell Boy. So regardless of what else was going around, little modifications that they had to make and all that from my little gee comic book head, it

felt like I was watching a hell Boy. Then they put out some hell Boy cartoons which were not like the movie, and they weren't like the comic, but hell Boy remained hell Boy. He still acted like he felt like the hell Boy expected him to be. So if you look at the different Black Panther characters in the movie, the show in the comic, that character is essentially the same guy. Um Ours is slightly older than Chadwick Boseman's version,

probably slightly younger than the comic book version. Based on the craziness Coats has got him going, oh my god, but um, but we were free um and I think that ultimately helped us. Uh yeah. And you know, there's one round I want to talk about, mostly because I talked about it a lot. I actually was a big fan of this. A lot of people fight me on this, But the most Dangerous Man Alive when he comes to Hell's Kitchen. I was all about it. That was that

was that slapped. That was all about it. Plus I was like Shadowland was such a good like run and so I'm like geeked up off of that. Then my Man's to child gets to hang out in New York and then as a night here and once again his like which was a character from Things Fall Apart. It was it was like and there was only one part.

One part that I was not a fan of. It was the Feared Self crossover when they put my Man's up against hate Monger and and this is like, if you look up hate Monger now they got the swoled up one that I'm like, oh yeah, who kind of reflects the literally literally actually ate off hit. Yeah, but this guy, I'm not kidding, but this is this is the hate monger that was in Feared Self was a dude in a pink KKK outfit terror I'm like, how

is this dude terrorizing ta He's not. It was. It was such a pain but everything wrong that yeah, but well that's the thing, and that's another thing that could be a whole episode. As much as I love a good crossover, when when you forced because they because remember right when I started really getting into comics, which is around that time, a few years earlier, Like I'd say, right around like right after Darkest Night, I got your

getting really in the capes. That's when they went crossover crazy. Everything had, every book had event stop it and they're like, man, and I remember like being like, has this always been there? Like no before that. It used to be a long period of time before there, so it would be an event. Yeah, but then it was like there was And what the problem was because we're talking about this, uh, it kind of marries right into what you just said is because

they wanted the crossovers to coincide with the movies. Itself happened only to promo Captain America because that's when Red Skull came back, and then they had the other one with Thor to promote the Thorn movie. All of the crossover events, it was like it was so transparent that you were just doing this to sell it. And then and then y'all went crazy and canceled, Uh, Fantastic four to be petty, and it was pettiness. People keep saying that in the fandom, that's not petty. Okay, what's what's

the real money. When everybody, remember probably in the fan community, says it's petty, it's not they everyone who makes comics loves comics, the writers, editors that are everybody because the money is terrible. So if you don't love it, you're not in it, okay. But everybody above them in the executive suites, they're fighting the same fight that every publishing company, every studio fights. We don't own these guys. Fox is

putting out movies with these guys. They would like Fox to give these guys back to us, but if these movies keep making money, they're not going to every comic we put out, since they own the rights to the movies. In the Fantastic Four, if Danny comes in with a great idea, is fantastic for our ever written? She comes in, she sells it, They do it, They put it out. She introduces six brand new characters that everyone in the audience loves. Marvel can't do anything with them, but Fox can.

So you're just so so you're giving away you're giving away stuff. You're giving away free stuff to a company that you would like to give back your stuff, which they have no incentive to do and have no legal reason to do. They bought it fair and square, they're exploiting it fair and square. Now you got some juice because you just came hard with that iron Man stuff. So you're thinking, all, we want all of our property back. Well, I guess you shouldn't have sold it. Then it's hardball man.

So people in the fandom communities wanted it to be pettiness, like, well, we're just gonna be stinty about it, but it isn't. It's this is billions of dollars at steak. Oh yeah, I feel you in in the in the like, I am fully aware of that sense. It's still just felt because I wanted my fantastic and they had. But you're right, You're right. The reason I'm mad is because they went a whole new route with it, switched it up, and Fox could have created something really nice with it. Lucky

for Marvel, Fox was Fox. Wow, Fox, what were you thinking? How could you not get that? Right? Should call me? Oh my gosh, the Future Foundation, Oh my god, don't please, don't get me started on any of that. I I go weeks on that. So I think that we I'm going to just do this really lightning round of things that we haven't forgotten about Black Panther. We just have a lot to get through. And and Jeff is also a busy man. So also to put this energy out there.

If Marvel you need a little buffer between movies, let me write the Most Dangerous Man mini seris. Let me write that. I'll write that mini series. We could throw it up on your weird app and I love this guy and it'll it'll like, it'll hold people over to the next movie. Let me have that. That's what I'm meant to do. Um. Wait, okay, so I have a Storm. He had to relate. He was married Storm. A lot of people love the Storm thing, and a lot of the Storm fans love. My beef with is very simple.

My friend Reggie put that marriage together. I think it was a very business smart thing to do. Is putting a giant franchise together with a guy who needed some always needs a little bit of ex or whatever. Plus they're the most prominent black characters possibly in comics, the two of them. Um, it makes sense on that level. From my point of view, it is very simple. Every

superhero should be unique. Everybody should have their own rogues gallery, their own love interests, their own storylines all of that stuff, so that when I pick up a Black Panther character, I'm picking it up for that it's not Captain America, it's not Spider Man. And then it's fun when there's a crossover because Spiderman gets to go, what these are the people you fight? Good Lord or vice versa? Right or? Uh?

Lady Sift shows up Thor's love interest and she's kind of like, well, I know ever actually met Captain America before. He's kind of hot, Like, wait, you're supposed to be with me? Yeah, I know, Thor, but you know we're thousands of years old. I can get back to you. Steve Rogers cat over here, you know. Like that. That's sort of the fun of the crossover. But the mutant thing plus Wakonda, that's top heavy to me. I was just like, plus Storm doesn't need him and he doesn't

need her. It's I feel like they should have built up their own each one who Storm's real love interest? Now she's been with Wolverine for God's sakes, Come on, no, um, So that was my only beef with it, and I feel like, now, especially since you've seen in the movies, they could have taken a time to just build up a character that was worthy of Like, look, Batman and Catwoman, how long have they been dancing around? Right? All you needed was somebody the end of time, till the end

of time. They're not getting it. I feel bad. Well, they're getting it. That's not what I meant. Okay, Okay, my next one. Vibranium. Jeff, what can't it do? Okay? Now, there's kinds of vibranium, like there's different black panthers, and the comics is very specific. Vibranium eats and redistributes uh, kinetic or other forms of energy, but primarily kinetic. So it was in Africa billion billion years ago and the

Wakanan's discovered it and went, what is this stuff? And create an entire technology based solely on that, And it's the only place in the world that exists, so no one else has that, and that's why their stuff is so crazy and futuristic, and they can do all the stuff that technically shouldn't be possible. But vibranium is unobtainium.

It's it's it's just whatever. In the comics, in the movies, it's very interesting because again we don't have the X Men so we don't have access to adamantium, right, Marvel doesn't own that. That's all Fox, So vibranium starts to be sort of the place holder for both. Now it's the reason Captain America shields indestructible all of a sudden of stuff. That cap did have a sort of a

vibranium adamantium alloy shield at one point. I don't know what the status is now, but the original version was not freaking vibranium, okay, but it was from a meteor, so you could say it was broken off from the central maybe, I don't know, a lot of writers write this stuff like over decades, so it gets fuzzy. But that means there's a planet somewhere that's made entirely vi or was maybe it was Krypton. I don't know. But but so in the movies, it's a it's a fuzzier thing.

It's much more like adamantium. If you know comics, you know the different adam Mantium is that unbreakable, unstoppable, can't it can cut through anything if you hone it to an edge. It's it's sort of the thing that you would hit a god with because it can it can fight a god hammer that. But vibranium versus adamantium used to be a discussion which one would win, right, because if you come in with a slash, but you hit something made of vibranium and it eats all the energy,

it's sort of like he just tapped it. So does it cut? You know, like that in the movies. In the cartoon, they're basically the same same. So anyway, Yeah, sure, he actually took over the mantle of Black Panther have to do more, Yes, And I love that. Um, that's actually what led into the comic I was talking about. He was filling salty because he couldn't protect his country, so he went to Hell's Kitchen. I'll take over for

Daredevil while while my sister runs. That's your vacation. I'm gonna go to Hell's kitten and fight criminals without my stuff, just to like relax and so sure, so he had that was the big thing about most dangerous man in life. He had no powers. Then they went ahead and tweet that by having sure he run by the god of light and not like life and uh to Charlotte, the god of death. Uh, he's the lord he's the Lord of the Dead. Yeah, yeah, uh yeah. I mean writers

are crazy. They come out with wacky ideas and editors are like that sounds wild. Do that yeah, And then you look back on you're like, wow, was a weird phase my anyway, ask questions we were doing a lightning round now, I think that was my I was gonna So. Another thing is that even though in the movie Shure he has shown and she is she is one of the smartest people in the entire planet. But to Chola in Marvel's roster, I think it's like numbers, like, he's

also one of the most brilliant men. Like people know that he's one of the richest men you know from he's like, but he's also, yeah, one of the most brilliant. The easiest described to Chila is in the comics, certainly is if you know comics, especially Marvel comics, what if Dr Doom was a good guy. Yeah, that's the Black Panther. It's basically him, right, and there's no reason he there's

no dying, why he's in the Illuminati. Oh my god, I'm surprised he to just kill all of them, Like the Illuminati is such a fun idea because it's like none of these people's ego should let them work together. But I like seeing all these smart people, how they punk out some of the ones you thought, like you think, no, no, no, no, anyway, Read we were talking. So for those who don't know, the Illuminati is to Challa nay More, Professor x Read Richards,

doctor Strange and there's one more. No, no, that should be it because they all have an infinity stone and black panther. Yeah uh and so like that. That was like they that started beasts. That's literally how to Chala nay More ended up with a blood feud. That's how like so much. That was such a fun run when they really were hitting uh the Illuminati, Yeah man, that was that was some wild times. Just like they pumped out Captain America. He's like, you guys, they were like, dude,

we are the smartest, most powerful people. We don't we don't listen, just go away and hit stuff. Cap. We're not talking about that stuff. But the Illuminati, like in a weird way, they're kind of villains though yea, they wanted they were the most ruthless good guys in the history of good guys. Like they were like we will do anything to save the world, even blow up another planet full of people. Yeah, like at which they did do,

and I'm like, how are these Yeah? That that was that was that run when you had that, like the teams of people who made the hard decision because you got the uncanny what you call it, X Force and they were now, we better just kill this one. If you want to listen, if you're if you're like, oh, man, capes are too lollipop for me, read Illuminati Read Uncanny at X Force, because they Luminati were hard and those

were some fun runs. Oh my god, you couldn't make a whole like they had to basically disband or die out whatever, because there's no way that comic could remain that hard. Yeah, you can't say same people, both of them. They were just like, all right, we've we've gone as hard as we could. Let's send them back. But personality wise, with Black Panther, one of the things that I think Priest and Hudlin both did excellently was had to differentiate

him from He's not Marvel's batman. There was a lot of people in comic book were, well, he's just a black man in Marvels. They need a batman guy. I'm like, he's not crazy. He doesn't fight crime, he's not putting criminals in jail like that. He's richer than everybody. He's just as smart as the smartest dude, and his skill really is tactics. Also another thing powers. People always forget about this because they didn't do it in the movie. They put all his powers into the suit. In the comics,

he's he's Captain America level. You got this thing called the heart shaped herb the Black Panthers eat. There's a ritual around it, but it basically they're like what they call meta humans. He's like Captain and all the stuff they did to make Skinny Steve into Captain America. What con has just been doing that with this one fruit for like ten thousand years, right, So he's that, right, So even with nothing, with no gadgets, no nothing, just naked on a beach. Please don't start a fight with

this man. Yeah, like really, like I think I think that's uh, well, I just wanted to tap on the future. I mean, we can't talk about the future of we know there's a movie. That's why I thought. I mean, if he and I talked about this and if he and I know this is me, like just when I'm throwing shade. Um if he and I talked about this with Infinity War when he disappeared and everyone cried and we're like, but he has like a three picture deal, so idiot people, we're mad and I'm like, no, but

Spider Man also has a three picture deal. Tom Holland accidentally already gave it as never been to the movies before a movie. It's half a movie, true, right, they tell you part one, It's right in the title. But also they're not going to just kill off this huge character that they've just made a billion dollars. Let's tell you what. Let's stock at that billion dollars versus the Infinity Gar see which one wins. I guess, what do you think that they might tackle in the second film

or what do you want to see more? Christ I mean for me, Um, I liked what they did in the first one. They opened up a lot of doors. Um, I would like to see what they did with the women. I would like to see a real black villain that wasn't like killer because kill Marker is basically what Conda focus. I would like to see a global level threat that happens to be a black person. Right. Have you ever

seen that in a movie? I don't think you have, or if they've been played evil or whatever, they've been played like crazy, weird evil, like maybe Sam Jackson in the was it in The Queen and the Kingsman? Maybe, But that was just Russell Simmons as Dwayne. Dwayne already beat Marvel to that with this hobby. Straight up put a superhero in a car movie. You know what? Okay, wait, don't even get me started on that franchise that was a rip off of Point Break and it's now become

the car Acrobatic Team versus Seal. What the hell? I'm like, I'm here for it to bring you back by the way, I love those movies. Familiar. Yeah, I was so on the train before everyone figured out that you don't have to ironically like it. No, it's hey, I'll tell you what. And this is the last for this show. They did

a trick that most franchises can't do. It started out as a completely one kind of franchise and then they had one movie where they had a chance to flip it and if it hadn't worked, that would have been the end. And not only did you drift still to this day, and I promise I have no plans to change it. Have not seen Tokyo Drift. I was like, no good soundtrack. I mean, yeah that karaoke boys slaps they turned that. I'm gonna see it. Dan, I turned that corner. I don't know how they did. I still

don't watch Initial D another. I'll watch a whole season of a D before I watch Tokyo Drift. They got a feud going out of it? Are yeah, nerdificent? Come for the topic, we're talking about other topics. I mean, we've done this now that people are used to. That's what kinda drift to that? Right? Um, so let's just close up shop. We've we've flown. This has been an amazing conversation. Thank you for coming on my pleasure. I love talking about the show and even though we barely did. Um.

Is there anything you want to promote? Where can people find you? You can find me, Uh well, apparently on Twitter. I got a Patreon, which is I think it's Jeff Thorn Patreon. But what I really like the hype is I got these things called The Battle Books on Amazon at three Digital Comics, uh all brand new characters, superheroes, whatever, not all superheroes, science fiction, adventure or whatever. But they're

competing because I don't have time. So whichever one of them selves the most by the first of Spring is the first chapter of three different stories, completely different stories. Whichever one of them selves the most, even if it's by one sale, that's the story that gets to live, and the rest of them are just gonna sit in my vault, right. Yeah, And just to help out some

of the people listening, is Jeff spelled the other way? Yeah, the British way, the proper way, o f f Thorn with an e. It's all British from front to bat. Hey whatever, man, I didn't do any of that, that's all real. My parents did that. And if you wanted to catch up on Black Panthers quest, I know that it's online for people that you can get it on the Disney app uh Disney now app the whole thing. I think. Also, there's five free episodes up on um

uh YouTube. The first episode and then we did a sort of a weird time travel thing, so that whole arc is up there for free. And then there's this one weird one with bats and cloth. I don't like. I don't know why he chose that one. I mean, it's awesome, so random, but that's up there too. Um we had a ball, we got um please do watch it. One thing about the show is that it took a

minute for people to sort of figure out. It was a little different than the other seasons of the show because it's the season five of The Avenger Show, not season one of the Black Panther Show. Although it feels like season one of the Black Panthers Show, it's really season five of the Adventure Show. So I think people were like, oh, I've seen that before, I can wait on it. It's not gonna be new, but it is new.

It's brand new, completely different approach, completely different style. And now there's enough of it that you can binge it. I know all you young people like to do, so please bench the hell out of it. I was gonna say, you also had a Nika. Yes, she plays and yeah, and it's really cool because for those of you that don't know, which I totally know because she's in my Spotify because they listened to the soundtrack all the time

that she was a voice of Tiannas. So she was the first black Disney Princess, which is cool because she's in an animated show with the first black superhero. Also unique to our show. We created that character. She's a past black panther. She's the Queen of Wakanda from like two thousand years ago, like something crazy like that. Um, she was great by the way, I love her. Did you get her to sing? Not for me? Please please bring her back and have her do your voice? And

we love a Nika she was. She's lovely, so great. We got to where I got to Oh my god, I got to meet stan Lee. I got to work with our Hamil Hayley at Well, Haley at Well, y'all. I mean that that one aspect of the show, but also the regular cast, the people who play the Avengers, Uh, James and Daisy, who play to Challa and Shari. These people are lovely, lovely, lovely. One you had our friend Roger Craig Smith. He was on our sonic episode. That man is a madman. Have you seen those things he

does with her episode? But if you see those things that he does where he's just trying to get her to smile and see nope, I'm like, what is this. It's hysterical. It makes my day whenever I see him. Yes, he's awesome. She she roasted him on our on our show. Of course she did, because he's evil. He's my Captain America by the way, like everybody, all y'all can have Chris Evans. I'm gonna take my Roger Craigsmith. That that's right. He's capt to me. Yeah. He loves the Blue Sonic

and Calves anyway, So that's that's you know. Thank you for having me. I love it. You guys are great. Um, this is great. Thanks for speaking out about Black Panther and his history. I would just be doing this at my house. You know. My wife's like, are you still talking about Um? I am at ms Danny Fernandez on all the things. Pick up The Good Immigrant Book, UM, which is out now. I think when is this drop? What's the date it should be dropping? On Tuesday? What's

the day of it is? Yes, pick it out, it's out today and follow me on on Twitter where we tweet things, and oh yeah, check out our tea public side is te public dot com. Slash are difficent and send us pictures of you in our merch and we will retweet them or share them on Instagram if you and I love doing that. Y'all look good all right? And me, you know me, I'm at iffy. I have Y N B A D I W E on Twitter the nerve to mock my name, the nerve. I mean

you got the British name. I got the British colonial eyed name. That's the difference. Uh, they can they visited and left. If D's on Twitch, if you like to watch me play video games, lots of NERD fam coming through. And the Discord Salt Squad, I mean Discord Dot g G Slash Salt Squad. We're in there, Danny's in there. We're continue the combo and uh, you know a few

shows to promote. Uh if you're listening to this on the nineteen run, uh from from tonight when you're listening to it on Tuesday, because I hope you don't wait till anything besides Tuesday to listen to it. I'll be on the last show at the friend Bar at eight eight pm. On the one. At a p m. I'll be at the R and B lip Sync Battle at

uc B Franklin. On the two, I'll be at the Complex, uh doing the Color Collective, doing stand up there three at twelve thirty in the more Ting, so I gotta wake up, gonna be after I hit the gym, be doing Cold Cereal. It'll be there two year Anniverse eight. That night I'll be doing Turtle Hour and sometimes within that same time period, I'll be doing the Color Collective again. It's a two time, two day show. And then, uh, that's pretty much all the shows you have to see

me do stand up talking smack. It's gonna be a lot of probably what you just heard here. Are you sure you're not Jamaican? I mean, I'm gonna sign off now, Okay, alright, y'all too far. Look I was gonna go even first, uh and talk about my secret family. All right, Everybody but Nigerian's doing too, so it's not even that offensive. Stay near to y'all,