Warning this podcast can date spoilers for Black Panther Wakanda Forever. Hello, my name is Jason Concepcion, and welcome to x ray Vision, The Crooked Podcast where we dive deep, all the way to the bottom of the ocean into your favorite shows, movies, comics, and pop culture. In this episode in the Airlock, we're gonna be diving deep into the Black Panther Wakanda Forever. Rosie and I are gonna talk about the characters, talk about the themes, talk about our thoughts about it, talk
about some of the history. It's gonna be fun. A return of the omnibus segment. We're gonna talk about Wakanda, the Black Panther, and the Afrofuturism aesthetic movement in the Hive Mind. We will be joined by author, sociologist, professor, poet, and writer of the acclaimed Iron Heart comic for Marvel, Eve l Ewing. It was just so excited for this. If you want to jump around, of course, check the show notes for the timestamps and join me. Today is the writer Comics Encyclopedia.
She is the heart shaped the Great Rosie Day.
I'm saying, yeah, this is so exciting, I mean, most anticipated movie of the year probably, and here we are about to break it all down and talk about some of the amazing creators who made it possible and talk about this wild movie and of course like thirst over nay more.
So, Okay, let's get into it first. Up recapping Black Panther Wakanda Forever, we're stepping out of the air lock and into talkan to discuss the latest installment of the MCU, the last film in Phase four.
Black Panther Wikonda Forever.
Here we go, the last film in Marvel's Phase four, which is a wild thing to say. It opens in Wakanda, where in Suri's lab, the Princess is frantically trying to synthesize a replacement for the heart shaped herb, which was destroyed by Kilmonger, of course after he sees power in the first film. And sure he needs this because t'achala is terminally ill. The herb is his only chance to survive. She pushes through a formula to production. It's maybe only
thirty percent effective, Grio her Ai tells her. But before she can rush it to the King's bedside, Queen Romanda appears and the king has passed. You know, this was the big question, right is how are they going to handle it? And I thought they handle it with appropriate grace and real sadness. I mean there's a real.
Sadness and there is a space within this for the actors and the friends of Chadwick to mourn Chadwick while Morning T'Challa. After this, we get this huge funeral scene. It's a celebration, it's a morning and then boom a year later and we see the fallout.
One year later, French commandos are rating a Wakandan science facility. They force the workers there to open up a vault, but it is a trap out stride a Koye ao Aneka and other Dora Malaje who are who are disguised as the as the scientists there, and they easily best these commandos. Later, at a closed session of the United Nations in Geneva, Switzerland, American and French officials are just tearing into Queen Ramonda. They are saying that Wakanda has
not lived up to its obligations see International Community. I guess Wakanda had promised to share.
At some point the end of Black Panther, and this is one of the spanners that was thrown into the works with everything like the tragedies that happened during the two movies. The end of Black Panther opens with this idea of Wakanda being a nation that will be open, will be part of the global community, will share technology. Was going to open a STEM school in Oakland. You know that was influence.
We're going to give you.
We're going to give you vibranium, and also like greedy, this is they're greedy and it's going to cause a big problem for everyone.
Now.
Of course, vibranium, as we're going to see over the course of this movie, and as we saw in Black Panther, is a It's a wonder substance. It's not only a metal, right. It has a staggering number of applications. It's easily workable. It can be an indestructible substance, but a can also absorb, store, and amplify energy.
It can give.
People superpowers, on and on and on and on, and the rest of the world is like, hey share this stuff, and Wakanda rightly has said no.
Yeah, especially because they keep talking about how it can be used to make weapons. They're acting like.
That's what they would love to get them.
But really that's what they want it for. They want to make weapons of mass destruction with Wakanda with vibranium.
Yeah, and the Queen says, we're not going to do that because the rest of the world can't be trusted with vibranium. Whether Wakanda has ever actually again formally agreed to share this substance unclear, but would love to learn more about, like why the world thinks this. Whatever the case, we all understand she made the right decision, and certainly
the world does. When she then parades the captured commandos into the hall, the chastened French ambassador, it's unclear whether the French ambassador would have had any idea that this was happening.
You know it is, but they say that it was someone who was from a member state. And then the French ambassador, who's been kind of really pushing for.
This, is like, oh, I guess we've done bad stuff, and the Queen promises a harsh response if the world ever again violates Wakandan sovereignty. Later, somewhere in the Atlantic Ocean, there is a boat of CIA scientists protected by, as Tony might say, jasop guys and they have discovered a deposit of vibranium deep under the ocean. It is at this point the only known deposit of the material outside of Waconda. Scientists and diving suits are going in for
a closer look. But soon mysterious warriors are peering out of the waves, and one of these with wings on his feet, snatches a helicopter out of the air hurls it into the sea, and we can we're led to believe that all the scientists, everybody on this boat has been neutralized to be gay guilt.
And we hear a sirens song, and we see these men just throwing themselves off the ocean, off the boat, and.
It's not just a brute attack there.
These these people are able to somehow take over people's minds and.
Draw them on hypnotization that like the siren song of interesting, which like, I'm really glad that they're leaning into that because everyone's always said it's a mom man.
In Wakanda, the queen is worried about her daughter, Princess sureI Surey is taking to Challa's death very very hard. She blames herself essentially for not being able to save him. Queen Ramonda takes Shury to the bush Uh and there the Queen burns her ceremonial funeral gown, and she wants Shuri to do the same, but sure he can't move on, She.
Can't let go.
She says that if anything's gonna burn, it's going to be the world, which is alarming. At that moment, a man with winged feet emerges from the river nearby. It's our friend nay War. We get a good look at him.
Now.
He's looking good, He's looking really, really great. He somehow managed to evade Wakanda's cutting edge, cutting, cutting edge border defenses of which we have seen of the courses, you know, various movies.
By Now.
He tells them that his nation, Talakan, also has vibranium. They too, kept themselves hidden from the world, have kept themselves successfully hidden from the world, but Wakanda's Wakanda's emergence and her decision to reveal the existence of vibranium has the knock on effect of that is, it's awakened the world's greed for vibranium.
And they want to find vibranium. They want to find the source of it for themselves. They want to find new sources, which is going to definitely play in to the future of the MC you as well as just the ramifications of name Or now existing and being rightfully pissed.
So led by brand new technology that can ditect that can detect vibranium, the US military has come poking around in the ocean near Telekan's hiding place, and Naymar says, Wakanda has to take responsibility for the mess that it helped create. Wakanda should ally itself with Talakan and demonstrate that friendship, how by killing that scientist or capturing that scientist and bringing them to Telekan so that talcan can
then kill the scientist. And it's either that or name More promises that we're going to attack Wakanda, bring it to its knees.
Okay bye, And then Naymar.
Disappears under the water and he leaves the undersea vibranium detector curiously for Wakanda to kind of investigate into, I.
Just have to say, he's he's old man, he's rightfully angry. In my opinion, he might be. He's coming to them with a little bit of aggression. But this is the first of many times that nay More makes the correct offer to Wakanda that they should ally themselves.
They should ally themselves and nobody wants to listen to nay Moore, and so much of the horror of this movie could be absolutely avoided if Wakanda was just real about the outside.
World and the strength of allying with Talakhan.
We will we will unpack that later, I have.
I think one of the wonderful subjects of this movie is that Wakandan leadership. Listen, we love the Queen, I love Shuri T'Challa. May he rest in peace. I do think that specifically post the Wakandan revealed to the world, I think, uh, decision making has been spotty at best.
But that's a monarchy, baby. We're gonna get that problem, the monarchy, you know.
Should we have just been like, okay, kill Monger is the guy now, and I guess we got to do everything he said. Like on his side, I think there need there needed to be mechanisms by which to say, no, we're not just going to destroy all the heart shape her now, Like wait, hold on a second, it seems bad.
A.
Koya gets the identity of the scientist from her contact in the CAA. The Wakana's man in the CIA, Everett Ross, CIA agent and colonizer, has been feeding a Koya intelligence for years.
Apparently. The scientist's name is Reee Williams.
A nineteen year old student at MI T Surey, against the queen's wishes, goes with a Koya on the ostensibly snatch and grab a kidnap mission, right but but sure he is saying, Hey, I'm a brilliant scientist. Also, maybe I can talk to this person and convince them to help us.
Actually, they confront re Rea the.
Sudden appearance of a princess of Wakanda uh and a general of the Wakandan military. Let's re Reno that actually this is very serious, Like is very concerned that, Oh shit, did I piss off Wakanda?
Yeah, what do you think you'd like? I do want to say something that wanted to radio.
One of my favorite things is that she's like, did you make this for the CIA? Sure, he asks her, like, why did you do that? And she's like, no, I made it for homework. I made it for my metal g class. Like that lets you know that really is one of the most intelligent people in the Marvel universe. In the MCU. She did this. She created this thing as a as a homework.
Homework science took her a couple of months. It wasn't even that deep.
And one of the concerns raised by the ambassadors to the UN is that this vibranium cannot be detected by any existing technology. Metal detectors don't pick it up.
You can use it.
You can make a bomb out of vibranium then just walk it into the airport. Right but here, Rary Williams has figured out a way to detect vibraniums.
This is a big deal.
She takes Shurei and a Koya to her lab nearby, but before she can show them her you know, her research into the vibranium detector, the FBI surrounds the building. There's a big chase with shuriy and Akoye you know, on the streets and rear in her home brewce Stark Tech inspired Ironheart Mark one battlesuit, which gets its debut here but on a bridge over the Charles River, the
Talkanil ambush R trio of heroes. A Koya's fighting skills are world class, of course, but that Talacanil are super humanly strong, very very hard to kill, and Suri ends up convincing them to take her captive along with re Rey, to their king so that she can argue for Rerey's life. Rosie tell us more about Reary, Williams.
Yeah, I mean, this is such an exciting addition because this is probably one of, if not the quickest transitions we've seen from a character being introduced. Reary was introduced in twenty Sixteens Invincible I Am an number seven from volume three, created by Brian Michael Bennis and Mike Diodardo, So that's only six years between then and now her making her MCU debut. And then she's kind of like what we see in the movie, though in the comic
she was a little bit younger. She was fifteen. She's an MIT student super genius who in the comics built her own version of Tony Stark's Mark forty one suit as a pet project, and she did that while he was missing, presumed dead, and he was actually undercover in Madriport, And that was in the lead up to Road to Civil War two, and she would eventually appear in that event.
She was in some other comics that were tied to it, like Guardians to the Galaxy, but wouldn't debut as iron Heart until the first issue of the fourth volume of Invincible iron Man, which was that famous cover where she's in the suit and it says you know iron Heart on the cover. That story stuck to this idea. She's from Chicago. It's got a little bit of early Mars moralesness to it. AKA. Her story was quite it leaned
into some tropes. She'd been in trouble at school. The police were going to arrest her because, I will say, salvage the parts to make the iron Heart suit. So really, the version of Really that we are seeing now is the Eve Viewing expanded holistic that was introduced in the twenty eighteen solo iron Heart series with originally drawn by Kevin Lebranda and then Luciano Veccio and Jeffolded some pencils and layouts, and that was where Ironheart became a Marvel legend.
That was the story that made people fall in love with her. That was the story that showed that she was a super genius who was also a normal teenager who had this unbelievable relationship with Tony Stark. That was this mentorship, this beautiful space where she could be the smartest, most impressive version of herself with someone who was her peer. We know in the MCU Tony is dead rip sorry to that man, But in Eve's in Eve's Iron Heart story in issue nine, Tony arranges it for really to
visit Shuri in Wakanda. And obviously what we're seeing in the movie here is leaning more into that Rheree's relationship is not one of a mentor with Tony in the MCU, it is one of a burgeoning partnership and alliance with Wakanda, with Shuri, with one of the only people in the whole of the MCU who can go toe to toe with her on an intelligence level. And it's very exciting to just see her be thrown into this wild world. And as you said about you know about to go to Talakhan.
Well, in a vast Karen under the ocean, Shuri meets kokoul Kan, who the Talakanil worship as their god and whose enemies call Nemour.
When he.
Will pause there because I just want to say that when when when Nemour explains the origin of his name, I was like, whoever came up with this is the smartest person.
Ten out of ten ten out of town.
Yeah, just one of the coolest origin of an name, one of the most smart recontextualizations which this series the Black Panther movies have been known for. But it is it's like gosp out loud good.
It was amazing.
So he tells Suri of the history of himself and his people. Over five hundred years ago, native people around what is now called the Yucatan Peninsula were dying of smallpox brought to the land by Spanish Conkystradores. One of the shamans of the indigenous people has a vision that leads them to find a plant in a cavern underwater.
Looks very much like the harsh sure.
Right, It's slightly different in color, maybe a little blue in color, but looks to be the same, and the people create a kind of potion out of this plant. They ingest it. It protects them against the smallpox, but it also turns their skin blue and takes away from them the ability to breathe air, but gives them the ability to breathe underwater.
Her name or his mother, who is pregnant at the time.
Had to be persuaded to take the plant, but she does and her child is born with amazing abilities that are beyond what the tealcanill have, and he becomes the leader, the king, the god in fact to his people. Years later, following his mother's dying wish, Cookoulcan returns to his mother's human village to lay her remains to rest, and there he finds that the Spanish have enslaved the local indigenous people.
In retribution, he slays.
Them and by the way, he looks like he's like but he's probably like fifty or something, but he makes like a baby yees.
So he slays the conquistadors and as one dying priest looks upon him, you know, with fear, the priest says that this this boy describes the boy as El Nino Cinemore, the boy with out love, and from this no more could cool kind of takes his name of war and I was like, holy shit, that's it so clever.
And my favorite thing about it is like, at first it sounds a little bit like Emo, and it's kind of like he has no love because his heart's broken and his mother is not there.
But really for the service, he has no love for the service.
Well, that's like the hardest shit in the MC I
could not believe it good. I'm just obsessed so good, And to be able to recontextualize, like we haven't even really gotten in nay More is you know, one of Marvel's oldest characters debuted in like nineteen thirty nine and has throughout history been entangled in some of the more problematic and racist depictions of characters of color, and like Marvel's own fear of especially like Asian communities and this idea of an Asian superpower, and ironically some of that
actually makes the old name or stuff. Some of the panels are quite radical, and you see this kind of like interesting subversion of what they.
Thought they were against the white race. Yeah, like he's on.
His mission to kill the white man or whatever.
Like, but.
I love that they took this name that was given to him, you know, the submarrin or name or always been quite a character of people been like, oh, he's wearing some pants, he's got wings on his he's quite silly, he's quite campy. And to create an origin for that name that is so directly linked to this brilliant recontextualization and this very what feels very authentic to the conversations that are being had and the realities of the horror
of colonialism. It's just so cool like that, that is just a level of craft and detail in writing that just cannot go uncelebrated. So I'm glad that I'm glad we brought it up.
It's so good, beautiful.
The Queen travels to Haiti, where Nikia is running a school. She has lived there apparently since the blip. Devastated by to child's death, she just couldn't bring herself to return to Wakanda, not even for his funeral. The Queen convinces Nikia to uh to you know, bring back her super spy skills and track down Princess Shuri, who is who is missing and in the hands of the Talkanil. Meanwhile, Everett Ross's new boss, the Contessa Valentina Allegradfontaine.
Is all over his ass.
The CIA director wants to refound She wants to know how the Wakandans because who else would do this tracked her down, and the Kintessa also wants to start thinking about how we can respond, how we can start destabilizing Wakanda.
Also, she's Ross's ex wife. Very interesting, very very interesting.
Her romantic entanglement was with Nick Fury and were very interested to see if that was going to come up. But it seems that they've decided to do like these little Cia romance. Terrible hate for both of them, but you know what, Ross comes out of this looking better out of the pair.
I will say also in the annals of We Were Right, it's not quite we were Right, but over the course of this movie, our theory that the Contessa's plan is to create the superhero team that follows orders, you know, is burnished by her actions in this movie.
Yeah, and we you know, we definitely got some we were Right stuff that we got into, but that's true. Also very interesting to see that something I was wary about that we've talked about is like the Thunderbots has to be a villain team. It doesn't really make sense otherwise.
But the way that they built in I understand the expanding this Black Panther universe have to fit into the rest of the MCU, I think is some of the stuff people have been struggling the most with with like the folks on Ross and Contessa and I totally agree, But well, I did really like credit to Ryan and his co script. She's a villain like no question, absolute villain.
I feel like in the TV shows they were doing more of a is she just like a different way of running things, But no, she's the director of the CIA and she sucks.
She's putting together the Avengers team quote unquote Avengers team, that is soldiers that are people that will just like decapitate people in the street. Ross finds Suri's beads communication beads under some wreckage at the attack site in Boston, and he uses them to warn the Queen that the US government might be preparing to do something to move
against Wakanda in some sort of way in Talikan. Under the seat the More takes Shuri to Talikan, and the culture and the beauty of the place and the obvious strength and the unity of its people just ows her away.
She asks the King if she.
Can take read back to Wakanda, and she promises that there she's going to advocate strongly on Telecon's behalf anymore is like I've got a counter deal. Wakanda allies itself with Telecan and side by side we wage war against the nations of the service. And he makes some good points, he said, and defang them so they can never again threaten either of us an lave and yeah, take our take our resources, et colonize.
Us not necessary.
She I feel like this is a character be that I understand for this movie's sake, But I do feel like, sure he would be the one person who would be most open to this. But she is quite horrified because she's like, well, lots of people didn't do anything bad up there, and I don't know if we would want to do that.
I think in Suri's you know listen.
Allying, I think is a good idea waging war against the entire surface world, which is very in line with Naymor's character history and a thing that he has done time and time and time and time again in the comics for various reasons, some of them actually pretty just reasons, like I get it would.
There are other.
Ways to do it, like I don't need we we like, you know, to sure He's credit the idea of just jumping straight out to a state of active warfare against the entire world probably not a great idea, but also you can see how this is going to lead the nations of the world to hate superpowered people, in particular superpowered people like no More.
Who by the way are mutants. I was going to say, we should say this, we should say this. We've had the ab mutation. We've been waiting for someone to be cold a mutant name. He does it, says I was a mutant. He says I am a mutant. He says the word he means in the context of his community.
Yes, And the truth.
Is that, you know, Jason, you really smartly brought this up in pre pro But like nay More, is not the only mutant. He might see himself that way because he is a mutant in comparison to his people, who he can be above land, he can be underwater. They can only exist under the water. But his whole community are mutants, and apparently from a vibranium rich soil and
the plant which allowed them to become mutants. This is very interesting, and I think there is a world where we see that come into play down the line to introduce more mutated characters. We know that we're not going to get an inhumans in this world. Miss Marvel kind of proved that we're not there yet. This is going
to be a mutant situation. So I wouldn't be surprised to see a version of the plant or a vibranium rich soil or that could be turned into some kind of myst almost like a tarage of myst I'm weaponized to create.
Moment.
That's a great point mutants, because I think what we're seeing.
You know, they didn't kind of spell this out, but my guess for why no More has his abilities is he had the ex gene just passed to him by his parents, right, And something about the active ingredient in this plant, this vibranium based plant, awakened.
That and supercharged his powers.
All of which is to say, mutants are here, and they are here now in vast numbers in the form of the Talcanol.
We're talking about thousands and thousands, tens of thousands of people maybe more living in Talakan as a symbol of.
Naymar's word, right, and you know the generosity of his offer. You know, in his view, he gives Shuri a bracelet which is woven from the very plant which gave the Telecanel their powers belong.
To his mob us. So this is a very intimate moment. And I will say they must have chemistry tested the fuck out of Letitia and who plays nay More because there is such an unbelievable spark between them. These children of these hidden nations, respect respect, but there's like a bond, but there's like a slight flirtation, but it's not necessarily romantic. It's more of a It's like they spark each other's curiosity.
And the whole time I was watching it, I was just thinking, like, when Sue Storm comes into the MCU, is gonna be it's happening. Do it in the first movie. It needs to be there because.
That is good.
The way that they play with that relationship. His performance is the standout for me in this film.
Is he established at charisma, this this danger, this relatability and real older against real arrogance, but based on like legit. Yeah, just reason for just reason, but also because he is probably the most powerful person on earth apart from as he will learn like the Black Panther, you know. So yeah, I was just blown away by him and that the Talakan stuff was really my my favorite part of this movie.
And I just kept thinking about him and Letitia were so good together in those small moments that they had. I was like, I need to see him with Sue Storm.
I need to see him break up the marriage because sure is stronger person than me. I would have been like, yes, let's do the war. I'm cool with it, man.
And we should add unless unless we're unless we find out that apocalypse is out here, which might be a case.
Right, this is the first first mutan. This is the first muta.
And they're not just that they made him five hundred years old, so you're talking about a first mutant. It's not one hundred years old, not one hundred and twenty years old. This is a mutant who has lived in what is essentially a secluded secretsist We were right. Secret societies are a huge deal going into secret wars, and not only that, but he potentially has a more locks sque community of secret mutants. So look always saying is this is a secret society of mutans that nobody knew
about even in the Age of the Avengers. So there's probably other secret societies of mutants that are hidden in this world.
Well, you know, five hundred years this also in the comics, No Moore has this whole history before his appearance, you know, fighting the Fantastic Four, you know, in the Silver Age of comics, as a fighter in World War Two. All of which is to say, is five hundred years gives you a lot of back centuries that they could fill in in various ways. Is this the first time that no More has has interacted with the surface. I'm going to guess not. I'm going to guess there's other things
that we're going to find out that he's been involved in. Later, Nikia, having discovered the sight of Nomor's mother's village, finds out where Shuri and Reri have been taken, and she gets there, goes under the sea to the cavern where they're being held, and she goes to break them out. She kills two Telecanal guards in the process, and Shuri is like, oh my god, we got to save this person's life, and Nikkia is like, no, we have to leave right now.
And Surrei knows that to take the lives of too Tealcanil like this means that war between the Talcanil and Wakanda is going to happen.
And in Shuri's defense, I love this. This is a true moment of leadership. She tries to use the Kimoo beats to save the lives of the Talacanal gods and in one of the few mistakes that Nakia makes because she's generally like one of the smartest people in Wakanda, she doesn't listen to Shuri, and that is like a heartbreaking moment because it leads to this kind of huge conflict that could have been avoided.
Now, Wakanda steals itself for the blow. But when the More arrives, the most advanced nation of the surface world, their defenses are completely worthless against only a handful of Nomore's warriors. Tidal waves devastate the capital cility Talkano warriors leap from the backs of Wales to lay waste to the streets, but all of this is a distraction to allow no More to strike at Queen Ramonda.
She gives her.
Life to save Rear and it's a heartbreaking moment. Shuri finds her mother now passed like this has just happened moments before, and the More tells Shuri more than you're dead, I'll be back in a week, your queen. Now it's your decision about how to lead the nation. Next, I'll be back with your decision about whether you're going to
a lie with my people. And if the answer is no, just so you know, I'm gonna when I come back in a week, it's going to be at the head of my entire army, not just a handful of my warriors. As Queen Sure, he just wants vengeance. We heard it, you know earlier in the movie that she wanted the world to burn because of her feelings of the surrounding the death of Chachala, and now this has sharpened those
feelings to a really keen, killing and dangerous edge. Imbaku tries to talk her out of it, you know, the Wandan's He notes that the Talcan will consider name more their god. If you kill their god, the war will never end. The war will be existential. It will be my children, my children's children. It will go on and it will go on and on and on until.
One of our nation's perishes. And Sure is like that's.
Fine, and also just want to shout out Winston Duke so good and Barkoo's still a standout, there's a great standard. One of the best moments, like the biggest laugh moments in this really somber movie, is like he walks into the council eating.
Cara and calls a.
Koye a bald headed demon, and it is like our whole cinema just lost its ship, like I want to see more in Baku. I love him. I love that recontextualization of the character. Winston Duke, you are king. Thank you. And without Winston Duke, I don't know if we would have got like thick name more, you know, I feel like, yeah, I feel like we would have got like this. Winston changed the the idea of like what a Marvel character
can look like. And you know, people love him for it, and and he's delightful and I'm just so happy that that Nomore is more in that mold of like a just like a chunky, strong guy. We need more of them.
I absolutely love it.
Using the bracelet that the More gave her, she successfully synthesizes, you know, a kind of heart shapter based on the talcanal plant, which is a biochemical twin of the heart shaped her. She takes that potion herself and goes to visit the Ancestral Plane, but it's not the ancestral plane. She finds herself in the flooded throne room, a version, you know, the incestral plane version of that very interesting in Capital City, and she wakes up.
Underwater after using the plant. I think that we cannot underestimate.
That's a great point, the.
Importance of this essentially being a combined version of the heart shape up and whatever the plant of the talcanal is. I'm I'm very interested to see where that leads.
So she finds herself in the throne room. She's behind the throne, someone sitting in it. She walks to the front of it and we're thinking it's going to be the Queen, or it's going to be T'Challa.
It's Killmonger.
Oh my cinema just absolutely lost its mind last night, like screaming. That was like, that's the big you know, the Spider Man. There was so many of those moments. This is that moment where people just lost their mind.
Michael B.
Jordan delivering as always. And I love the reasoning of him being there.
Yeah, and Killmonger knows that surely wanted to see him.
That's why he's there.
She chose she wanted, and he knows it's because he is the one person who will agree with what she wants to do next, which is wipe out the telecanil. No more must die. And when she wakes up, Nokia's like, where'd you go? Who'd you see would you talk you know, what was the ancestral plane, Like who'd you talk to?
And she's like, I'm not talking about it.
She's like I failed, and then she just like smashes up the lab and obviously has super strength, so it's like, think it worked, babe, but it worked.
Valentina breaks into Everett Ross's house to arrest him. She had the beads bugged from the very beginning. She heard everything Ross has told the Wakandans, and Ross is like, yeah, well the Wahannahs are awesome and they saved my life so and they're right, so I guess I'm going to jail. Ross says it would be terrible to imagine what the United States, what other countries would do, but specifically the United States would do if it controlled vibranium all by itself.
And the Contessa is like, well, you're going to prison for us of your life. And by the way, I dream of a day when we control vibranium.
That's when you do whatever we will want. She's obsessed with power, she's obsessed with owning this resource, with colonizing Wakanda, and with using it for her own nefarious.
Means, and by the way a very a a very juicy and vibrant plot from various Marvel comics throughout the years, like the world is greedy for the resources.
That will go and I think as well, this is I'm not a huge fan of Everett Ross and the MCU, but I do think this scene is the closest we've gotten to the Christopher Priest stuff that we talk about in the omnibus y, where it's about Ross understanding who the Wakandans are, his awakening to them, and the sacrifice that he will make at because he realizes what the
right thing to do is. Most of I feel like that has been mostly a misunderstanding of his character in the MCU, but this is the closest I feel like that we get.
In this moment, Surrey, now clad as the Black Panther, leads her people to war, and her plan is to take Rerea's detector out to see use it as bait to lure the Talcanill to attack, and then they'll trap me more inside like a flying microwave and they will dry his ass out. Here's where I just want to put a pin in this and discuss it so we you know, again, I think Wakanda needs better leadership at I think I think some of the I think some
of the decision making process is not good. And I would like to highlight that Rear's plan is to fight the fish people on water.
They could have just they could have literally just fought him on a different bit of land that wasn't Wakanda, Like, Yeah, you didn't need to fight him on water where all his people are coming. They got crazy underwater technology. They have these un Something that is really cool that this movie introduces and I think is very unique, is these water bombs that kind of makes there. It's really cool.
I will say, if you enjoy the more stuff here, you enjoy the taler Canal, please go and watch James Wan's aqual Man, because I do feel like that movie. This movie would not exist without that, and a lot of the stuff they do in that movie is definitely influential. But I really felt like the idea of this talacanil technology and the bombs and everything is very unique and very visually beautiful. But why did she want to fight him at the seat?
I guess I would say, I get that you had to lure him, but you know what, I am on the seat I think.
The idea of and this is something I would have liked to see expanded a little bit, but it leans into Sherry's comic book canon, especially the run when she becomes Black Panther, you know, the reginal Hydelan run. She is at this point not making sensible decisions.
She is she's absolutely she's very revenge.
She's consumed with it, and that leads her to make this very silly decision that does kind of end up working out, but it works.
Not a great idea, well, well, it kind of works, I would add. So there's a big battle, right they go out to see the talcanill are are alerted to the presence of this vibrium detector in the water. News gets to no More. He leads his forces against them. Re Re debuts the iron Heart mark too.
Which she was building in a montage in wac.
Powerful looks super coolium yeap.
Probably made a vibranium Okoya and Neka fight in two brand new Shuri designed pieces of Wakandan battle armor, also clearly like vibranium tech very powerful. Sure, he gets nay More in the microwave and the two get separated from the main fight where Akoye Ao Neka Baku and the rest of the Wakandans are at sea, trapped on their ship fighting off the tylecanil. And I should add that, you know though the plan again the plan, Surei's plant
kind of works. What like eight hundred Wakandans die in this I was gonna say, they get they get wiped out, there's gonna end.
There's like twelve condos. I was gonna say, there's like twelve people who say Wakanda forever. And I'm like, babe, you could have avoided all.
Of eight hundred people.
So I know you could have made more of that. Amah for like the Midnight eight you know, like is not the best plan.
So Shuri's microwave plane crashes in the desert because more, even in a weakened state, is extremely powerful.
And he uses he has a he has a spear made of raw vibranium processed and he uses it to crash the plane.
And he's potentially again like as strong as the Hulk in the water, probably stronger, you know, I guess the Hulk theoretically you get as strong as he wants, the angrier he gets. But like Hulk levels class one hundred level strength.
And they mentioned this very briefly, but I think it's really interesting. Nay More is covered in vibranium. They always say that everything that he wears, his his his jewels, his his his kind of costume, whatever it is, that's all covered in vibranium. So he has a similar energy signature power kind of vibe to a black panther who is wearing a vibranium suit.
So they fight in the desert, and it is a brutal, brutal fight, but even a dried out, partially weakened no More is incredibly powerful, more powerful than the black panther. He impales her on his vibranium spear and then goes to stagger back to see sure he frees herself, and then to square off again.
We get to fucking we.
Get saying imperious Rex in his in his language, and it was like, yeah.
That's a famous comic cry. That's it's it's iconic because everyone's like, what does that even mean? And what I only really like got into it recently. But this shows the absolute power of this movie, which is this word, these combination of words that's so comic, booky and so poppy. When Tenoch says it in the Talcanil language and looks at kind of looks towards the screen, it feels just like fuck, like we're seeing something unbelievable here.
It was so so cool Suri. Then you think they're going to fight again. But then Shuri crosses his arms, says Wakanda forever, and she triggers the blasters of her crast ship like the Thrusters, and just.
Bakes anymore and very brutal.
Some baked fish here, maybe with a little bread crumb on top, it would be delicious. Suri then stands over no more he is he could die potentially right now, just as Kill Munger, just you know the moment that Kill Munger described in her vision in the Ancestral Plane. It's here now. Suri then reflects on everything that she has lost, and she hears the Queen telling her that now she needs to show no more who she is.
And this is a huge deal because Suri it doesn't believe the Ancestral Plane exists. She barely believes that the kill Manga thing was real. She just thinks it's something she needed to see. And we see Ramonda in the traditional ancestral plane talking to Shuri saying show him who you are.
She stands over him and she makes him this offer. She will as queen ally Wakanda with the telecan Ill. The Wakandans will protect the seas for the Teleconill protect the surface you know around where telecan is well. Keep their secrets, keep their secrets. But no More must yield, promise to stop pursuing rere and promise to not wage war against the surface world. Nomour yields and the Talcaneal return home.
Yeah, there's this really, this is one of my most powerful like chills moments. They fly down the Wakanda's is about to be killed. There's on like fourteen of them left, and no More and Shuri come down on this plane together and they sort of you know, they say dead and they say like Talacanill rise Wakanda forever and Talacanill go home. This shows really, I have to say, on
your point, the monarchy of Wakanda has a problem. Yeah, because the real truth is sure we could have avoided that eight hundred deaths by just having a little combo making this offer before something I feel like, but I understand that Namo needed to see the strength of the black understand that they were strength all but still rip can say this.
It will be a problem going forward.
There will be hard line factions, yes, of both the Talcanill and the Wakandons, who go that's it.
No, this is not over.
Certainly the Wacanons are going to say we some Wakandans are going to say, we lost how many soldiers and now we just let it go.
Pursue this.
They attacked our cab, we lost the queen, and now eight hundred soldiers dead. No, we're pursuing this to the end. So this is gonna be an issue going forward. Wakanda rebuilds, re re returns to mit, but the iron Heart Armor has to say, Wakanda, that's pretty wise.
Nakia returns to Haiti.
In Talakan, Nomura is giving Nay more shit for kneeling to the Wakandans, and he's like, no, no, trust me. This is fucking great because here's why we're allied with the strongest nation of the surface world by far, and one day the rest of the surface world is gonna attack. Wakanda isolate. They have no we're our only friend, and they will wage war against Wakanda and when that happens, Wakanda and Talikan together will defeat the surface world.
Love that great plan.
Suri blows off her official coronation at Warrior Falls to go to Haiti, and there she burns her funeral garb, just as her mother wanted her to. In America, a Koya Freeze ever ross from custody. He is coming back to Wakanda with everyone, and in the sting in Haiti, Suri burns her funeral garb and Nikia introduces her to her son to 'challa's son, Prince T'Challa, who looks to be about six years old. What a movie Your quick thoughts?
Yeah, very emotional, beautiful cinematography, great performances. My biggest takeaway is No More. I absolutely adored the Talakanal stuff. I really want to know more about No More. I think it's set him up as a true you know, we talked about this before, but kill Monger is right with such a huge thing coming off Black Panther. I feel like with No More, it's like five thousand times stronger argument, and I'm really I wish there'd been a little bit
more and No More. I think she's incredible, also very ironic because a lot of the inspiration here was probably taken from Namora Number one, the original introduction of that character from the Golden Age setting at a Mayan underground secret society they worship of God Couko Khan, you know,
so a lot of inspiration was taken from that. I'd like to see more of No More, No More, but I like that conflict they set up between the two of them, where he might be he might end up as more of the Charles and she ends up as more of the Magneto. Also, we'll say, look, I love the X Men. Yeah, but I feel like currently No More is really gonna be that Magnio staff figure for
the MCU going forward. He has that direct action. The politics or that are right, but the the the way that he will approach it is not going to make everyone happy. Yeah, very emotional, great performance, is beautiful cinematography, and No More. I love you. I'm so excited to see more.
I can't.
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to zebiotics for sponsoring this episode. Welcome to another chapter in the Omibus where lower analysis and understanding come together. This week Afrofuturism and the Black Panther. The Black Panther and Wakanda are an early example of afrofuturism, which is a term coined by cultural critic Mark Derry in his nineteen ninety three Say Black to the Future, which explored
the paucity of black creators in sci fi. Filmmaker and scholar Yatasha L. Womack, in her book Afrofuturism The World of Black Sci Fi and Fantasy Culture, defines the movement as quote both an artistic aesthetic and a framework for critical theory. That quote come by elements of science fiction, historical fiction, speculative fiction, fantasy, afrocentricity, and magic realism with
non Western beliefs. Some other examples of Afrofuturism that you might be aware of, or the works of Jean Michel Bosquiat, the Jimmy Hendricks Experience, Parliament, Funkadelics kind of like ufo esthetic and lore, the works of Octavia Butler, and the late rapper MF. Doom Wakanda is the most technologically advanced superpower on Earth in the MCU, a utopia melding supercomputers, incredible weapons, spaceships with fictional African traditions, the Rasia of
the heart shaped Herb, Warrior falls, and so on. At a time when racial caricaturing of non white characters was commonplace, see any of Marvel comics or any comics at all. DC Anybody's nineteen sixties depiction of Asian characters and any
character of color. Really, kirbyan Lee avoided such pitfalls with the creation of Ch'chala without a doubt, Loyola professor Dilifu Nama writes in his book Super Black American pop Culture and Black Superheroes, The Black Panther and Wakanda offered unprecedented and upbeat images of Africa and African people. When Reid Richard's, among course the most very brilliant minds in the Marvel Universe, first count encounters Wakandan technology.
He's blown away.
Quote he took a metal device from inside his toga, Reid says in Fantastic four number fifty two. But it's so small. Can he actually transmit a message halfway around the globe with that? As radical as the intersection of technology and blackness is the presentation of Wakanda as a nation which has time and again successfully defended itself from European invasion and colonization. Wakana compels respect from the world's
great nations, its superheroes, and it's supervillains. The nation has no history of colonial trauma to transcend Wacana's existence as a free, self sufficient geopolitical power is a powerful critique
of colonialism and the economic exploitation of Africa. The introduction of Ulysses Claw sharpens that point of Belgian mercenary, son of a Nazi war criminal, Claw, the Black Panther's nemesis, is obsessed with obtaining Wakana's vibranium to Chile's origin story rising from the title of Black Panther after beating back clause murderous assault on his nation, is as NAMA Rights quote, the idealized composite of Third world black revolutionaries and the
anti colonialist movement of the nineteen fifties that they represented. The first Black Panther film calls on numerous elements from T'Challa's comics canon, the most notable being for Me Panther's Rage and the Client. The former is a storyline which is an epic storyline written by Don McGregor with art by Rick Buckler, Billy Graham, and Gil Kine, which played out in the pages of Black Panthers solo book, then embarrassing titled Jungle Action from September nineteen seventy three to
November nineteen seventy five. Rosie tell us more about Bill Graham.
Yeah, Panther's Rage is a really monumental book, not just because it's widely seen as one of the best arcs of Black Panther, but also it was drawn predominantly by Billy Graham, who is arguably the first black creator who was hired by the Big Two. The book also had a black uncredited assistant on it, Arvil Jones, and Billy Graham had already done work at Marvel because he had inked the first ever issue of Luke k Chero for Hire in nineteen seventy two and continued to ink or
pencil that book for its first sixteen issues. One of the things that's most memorable about Billy's art on Panthers Rage are these unbelievable title pages. He would draw, these huge names written out of rock, and Billy has long been an undercredited part of Marvel history. So it's really wonderful to see people revisit Panther's Rage and learn about the impact that Billy and his art had on Black Panther and this landmark arc.
The Client is an art written by Christopher Priest with art by Mark to Share It not the baseball player part of a character redefining run on the Black Panther solo title, which was first published in the late nineties and is just tremendously influential, Like unbelievably influential in Panther's Rage, T'Challa, back in Wakanda after many years in the States, is struggling to adapt to a nation that has kind of been is in the midst of kind of coming apart
because of pallace intrigue, and he's trying to balance his love life and also his responsibilities as a leader. And he faces his most dangerous nemesis yet, a Condon named and Jadaka who spent time in America changed his name
to Eric Kilmonger. Panthers Rage was groundbreaking comic storytelling. The story was set completely in Africa, in Wakana, far from the urban settings in which most you know, kind of mainstream media stories set in a black context were told, and it was quote at a time when strident expressions of black cultural pride were cresting in the United States. Right It's Nama and super Black. The story unfolds over thirteen issues, which was this was not done back then.
This was not really done in comics. The thirteen issue story, like arc didn't really happen back then when it was hard to find comics, like you didn't know most people got them off the rack. There were not that many comics stores, and so to do a thirteen issue arc was really it was an investment, and it was and it was It's cool that it happened, but it was really your trusting people are going to be able to find these comics and follow the story. It has been
described as Marvel's first graphic novel. The Crease Skrull War, for instance, which was published in nineteen seventy one seventy two, was told over eight issues in the pages of The Avengers. Panthers were aged features, with one exception, the villain Venom and All Black cast, a first from mainstream comics. In their first confrontation, Kilmunger tosses the Black Panther over Warrior falls, declaring your line of dissent and you'll take nothing for
me ever again. Goodbye, great and mighty King. You've returned to the land of your birth, only to die here. T Chila bounces back from this defeat much quicker than he does in the first Panther film. But this, you know, this defeat really shakes to childdo his Core and its
subsequent issues, he faces various challenges to his authority. Christopher Priest, who in nineteen eighty three he became the first black writer be hired at the big two comic houses, Marvel and DC, began writing Black Panther in nineteen ninety eight.
At the time, this was a really tenuous time in comics written large and in particularly at Marvel, which was just then emerging from bankruptcy after the kind of collectibles wide bust of the early to mid aughts that included comics and included beanie babies, included trading cards, etc. All those things just tanked, and the company at that time was just kind of willing to try shit, just throw anything at the wall and see if anything came of it. One of those things was a new line of edgier
comics branded as Marvel Knights. kN Ights Editors Joe Casada and Jimmy Palmiatti approached Priest about Black Panther. Christopher was initially hesitant to do it, but he accepted and it was a transformational run, breathing new energy to the character and lore. Quote he had the classic run on Black Panther period, and that's going to be true for a long time. Tom mcacy coats Black Panther writer and now Superman writer told Vultures Abraham Raisman in twenty eighteen, Priest
brought a real kingly wait to T'Challa's character. Contrast this with Panther's rage, where T'Challa was more unsure of his leadership and how to wield it. In Priest telling, T'Challa was a leader, was a king, was a ruler, and exuded that confidence in the client.
He just commands total respect.
And while Priests did not create the Black Panther, it's really in many ways his version of the character that you see in the MCU. Priests and artist Mark Tashera tell the tale in a kind of jumble, fractured style that feels, you know, very Quentin Tarantino ask very of the time period of the nineties. It's about the Tomorrow Fund, which is a Kanda project to create affordable housing in kind of downtrodden urban areas. It's been revealed as a
cover for a money laundering operation for drug money. A young girl who appears in the fund's ad with T'Challa is murdered, and despite tensions arising for war refugees sheltering Wakanda. The king travels to the US to try and figure out, like, okay, what's going on with this Tomorrow fund and to you know, like to bring those responsible to justice. He's accompanied by his personal bodyguards, Nikia and Akoye, members of the elite all female fighting force known as the Doramalaje.
Quote.
The concept of the dormalage Wakanda for adored ones evolved out of the brilliant work of Panther scribe Don McGregor, who theorized Wakanda was actually made up of a great many indigenous tribes and that not all the tribes liked each other. Priest writes on his website, Digitalpriest dot com. Quote, Joe and Jimmy just thought it'd be cool to have Panther travel with a pair of six foot tall, gorgeous women, and I certainly agreed.
But the order of the.
Door of a Ladje, a kind of nun wife in training deal gave us a foot in both the worlds. The panther struggled to maintain peace between the modern and the tribal end quote. The story is told mainly through the recollections of one colonizer Everett Ross Cia agent Everett ross Kind in the comics, a mid level State Department bureaucrat who's ostensibly assigned to d'challa as his kind of like point of contact with the US government, but whose
actual job is to spy on him. A preset inspiration for Ross was hilariously chandler bing from Friends and Alex P. Keaton from the nineteen eighties sitcom Family Ties. The inclusion of Ross as a narrator was this really subversive moment.
Quote.
With Ross in place, the book began to take shape, Priest writes on Digital priest dot Com.
Quote continues.
Ross became the key to making the book work. He was the voice of the average Marvel reader, who, in no doubt wondered why Marvel was bothering with another Panther series. Ross's monologues began to steal the show, offsetting the mysterious night creature of the man a few words who Ross was attached to. The monologues were alf and outrageous, with Ross interpreting the Marvel universe through his every man's eyes rather than through the eyes of someone who's been reading
comics all their life. It was a new voice, one seemingly hostile towards the Marvel universe and by extension, it's fans, But actually the intent is to be a social observer and a deconstructionist end quote. In his Nomo Notes and Super Black quote, the Ross figure provides the reader with the choice of identifying with either the white figure or the black superhero, or both of them, but never exclusively
with the black protagonists. In this sense, Ross's character is a nifty technique for addressing whether or not readers will identify with a black superhero, namely T'Challa. By the mid two thousands, Priest had burned out at Marvel, frustrated by a lack of opportunities to write a list characters.
Quote.
I've mentioned this a lot in interviews, Priest told CBR dot Com in twenty twenty. But long story short, somehow, bizarrely, as a result of my writing Black Panther, a comic book about the cultural awakening of a white man named Ross, I stopped being a writer and somehow became a black writer. Offered only writing assignments for characters for color end quote. Priest returned to comics in twenty sixteen when DC offered him the writing duties on Death Stroke as part of
the company's rebirth launch. That title ended in twenty nineteen, and as early as twenty twenty one, Priest was working on the relaunch of Vampirella for Dynamite Comics.
Okay, and this is actually incredible because Billy Graham's first known credited work was actually on a Vampirella comic, illustrating Don Glas in Vampirella. I think it was number one in nineteen sixty nine, and he would go on to actually pencil nearly like a dozen stories and inc Vamprella stories. So it's kind of amazing that there's also that connection between what Priests is doing now and then where Billy found a home at the beginning of his career.
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Welcome to the Hive Mind, where we explore topic in more detail with the help of expert guests. This week, we're absolutely honored to have evaluing author, academic poet, writer of Marvel's Ironheart series, which reinvented re Rey and who of course makes her mcudbut in black panther kind of forever Eve. Welcome to X Revision.
Oh thanks for having me.
I am a super fan of the podcast, as y'all know, so this is very exciting for me. It's a big career moment for me, big career.
To have you on the show. Oh, it's something just so wonderful to talk to people who make comics who love this stuff like we do. So first of all, like, what was your comic book origin story? What made you fall in love with comics?
Yeah, well, my comic book origin story is a little unique, I think in that I would not have been born without comics. And what I mean by that is that my dad in the eighties was making and self publishing like comic books that are basically like zines.
Oh wow, and so cool.
Yeah, it's very cool.
I have tracked down some of these and he's pretty mortified at them now, but I think they're cool. And in the eighties, my parents were both waiting at a Greyhound bus station in Chicago to head back to their respective hometowns for the holidays, and my dad was there selling these comic books for a dollar, and my mom bought one, and her and her friends had been like pregaming the greyhound, so they were like a little.
Tipsy, you know, as one does.
And she had never ridden the bus by herself before, and so they were getting on the same bus and her friends kind of like drunkenly said to my dad like you know, we have your comic book, and if something happens to our friend, like we'll find you, you know, responsible for her because there was no internet, and so he had like his you know, his mailing address and his phone number on this thing. And so so that's how my parents met. And so it's like a very
literal origin story. And then my first comics as a kid. I feel now like confident enough in myself to say this that I was a big Archie comics fan. I think for many years, I yeah, didn't feel confident, uh sharing that, but I started reading Archie when I was in kindergarten and that was kind of my first you
know Archie. They would like often reprint old comic like old strips in the same issue with new ones, and so that was also my introduction as a kid to the idea of like recurring characters and that different people can like have different takes on things and like letters to the editor and all these sorts of things. And then in middle school Chicago at the time when I was growing up, you know, like every week in our local all weekly, I would be reading like Linda Barry
and Ivan Brunetti and Chris Ware. So it was like a really great time for comics and cartooning. And then in high school I started getting more into superhero comics. I'll shout out like Chicago Comics and Quimby's, which is a place that has some amazing zine collection. You know, I was reading like superhero stuff, but also like Joan and Vasquez and you know, yeah.
Baby Jennie the homicidal maniac. Yeah, age was it was.
That was the thing.
And you know it was also like a great time for animation. You know, like Samurai Jack came out when I was fifteen. I promise, I'll wrap up this long story.
So and I don't know this is why.
Well, you know, since we're at like my first when I was in high school, I signed up to take this history of animation class at the University of Chicago, where I now teach, and I learned about like Jan Schwanckmeyer and like Windsor McKay and yeah, so, like I would say, animation and comics and cartooning were all very
much of a piece for me. And then the last thing in this epic origin story is that when I was fifteen or sixteen, at the Chicago Humanities Festival, Neil Gaiman was interviewing Will Eisner, and my dad took me to see that interview, and so that was pretty amazing, especially because later on, and you know, if we talk about like the not so fun part of comics, later I had the very surreal experience of Neil Gaman like defending me on the internet from comics on people.
So that was pretty cool. I was like, Wow, you're really important to me.
But you know, I think that like when I was in high school, I never People always say like, did you think that you would write comics?
And I absolutely didn't because I never I never.
Saw anybody who looked like me doing it, and and I think that there are many people in this world who have the imagination to kind of insert themselves in the narratives where they haven't been and I just didn't have.
That level of imagination.
So I was like, oh, you know, this is something I'm always gonna love, but I'll never get a chance to do. But I did, as I started taking myself
pretty seriously as a writer across lots of genres. You know, I was reading a lot of Ivan Brunetti and Scott McLeod and stuff like that, because I also and I still, you know, to students and all kinds of people who just want to talk about like how to be a great writer, I tell them like, read understanding comics, read cartoon in philosophy, and practice right because I think that they have a lot to teach us just about like
narrative in general and storytelling in general. So yeah, I think that before I even started writing comics, a lot of my other writing was very informed by that tradition.
Just from that answer, I think people who maybe are not familiar with your work or you are, are getting the picture of how incredibly varied and well rounded you are. You know, if that's the right. Thank you for the for the amount of stuff that that you know about and that your intellect touches. And I wonder as so as you know, as an assistant professor, as.
Oh I'm associate No, I'm telling okay officially, yeah, I can't be fired.
I can.
I love it. You love to hear it.
Pretty great scam.
You know, as an academic, as a sociologist, as an author, as a poet.
How do how do all those things inform your work?
Uh?
You know, at any point in this range of things that you're interested in?
Yeah, thanks for asking that.
I thought you were going to pivot to the whole rest of the interview being about Yan Schwankemeyer and like.
Check trying to get there.
Yeah, you know, I think that at the end of the day, I just want to tell stories.
I want to tell good stories.
And I think that not to get like too heady or whatever, but you know, a lot of these get intellect okay, please get a get any intellectuals that are most important to me, and particularly in the black intellectual tradition.
You know, people like W. E. B.
Du Bois, people like Zuriel Hurston have always written all kinds of things right, like across genre, and I think that I think that a lot of times folks don't really want to give themselves permission to do that. But for me, I try to approach any story or anything I want to write about and talk about and think, like, what is the medium that is best going to serve what it is I'm trying to say and do. And
also I think I'm really comfortable being a learner. I'm really I used to teach middle school and that's a great way to learn humility, you know, like comfort with being like, Okay, what can I do better today than I did yesterday. And I think, if anything, I'm I'm
really comfortable doing that. And so I think that you know, all this stuff that I write and and try to make, you know, I've I've co written a play, and I write poetry, and I do comics and working on some TV stuff, And I think what unites all those things is just like what's the best possible story that we can tell? What are those fundamentals of really good storytelling, you know, and how do we how do we get there?
And I also think I think, like I try to do something in comics that I think is has always been part of the tradition, right, which is like using comics as a space to bring interesting questions about the world we live in, uh to readers in a very like pop culture, low brow way, you know. And I think that that's also like the kind of like pulpy, cheap, like crappy, low culture aspect of comics is something that
I also really love and embrace. And you know, I have a graphic novel coming out this coming next year in March, but prior to that, I'd never written a graphic novel, and you know, like a lot of my colleagues and stuff who don't know anything about comics would be like, oh, congrats on your graphic novel, right, because they basically saw graphic novels like a polite word for.
Like, yeah, it's the comics is the that you haud didn't yeah.
You know yeah, And people thought that they were like insulting me and they had to use this kind of like euphemism. And I'm super into that. I'm super into like pulpy, cheap garbage stories written on like you know, paper literally staple together, like so I'm sold on paper that is like not very good.
I'm totally into that.
And I think it puts comics alongside jazz, alongside him hu as you know, kind of like a great subterranean art form.
Absolutely, And I think one of the things that's so powerful is the certain level of freedom you get from writing something that's like disposable or disposed for real time. And how does it feel like, so, say, like poetry collection like Electric Arches, which definitely deals with a lot of the same themes and interest, the kind of cosmic
mixed with the mundane. What kind of freedom do you get when you take those themes and you take them out of a poetry space, a very structured space, and then you put them onto the page in a comic book. How different is that for you? And how much fun do you get to have in that in that world of panels?
And oh, you know, I see, actually I see in like, if I were to categorize the work that I do, I see kind of poetry and comics as being of a piece and that I think both of them are places where I feel a lot of permission to just do wild stuff and just say.
Whatever you know and do whatever.
But I think the difference about comics is that, like you know, it's such a collaborative medium, and so for me, you know, the poetry in my first book, Electric Arches, which you're so kind to mention, is is very much about imagination, is very much about you know, afrofuturism and exploration and time travel and like weird space stuff. But to bring in the visual element of that is just
so magical to me. And I feel, you know, I've gotten to work with a lot of different artists at this point, and I feel like really grateful for all of them, and really grateful for the process. And I think that for folks who have never been on the creator side of comics, just really wrapping your mind around how many people go into making one thing. I think
is often something that surprises a lot of people. So you know, you pick up a comic book that's at least one editor, right, at least one writer, somebody doing pencils, somebody maybe doing layout, somebody doing inks, somebody doing colors, somebody doing lettering, right, And I really love working with all those folks, and in particular with Ironheart being my first kind of like big two comics experience, I got really lucky working with with Luciano Vecchio for most of
the run. Also shout out to Kevin Lebronda, who started out the run, but most of the issues are drawn by Luciano, who's just like an amazing, wonderful person. And so that aspect of it is really different than poetry or other forms of writing, where it's like I'm trying to take stuff from my brain and say it on paper and then turning it over with a lot of trust and a lot of gratitude to really brilliant people who are gonna bring it to life in a different way.
And so that's something that I that I really appreciate. And one of the biggest things that I try to tell you know, folks who are again like as I'm teaching or talking to folks about coming into the space is like an artist on a comic book is not an illustrator.
Their job is not to.
Compliment or like make pretty what you're doing right, Like they are doing fifty percent or more of the work through their craft and translating.
They translate your script into the comic book, you know.
Yeah, and there and like visual art is what makes comics what they are, right, And so I think it's also been really amazing for me to live into some of my principles as a writer about like parsimony and less is more and showdown, tell and all that type of stuff becomes very literal in the comic space in a way that it isn't in like nonfiction or poetry or other things.
I wonder if you could take us into that the kind of process that you uncovered through working on Ironheart, because you know, one of the things that I think Rosie and I try to do with this pod is like point a way for people like Rosie and myself who fell in love with comics, fell in love with serialized storytelling to try and if they ever wanted to do that, find the creative outlet for themselves, to find the kind of like nuts and bolts things that they
could you know, bring into their process that could help them get there.
So what what was that? Like? What what is the what's.
The storytelling process, the collaborative process, like on on on these issues. How do you how do you bring these stories to life?
Yeah?
Well, you know, I think the first thing you have to get over is like immense fear.
I mean that's the biggest, the biggest obstacle for any.
Yeah, I think that, you know, I something I like, I've I've published a lot of stuff. I've written a lot of stuff, and to this day, when I sit down to write a new thing, you know, I have that moment of terror of like I think I'm gonna throw up, you know, like I'm like i might die, Like.
I might die from writing.
Is today the day that writing finally gets me? You know?
And so I think the biggest thing is like learning to push through that. Alexander Chi, who's an essayist and novelist, has this thing that he said that I'm I'm sort of paraphrasing, but people should look it up from his book, which is called them How to Write an Autobiographical Novel, which the title is misleading because it's not about that. It's just like a collection of essays, many of which
are about writing. But one of the things he says is like the difference between people who write and people who don't is being.
Able to stand it.
And so I think the biggest thing is like learning to trust yourself and to work through some of those feelings of discomfort, and then beyond that, you know, I studied up a lot, I seek feedback a lot. I think that who I am now. I'm working on what my next project is going to be for Marvel, which I really wish I could tell you because it's super exciting, superret But I'm working on that now, and I've had a lot of opportunities to reflect on like who I am now as a comics writer versus who I was
in twenty eighteen trying to start Ironheart. And I think that the biggest thing that I had on my side was reading a lot, studying a lot. You know, some of those those books that we just talked about, you know a lot of certainly everything Scott McLeod wrote about comics. You know, Will Eisner's books. Greg Pak has a really great book called Making Comics Like the Pros or something like that, and he's amazing, but.
Also like reaching out for help, you know.
And so I had folks give me a lot of feedback on things and kind of push push me forward. And then even with that understanding that the first thing you write, like, you know, I look back at my first issue of Ironheart and I'm like, you know, oh my god, there's.
So many things that I would never do, you know.
And that's the truth for every comics writer I've ever spoken to, and they're like, oh, it's like nauseating to look back at where you started, But you have to be willing to push through that, you know, you have to be willing to kind of get over that. And I think for anybody who wants to write in any genre, I think about this. I'm really into baking and I'm really into metaphors.
So you know, one of my.
Favorite ways of thinking about this is like if I told you, if you're like, you know, I want to make a cake. Like I've seen cake, I've eaten cake, really into it. It's tasty, it's delicious, it's beautiful. And you know, you took a bowl and you put like eggs and flour and milk and cocoa powder into a bowl and you start it up and you're like, this doesn't look like cake at all, Like this is discuss
you know, what is this? And you throw it in the garbage, like you you don't go that's you didn't finish.
You didn't finish the process.
And I think that a lot of folks they see the writing that they admire the most, and they see the finished product of that, and they don't realize exactly how much like utter garbage, Sauce went into going from a first draft to a final product. And like you gotta put the cake in the in the pit, put the batter in the oven, and put the you know, put the batter in the pan, and put.
The pan in the oven.
And and I think that that's that's the secret.
You know, I was a ton of hockey coats.
I'm very grateful to count him as a close, close friend and mentor. And I watched him be interviewed several years ago and somebody asked him about the case for reparations, which for those who only know him from comics and you know how him for his runs on im Cap and Black Panther. He you know, wrote this really important piece of nonfiction pros And you know, somebody said, I wish I could have written that. I could never have
written that. He said, Oh, it was easy. You know, all I did was I wrote it badly five times.
Yeah, exactly, It's all you have to do.
And I think that that's it.
So, you know, unfortunately that's true about so many things, like you know, working out, exercise, like relationships, like all these things about life that we kind of wish were just easy.
Unfortunately, you just have to do the thing. I love that it sucks.
Because that's what we always that when people we've done like mail book, mail Bag episodes and stuff, and people will say like, oh, how do you get into writing comics? How do you start writing? And true is you just got to make them. You got to do that what your dad did, You go to make it lean, You got to write a script, you got to write a pilot. And you kind of touched on this, but you know throughout that that's your writing process, that's how you get
it done. And you mentioned this, but like what was it like the first time that you still and still now because I know it's like the best feeling. But what was it like when you started to get the art back and you started to see oh my gosh, yeah, your story and really being brought to life in this form that you'd loved since you were a kid, and suddenly you're part of that process. How did that feel?
Oh, it's mind blowing. I never get over it.
I mean, yeah, getting art back is like the Grid's Christmas. I mean, it's like Christmas and your birthday, you know, rolled into one.
And I think that.
That's also part of why it's challenging to start, because when you when you write your first comic script, if you're doing your own art, that's dope and actually secret since we're doing all kinds of secret confessionals of things I wouldn't normally say in interviews.
You know.
I actually in the early like twenty eleven, twenty twelve, I was like, oh, I'll probably just like self publish a lot of comics.
So I was drawing.
I was writing and drawing well, and you know, and like and that. I mean for those who draw do visual art, it's the same thing, right, Like every time you sit down to put a pencil to paper, you learn something new at the limits of your own ability, right where you're like, oh man, people have wrists, like, you know, like.
How do you what's a car?
Dragon car?
And you're like, I've never seen a car before.
Doesn't know it's a dog?
Maybe maybe no animals in this, nobody's never seen another person.
Maybe I'll just look at everything straight on, you know, And and this, honestly, that's a kind of a cool you know.
Another comic strip that I love growing up was Life and Hell by Matt Greening, right where it's like literally every single so you know, I wrote this this uh, this strip called Pretend Interviews, which was a comic of a cartoon strip, a cartoon of a radio show, of a fictional radio show of me interviewing dead people. And I did it Life and hellstyle, where every single panel was exactly the same as a sitting.
Just literally copy and paste.
So anyway, unless you're doing your own art, and even if you are, the part of the challenge of writing your first script is is recognizing that kind of translational work that Rosie was talking about, which is like, how do I say this in a way that somebody else is going to be able to draw it and in a way that's compelling. You know, how do I do that succinctly? How how do I give them enough and
not too much? And the first time you're writing a script and you haven't seen how it turns to art, Uh, that's hard to do, right, And so it ceases to be kind of an intellectual exercise.
I was.
I was helping a friend of mine who's who's writing his first comic script, and he sent it to me, and you know, I sent him a gentle reminder that I also had to receive, which is that in comics, people can only do one thing at a time.
Yes, right, so you can't come.
Through a door into another room and then something.
Walked in and picked her mug of t and high five Jason.
Yeah.
Wow, that's the.
Whole thing, Like you decide, And that's different. I think also a lot of folks were familiar with like screenwriting or to people move like DV. Human beings can move around in three dimensions, and so so that's kind of like to me, honestly, what I still really relish at a craft level, it's like, what is the what is the gestaltz.
What is the essence of what like this this rosy moment?
Right?
Is it most important that she SIPs her tea? Is it most important that she pets the cat? Is it most like what am I actually trying to get across? And I kind of love that, Like I love thinking about how you reduce moments of immense emotion and human
interaction to like a single thing. I'm also really a big fan of like it's pretty boring when people are just talking to each other, like standing there talking, And so I'm also a big fan of the subtextual visual like substory that that I script out, but that doesn't involve dialogue, right, And so you know, like there's this an issue seven, Issue seven of Iron Hurt, Nadia van Dyne, the Wasp comes to visit Rerea in her lab and she's re reshowing her around and.
And the subtexe.
So like, as she's showing her around the lab, to me, this is an opportunity to show a lot of things about Rerea. So one of the things she'd like a recurring thing in Ironheart is that every time re reopens a fridge, it's only full of orange pop. And so like she only that's all she drinks, and.
That's like a that's a character moment, right.
The things, the ways that people interact with each other nonverbally, the things that you see on somebody's desk, the way that they dress, right, Like, all of those are opportunities to build a character as well.
And I love scripting that type of stuff.
And it's it's kind of the backdrop so that like, because you know, I do want to write like emotionally laid in work, and so if people are sitting and having a deep discussion, like what are the other things that they can be doing? You know in Rosie's you know, uh comic, the food the food preparation scene, right, yeah, the Miyazaki nod of like somebody making food in the background while they're having a conversation.
I love that type of thing.
Yeah. For me, I think one of the biggest.
Lessons I need to learn in my own writing was my own tendency to uh love my characters and want to protect them too much. You know, you always hear, oh love all your characters, even even the bad, even the villains. You know, you have to empathize with you And so my the way that that manifested in my own work was that I don't want anything to.
Happen to them. I want you to just be protected, just like, yeah, you know, and and what what you know? How does that translated translate to nothing happens? It's boring.
Were there anyone like that for you, where you're like, oh, god, I I have to I have to be mean to this creation that I love a little bit.
I have to be willing to be mean to them. Yeah.
Oh, that's such a good question.
So, first of all, my dream in life is to have the cachet as a creator to produce work in which truly nothing happens.
A dream that's the ultimate dream dreams.
Yeah, yeah, I'm a big I'm a Miyazaki stand and so like you know, I love of Miyazaki films in which like, truly.
Not a lot happens.
You know, there's there's the there's the polar opposite, which is the Miyazaki film in which like seven hundred things happened that you don't really understand me. You know, I've seen Princess Mononoke, like, you know, infinite times. I think the last time I saw it, I was like, cool, I think I'm up to a strong seventy five percent of understanding what.
Is going on.
But the episode of that is where it's just like, yeah, you know, like you like Kiki, she worked at a bakery, and then like there was a rare you know, like
very minimal content. I aspire, I aspire, but until I get to that point, I think, you know, I got in a one of the few times I've had like a minor, respectful disagreement with somebody on the creative side, and Marvel Comics was the this person who was not an editor, who was a you know, kind of higher up person, uh, really wanting me to kill some characters. And you know, I was kind of like, what are the other ways that we can have stakes?
Right?
And so it's true, you can't just have nothing happening, But I think that some of our assumptions about what constitutes stakes are sometimes wrong, right, And so the question is like, what are the you know, to quote she Hulk, like, those aren't mistakes, right, Like, what are the stakes that matter for that character? And I think for somebody, you know, for somebody like re Rea just you know, since we're talking about.
Her, the stakes of.
Like getting into a fight are not always the highest stakes, right for her, the journey that I wanted to take her on in that solo title is really like very emotional and so like being wrong, exploring your own inner foolishness that you haven't really dealt with, being nice to other people, listening to other people, taking advice, asking for help, right, Like, those things are also really big moments for some characters.
And so the question is how do you take the audience or the reader on a journey where they're bought in the body?
You know, I don't know if you guys watched The Bear? Did you watch The Bear?
Yeah, I'm a huge, huge.
Ten incredible. I spent a lot of my time before I moved to America working in bars and restaurants, so it was like, I was like this the representation I wanted was like, it's ship to work and recapture that it captured that frenetic there's an emergency, there is another emergency.
Now there's another emergency, and people need to get fed also.
And it's a little I think it's a little triggering for people who've worked in the restaurant industry. You know, it's like, but but you know, one of my favorites, so folks should watch. I think it's just an amazingly written piece of media. I also think it's one of the best things to take place in Chicago, like ever written.
It's really good.
But you know, I think one of my favorite scenes is like the scene of these two characters Sidney and Marcus at the end right towards the end of the first season. This is not like a major spoiler, but you know, Sidney has basically just like done the George Costanz equivalent of like sitting in the slushy machine, like like when you have an epic quit, like an epic quitting when you're like I quit on this in this like amazing like burn every bridgeway and this tension of like is she gonna go back?
Like can she go back to the restaurant? Right?
And to me, when I think about that show, which is so wildly frenetic and stressful, like, to me, that's one of the highest stakes moments of the season is because all of us have felt that thing where like we we went out with a bang, and then we look back and we're like, yo, I was kind of wrong, Like I honestly was like maybe really wrong and really and like am I gonna go back and tell people like, yo, I was wrong and try to salvage that. That's so cringey.
It's like so uncomfortable to even talk about. So yeah, I think that the question of like, you know, kill your darlings like sometimes that's that's not literally murdering right now.
Yeah.
Yeah, And you know, Sali Nama said this to me. He was like, at this point, you know, people dying in comics is also like not that high.
I was gonna say that.
Like everybody comes back, so big a challenges to find stakes the feel real.
George R.
Martin is like, comic stopped being good. When people stop being.
He's still like he's feared of Uncle Ben coming back that will be the true most people.
And make them dead. He's like, just kill them and let them be dead.
Come on, bro come on broh. I mean that's the ultimate comic book conundrum. So I think that's quite yeah, quite ironic that that was a note, you know, the idea that you had to kill people for it to be real. I'm like, oh, they'll be back, they'll be back,
They'll be right. And then kind of like what was it like for you to go from this space of seeing getting to know really as a writer, but also as a comic book fan and in this art space to then you know, this is one of the quickest, if not the quickest transitions of being introduced in twenty sixteen, getting a solo series twenty eighteen, being in the MCUI she appears.
It's amazing, It's amazing.
So how does it feel then to not just be creating her Storians seeing it on the page, but to then go to the premiere to see it on the screen and to see Dominique Tholn just absolutely smash it.
Oh yeah, Well, first of all, is this a spoiler? Is a spoiler friendly situation?
Right?
Yeh yeah, yeah, this is a spoiler note?
Okay, cool? Cool? Yeah.
I mean so, first of all, on a practical level, I've spent the last four years of my life perfecting the uh who is Ironheartshpiel for that I have to give to people, which now has morphed into the who is Monica Rambo?
And you know, just like to.
Tell people, you know, tell people in thirty seconds before their eyes glaze over, you know, like this is a character. Brian Michael Bendis Miles Morales.
You probably Brian.
It's that guy.
Okay, so iron Man, you know who that is and the protoce, but then not the same and at that point the person is like walked away. And so what I'm really excited about is just like being able to say iron Heart to people and then being like cool, I know that is without like this long drawn out explanation. Also, usually at the end of that explanation, somebody turns to their friend and they're like, yeah, this is eve she wrote iron Man in the movies.
I'm like, no, that's not that's not how it happened.
And comics literacy is still like very low in our society. So yeah, that also keeps me humble. One of my best friends when I when I started writing iron Heart, she said to me, this is a person, brilliant, person, amazed, she has a PhD, you know, like amazing person.
Well read.
She's like, she's like, I was unaware that they were
still making new superheroes. Yeah, She's like, you were like, She's like, you know, I thought, like, there's Batman, there's Spider Man, and I thought, like, you know, they're like she thought it was like a canonical like decision we have and we're just to you know, I'm like, first, you know, we have new Pokemon, Like there's like things don't anything that has IP that's not like you know, we just have so so honestly, like just the I love this character so much and she's very real to
me in a probably weird way, and so yeah, like just to know that she's gonna be visible to so many other people is really exciting and frankly completely unreal for me. And then honestly being at the premiere, Like, first of all, it was my first Hollywood premiere, and so it was just like surreal in a number of ways.
Rihanna sat rows behind us, wow.
Like like directly behind those so that I could not see her unless I turned my entire body, and throughout the whole time, my husband was like Rihanna's eating popcorn, like he was like all of Rihanna's activities. To me, I was like, okay, thank you, but yeah, I thought I'm a big crier and I thought I was going to cry a lot when she first appeared on screen, and instead I was like, like so filled with the most unspeakable joy that I can't even describe to you.
I was so.
Happy and I sat behind right behind Reginald Hudlin, you know who for folks who don't know, is both Hollywood like Black Film Icon and made like House Party and Boomerang, but also had a pretty good run on Black Panther and the two comics Writer and And when Reary first appeared on screen, he turned around, uh and and grabbed my hand and he goes.
Oh, He's like, that's what the fuck I'm talking about.
Like totally long. And I was like, yeah, I love that and cool, Yeah.
That was very cool. And and and Bendis was there in the same row.
And the other thing I'll share is that, like, I think this is okay to say, like he he was sitting in front and like a little to the left of me, and and before the and we'd actually never met in person before.
Oh wow.
And so you know, I went over and I introduced myself to him, and he he shook my hand and he said, you're the reason we're all here. And that was like very I think, very just very moving and very generous. And you know, I think for him to be able to say that, yeah, it was just it was it was really kind. And I think that part of the fun and wild thing is like none of us own these characters, right, Like the that's the other thing where people don't understand, like I'm not making.
Like your character making dollars. Yeah, I do not on this ip, you know.
But so I think part of the like beauty, the hard part and the beautiful part is like you have a turn.
You get to take your.
Turn, right, Like you know, Brian invented something and made something and then I got.
To take my turn and that was really really special.
And then you know, Coogler and Dominique are taking their turn, and the Disney Plus series comes Shanakahad, who's an amazing writer who I actually who was also a poet, so who I actually knew prior to her taking on.
Yeah, it's great, like poets are out here doing stuff.
Yeah, Like everybody gets to take their turn, you know, And I think that that's I think that's hard for some people. But it's really really cool too. It's really cool to see where people take something. And I'm I'm lucky enough that I am a consultant on the on the TV show and so you know that means like I made a lot of notes and they can take
it or leave it. But something that Kelly Studiconic said to me, is like, for us as comics writers, when we see the stuff on screen, our job is not to litigate every kind of like biographical detail of the character, but to do our best to try to protect the core of who the character is.
And that's what I you know, that's what I'm hoping to be able to do.
And I like, if I had, you know, if somebody had told all of us fifteen years ago, there's to be a Spider Man movie and yeah, this Spider Man has no uncle Ben, right, we would be like what boo, right, Like that's yeah, But it turns out like that's not what makes him Spider Man, right as it turns out like we we would never have known that unless somebody made that choice on screen. So anyway, now I'm rambling,
but yeah, it's been it's been wild. And Dominique is a is a star and I really want every amazing thing for her. She's incredible and I hope people love seeing her on screen.
Do you you mentioned that?
Uh, the the ownership aspect, like the fact that these are characters who come into your custody for a period of time. What's that like to be part of this broader, larger conversation, you know, almost like this huge wall in a public space that you get to write something on and then walk away from.
And there, Yeah, I always hear people.
Get up and yeah, I wonder, you know, just you know, philosophically, what does that what does that feel like? And what do you and what role do you think that plays in this kind of like broader, vast conversation that is now you know the MCU.
Yeah, I think there's a cynical read on that, and there's like an idealistic read on it. And depending on the day that you catch me, I have I have felt both poor and everything in between. You know, I'm an idealist again, you know, I wrote I wrote Marvel Team Up, which is a mini series featuring Kamala and Peter, and I went with the classic. It's a three issue mini series, so I was like, bet body swap right, Kamala becomes Peter, Peter becomes Kamala. Don't think about it
too hard, just let's just let's go. That Also, by the way, was one of the few moments where I've also had a back and forth with editorial because uh, there's a scene where Peter Peter's and Kamala's body and he's at school and uh, he thinks he has she has this big presentation and she's like, don't ruin this for me, and he's like, yo, I'm like a scientist, like I'm in a kill your high school bio presentation,
Like don't even worry about it. And he gets to class and immediately is like, oh my god, I'm dying. Something horrible is happening to me, Like I'm being this is like biological warfare, and she has to be taken
out of class. And then later on there's a scene of them sitting, you know, looking over the city and she's like, you had a cramp, Like those are that's that's cramps right like, and he's like I thought I was gonna die, right So so that was that was a moment where the word the word cramp was cannot appear, so we can we can unpack that later.
But anyway, so yeah, classic, so but yeah.
So when I was writing that series, literally I would I would wake up, I'd brush my teeth, I'd look in the mirror, and I would be like, I write words, and Spider Man says those like it's just like the basic fact of that, like, you know, I would go in the kitchen and grab my husband and be like, honey, I say the words and then they come out of Spider Man's mouth like I am the I have I am the person who has the power to be the vector of Spider Man, and that like like Spider Man
like maybe the most recognizable iconic pop culture figure like possibly ever, you know, and so like on on moments
when I feel idealistic about it, that's really magical. And and also I think being part of the community of creators, you know, to have to have phone calls with people, you know, when when Danny Lord took over Champions, like having those conversations with Danny, right, having conversations with Vita, having conversations with SOLIDI, you know, amazing, you know, like Okay, what are you doing.
With Miles here?
What are we doing in Champions you know Evan or like any any folks where we're crossing over things. It's really fun to be like, all right, what are you doing in your sandbox? And how can I make sure this matches up to my sandbox?
You know.
The cynical read.
Of it is like, uh, it's a super bazillion Defolfilion,
Dy Dollar Mega Corporation. Yeah, uh that you know, I produce really good work sometimes and and that, yeah that creators have no uh, not only compensation financially, but like even just like acknowledgment, right, giving a little fuzzy sometimes, and you know, you all have talked a lot about it, and folks can google the horror stories of just like I've definitely had the experience of sitting in a you know, not not with Black Panther, but with other Marvel stuff,
Like sitting in a theater watching a movie that I know is going to make a bazillion d dollars.
And being like that is that my was that a thing from my brand? And that's a bad feeling, you know, it's a bad feeling.
It's also a bad feeling I think with the way some of the TV stuff has panned out. I think for some of the writers in that room, right, the ways that the writer's room on the TV shows are are very different from traditional writers rooms, and some of the hierarchy of power and control and decision making is really different, and I think that's been a struggle for some folks. So, you know, I think that the like I try to maintain a healthy reality somewhere in the middle.
And you know, maybe one day I'll just go full Alan Moore and just.
Expire.
Yeah, but that's fine.
You know, maybe maybe I'll get there, but for now, it's still fun. And I also, to be honest with you, I have a huge privilege of like, I have a regular day job. I'm a professor at a university.
Right.
I had a whole other writing career before comics, and I have a whole other writing career outside of comics. And that's also an immense privilege that makes it easy for me to be like, Okay, cool, I'm doing this and not that, or I don't feel comfortable with this, or I feel achy about it, so I'm going to step away.
And a lot of folks in this industry don't have that, you know.
And and so that's why the creator own space and you know, Kickstarter projects and all that kind of stuff is really important.
And I hope that for folks. If you go and you read a big two comic by.
A writer and artist that you absolutely love, like look them up and sign up for their newsletter and follow them on their socials and you know, pledge their Kickstarter thing. And buy their creator own thing because that's it's called creator own because that's what it is, right Like, that's the thing that they actually control and can can make money off of. So yeah, I think it's it's it's tough, and I think it's important to not be so idealistic about it, to not be honest.
That yeah, I think and I think you really summed up the two most intrinsic things about making like what we call work for higher comics, which is, yeah, we want to tell the best story and you put everything into it, and the companies know that you have that excitement of right Spider or you know, writing Godzilla something that you love like, and they are aware that you will say, Okay, I'm going to sign away any ownership of this because I would love to do it.
It's it.
That's the.
Historically, that is the exchange that has been made between the two, and I live every day to hopefully try and make that change or evolve from the way.
That it was.
There was a time in superho comics where that was not the base level. That was something that came around relatively recently in like the seventies when that sort of became a thing. So yeah, I think you summed out. But it's it's that really interesting thing because you know, I'm like, I won't come mix to union eyes. We told all the time about creative rights, but I'm also like, yeah, we'll write a fucking X Men book.
Like I'll do it, like I I will do it, right.
I will literally write the softball X Men mini series like high to me and I and then I'll write something into the book about unions or something.
Yeah, right, right, But.
How the softball team is actually just a metaphor for the union, Yeah, exactly, No, it's totally it's totally real. And I think, like, you know, to a certain extent, I mean, I'm comfortable saying publicly like this is the least financially lucrative thing I could.
Be doing time, Like I pretty much pretty much do it for fun.
And but not only that, I mean, like, you know, the impact, the cultural impact that you get to have is just really tremendous.
And I think that it's for me.
It's just important to understand what my values are and what I want to do. And you know, I've I've said no to a bunch of Marvel stuff because I wasn't excited about it or I wanted somebody else to
get an opportunity or you know. And I think the main thing is like just just recognizing that the thing, the thing being inherently exciting or a big honor doesn't mean it's exciting or a big honor for you, yeah, right, and doesn't mean it's always a good move for you and for your time, calculus and for your you know,
way you want to make your money. And I think that that's yeah, like not letting the kind of glitz and glamour of the name recognition get you in a spot where you're like making stuff that you're not getting paid in a way that makes sense for your life.
Yeah.
Someone recently told me the creatively there's a huge power and no, and that is the truth.
It's best even anything to plug.
Yes, I would like to plug a couple of things coming December. Photon Monica Rambo Photon number one, featuring an amazing black woman. If you don't know Monica Rambo, get to know her. She's incredible. Used to be the leader of the Avengers. Now she's trying to figure out her life. I've been telling people, if you are like an old school Marvel fan or if you are a person who feels like you're that underappreciated person in your life, but you've never read a comic book before, like, this is
a comic that you will relate to. It's about trying to figure yourself out and it's really great. And then coming March twenty twenty three, my first ever graphic novel called Change the Game, which I co wrote with Colin Kaepernick, and it is coming out on Scholastic in March twenty twenty three.
And for the young adult or the young adult at heart in your life.
Eve, please come back. This has been way Yeah.
Yeah, Conte Corner is allmine.
I really appreciate you all so much.
Big thanks to Evel Ewing for appearing on the program, and of course the big thanks to Rosie Night for closing the Rosie plugs.
Plugs, plugs, plugs, plug plugs. What do you you have to plug?
You can find me Rosie marks on Instagram and letterbox where I'm starting to budge into Christmas movies, so come and judge me. Yeah, I watched so many bad Christmas movies, like I'm talking about Harvark, Lifetime, everything. They're all there and I make them in lists if you like hearing about Rievey Williams, I have a piece up at Polygon that's the kind of explainer, in depth explainer about that
and just other cool things coming up. You can check me writing about TV and stuff at IGN and Nerdict, and you can also read my comics. I have a website Rosiolivia Night dot com because I haven't bothered to change my URL yet it's my proper name. But there you can read some free comics. You can read all of my thousands of articles that's not hyperbolic. And yeah, and then obviously here.
Catch the next episode on November eighteenth, and of course subscribe to the show on YouTube, follow at XRV pod on Twitter. Maybe not for much longer on Twitter, we'll see that it's about somewhere else. But check out the discord to meet and hang out with the other X ray Vision fans, and of course Rosie and I were active on there, and we'd love to interact with you. Five star ratings. We love them, we gotta have them, we need them. Here's one from the dot Potato, the
nerd podcast we need. If there are nerd happenings, I know I can count on Jason to Rosie to not only cover it, but direct me to more resources. I've picked up comics, books and shows that I wouldn't have sought out otherwise, and I know it all to Extray Vision. Plus they've got the best podcast theme song out there, hands down.
No contest. Thank you.
The Peto x ray Vision is a Crooked Media production. The show is produced by Chris Lord and Solve Rubin. The show is executive produced by myself and Sandy Arhard are editing in sound design.
Who's by Vacillius Photopoulos.
Dylon Villanueva and Matt de Group provide video production support. Alex Reller for Handle Social Media. Thank you, Brian Vasquez for theme music.
That's It for Us by