Reviewing my flash drive like I did at the end of last year reminded me of one important thing. I tend to start many a dialogue and rant without ever properly finishing them up or polishing them off. There are many times I fully intend to do this and post messages, and other times that I decide that whatever I'm working on just isn't up to the standard. Then I realized that I don't have a standard, and the six people (yes, I think it's up to six now for no reason at all) can't care about it that much.
So I now present my new topic set called Unfiltered. A place where I can toss out incomplete or just plain blind ranting with no regrets. Here is part one of said topic, a rant related to upcoming changes in Marvel's Black Panther comic that I started years ago...
Okay, so earlier this week, I was breaking down my fake lineup of "Dark Avengers" when someone alerted me to the fact that Black Panther is getting the treatment in upcoming months. For those not on the uptake, Marvel has plans to replace the T'Challa we know and love with a woman. Of course, which woman is under the mask hasn't come up yet, but that would wreck the mystery.
Now honestly, I want to approach the issue with my unending fanboyism and shout, "Nooooooooo!" as loud as I can, but the truth is that it wouldn't change anything. Allow me to explain why.
For the better part of the past few years, Black Panther's solo title has been written by Reginald Hudlin. Hudlin has been writing a good deal of that book like garbage since he came on board. Not all of it, mind you, but a good deal of it.
But to really say that, I have to explain that BP has two dedicated fanbases. One is the old school comic head that cares about such geekish things as continuity and consistency in writing (those guys exist?), and the other is the group of people who could care less about those things and just likes seeing BP "handle his business". Mind you, it is possible to be a member of both groups.
The important part comes with understanding a subset of the latter group: brothers and sisters (and I don't mean a family connection there). I have run into a good number of black men and women who sincerely only follow Black Panther in his book and will love that he will occasionally go over the top on someone. Not that it should surprise you to learn that Black Panther has a black following, but I'm just pointing out that many of the readers and/or buyers of BP are not, ahem..."traditional comic readers". This is important because once you understand that, you'll realize that the core readership of the book doesn't necessarily care if T'Challa properly follows or falls into normal Marvel continuity. They are literally there to see BP do his thing and move on with their lives.
Having said that, I don't begrudge anyone in the latter group. If you just want to see BP be the baddest man on the block, that's fine. In fact, I'd argue that you're the target demographic for this the book to begin with. But for the old school comic heads (like myself), a lot of what happens in that book makes you go "WTF?" That's unfortunately where I end up more often than not (and one of the reasons I ended up dropping the title way back when).
The impetus on having quality work coming out of the title falls on two fronts. The first would be with Hudlin himself, who has made it clear that he doesn’t particularly care what anyone thinks of his book so long as people buy it. He gets this attitude from the second tier of responsibility in his company: the editorial department. In particular, he gets it from editor-in-chief Joe Quesada, who pushes a good many books with the concept “We don’t care if it makes you mad, so long as it makes us money.”
What you have to understand is that Quesada pushing the book goes exactly with what I've been saying. He will push the crap out of anything he thinks will sell issues, especially if he can stir up some buzz (positive or negative) about it. What Quesada doesn't do, however, is generally care if the book has any quality storytelling or not. And really, why should he, so long as he makes his money? He can piss off an old school head like me indefinitely with his book so long as he gets one new person to be interested enough to pick up the issue I drop.
The problem comes in when your hype starts to fade and you have to make a choice. Create new hype (which may or may not alienate your new, possibly more fickle reader with no guarantee that the old reader will come back) or maintain the status quo (which may bore your new reader and guarantee your old reader won't come back).
To draw a more relevant analogy, it's like trying to balance energizing your base with reaching out to independents. And I guess maybe I see Quesada as more of a McCain than an Obama.
...
Dang. I just put way too much thought into this.
(Ed. Note: As evidenced by the last comment, I clearly started writing this long before my moratorium on political commentary at the end of the year. Not that said moratorium is even remotely official or going to last. I just have a feeling…)
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