Ta-Nehisi Coates is one of my favorite writers. He’s just finished up, by my count, his 26th issues of Black Panther. As the series takes a new direction- T’Challa! In Space!- I wanted to offer a retrospective on the themes that came up in his run and what it means for black personhood.
In the far reaches of space, Ta-Nehisi Coates gave birth to a new Wakanda.
This nation is different from the one traditionally encountered in comics and the Marvel Cinematic Universe. Rather than an isolated monarchy somewhere in Africa, it is an aggressive empire spanning star systems.
And it is a symbiote (think Venom) empowered Killmonger who calls the shots in the intergalactic empire of Wakanda. His hungry dream of expansion is now a fulfilled reality. T’Challa—our T’Challa,the man with the crown of a king and the soul of a savior—has been renovated as a slave to reveal the hero that lives within his heart. This is a portrait of a leader unshackled from statecraft.
Coates’ first volume took place in the mainstream Marvel universe. In this playpen, there was always going to be supervillains and alliances with the other black heroes of that world. What that volume contained, however, was a deeper look into the old history of the golden nation. Coates’ began to answer the questions implicit within Wakanda’s creation. Why would the most technologically advanced nation submit to monarchy? Did Wakanda history demand monarchy, or were there better ways of governance hidden in it’s deep past? At the end of the volume, T’Challa reformed his nation into a constitutional monarchy, freeing him up to be the world hero he always wanted to be.
If this is getting tl;dr for you, the general premise is this—buy it. It’s best enjoyed digitally on Comixology, but you’ll probably want to buy a hard copy for prosperity. I now want to focus on how this latest volume of Black Panther fits into both the themes of Coates’ run on the title and the larger issues of black personhood that encompasses his literary career.
By placing T’Challa lightyears away from the white gaze, he clarifies how memory can help a reduced people reclaim their future.
T’Challa made this decision based, in part, by him plucking his sister from the edge of death. Earlier in comic book history, Thanos and his army arrived and broke Wakanda. Shuri nearly perished in defense of her nation. Her defeat sunk T’Challa’s kingly heart. He managed to preserve her on the edge of mortality. Shuri’s soul, meanwhile, traveled the plane of ancestors, the Djalia. She learned of Wakanda’s history of conquest, and the wise men and women who tried to temper it. She emerges from her coma in historical raiment, and it is her advisement that helps T’Challa politically stabilize his nation. Her historical perspectives, markedly, run antagonistically against T’Challa’s, which is informed by his superpower—called the King of the Dead—to tap into the political and battle wisdom that belongs to centuries of unbroken kings.
The second volume, by looking into the future, doubles down on mainstream Wakanda’s history. Nakia and M’Baku, long dead in the mainstream Marvel universe, are now risen again as T’Challa’s allies. Wakanda maintains its technological edge. But humanity’s history shows that advanced nations do not cloister themselves behind force fields and dense jungles. They advance, and then dominate all the space around them. Coates’ advances Wakanda’s philosophy to its logical conclusion. The Black Panthers of space thus manifest destinies surrounding star systems. It integrates the species it sees as worthy. And it enslaves the rest and strips them of their memories. Only heroic T’Challa and a machine called the Djalia Device can restore the lost histories of those pressed into bondage.
Djalia constantly comes up in Coates’ Black Panther. In both volumes, the only way—the heroic way—to move forward is to recover the past. In the first volume, that memory was suppressed by Wakanda’s previous rulers and recovered. In the second, it is the precondition for slavery and the sought goal for salvation. This theme of historical rescue is a powerful one that is deeply embedded in black personhood.
I now know—and this is an argument Coates’ asserts through most of his non-fiction—that I am, from Africa, descended from a farmer, a herder,or a servant. Yet reclaiming this history is vital to black personhood’s goal of forever resisting white supremacy.
I was raised to believe I came from kings who were forcibly placed into chains. I loved Malcom X and Marcus Garvey, and read all about them in my youth. I am older now. I now know—and this is an argument Coates’ asserts through most of his non-fiction—that I am, from Africa, descended from a farmer, a herder,or a servant. Yet reclaiming this history is vital to black personhood’s goal of forever resisting white supremacy. I am not what the Virginia Slave Codes of 1705 reduced my people to. I am more than a social pathology the media would have you think I am, or the unfinished justice of the American Experiment.
If my prose now is too purple, then we can thank T’Challa’s space adventures for inspiring it. By surrounding his hero with stars, black holes, and rebellions, Coates reinvigorates the ontological focus on black personhood. By placing T’Challa light-years away from the white gaze, he clarifies how memory can help a reduced people reclaim their future. It is epic and I am here for every panel and action scene.
