A new writer will bring "Black Phanter" to life, and his name is Ta-Nehisi Coates. Marvel is hopeful that this new move will help them diversify their characters starting with T'Challa. Some speculate that this was done to get rid of bad press that Marvel Comics has been receiving flak from the past about not hiring colored writers.
GeekNation recognized the efforts put in by Marvel president Kevin Faige for the "Avengers" franchise, "Antman,""Captain America: Civil War" and other superhero movies. Everything seems to be going well for the movie side of the company. Their recent move to bring an edge on their comic division was to hire Ta-Nehisi Coates to write on the character of "Black Phanter." As every fan and moviegoer might be aware of, the superhero motion picture is based from the comic version.
Ta-Nehisi Coates is a correspondent for "The Atlantic" and is a critically acclaimed novelist of "Between the World and Me." According to the report, Marvel aims to bring diversity amongst its characters and the company itself.
However, it is more than just creating diversity since Marvel has been under bad press for not having "few artists and writers of colour" according to The Guardian. The title of the story Ta-Nehisi will be writing for "Black Phanter" is "A Nation Under Our Feet." Coates is an African-American journalist and a national book nominee and also happens to be a comic book fan. He is fully aware of the pressure created from his presence in the company. He is quoted saying "When I was a kid, I knew that superheroes were not exclusively white and male. If you have fans who grow up with that, they reach a certain age and they expect you to go to another level. Beyond that, it costs comic books way less than movies to do diverse things."
Digital Spy shares more about Ta-Nehisi Coates being a comic book fan. The future "Black Phanter" writer is quoted saying "[Marvel was] an intimate part of my childhood and, at this point, part of my adulthood. It was mostly through pop culture, through hip-hop, through Dungeons & Dragons and comic books that I acquired much of my vocabulary." Another African-American artist will work alongside Coates in the name of Brian Stelfreeze.
Clearly, the comic book version is a big factor on how the movie version will turn out. By hiring African-American writer Ta-Nehisi Coates, Marvel will hopefully achieve its goal of diversity amongst its characters and slightly get rid of bad press. Fans will have to wait for a year to see how the story of "Black Phanter" will turn out.
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