One of the common themes I’m seeing across social media is the commenting white male. He jumps in on threads about the importance of Black Panther and Luke Cage (I’ll get to these in a minute) and writes, “I don’t get what the big deal is, we’ve already had comic book movies about black heroes. Then they list off things like Steel; Blade; Men in Black; Spawn; Hancock, etc. Yes, there have certainly been representations of popular Black heroes in the past, there are a few reasons why these are different.

1. Almost every iteration of these characters has been written/drawn/filmed by white people. Now this is true of Luke Cage and Black Panther as well, but there has been a shift at Marvel Comics that creates an environment for Black creators to tell the story. And no, it doesn’t go far enough but again, more on that later.
2. Modern superhero films differ greatly from those of the past. They are more widely accepted and part of the mainstream culture. That wasn’t true when those other properties made the jump to film. With that acceptance comes money. The writing, acting, special effects, attention to detail and source material are all better now.
3. Race is part of the story. In the past, many heroes of color were pretty run-of-the-mill, bland archetypes and they just happened to be black. If the only thing different about them was the fact that a colorist gave them a different shade then they’re not really honored as having a different experience. There’s not really anything they were drawing from a cultural perspective that wasn’t surface level or stereotypical.

There is more to say on that and we should continue the conversation in the comments or on the Innovation Forum, but I really want to talk about Luke Cage and Black Panther. This post isn’t meant to be a deep dive into the characters but is meant to shine a light on their existence and why you might want to check them out for more than just entertainment.

Luke Cage (Power Man), the first black superhero to be featured as a protagonist and the title character of a comic book, is a Marvel Comics character from the 1970s during the Blaxploitation genre. It’s worth noting that he was created by, primarily drawn, written by white men throughout his history. More recently, he appeared as the first black hero to receive a television series. In popular culture, Luke Cage is primarily known by his Netflix series and the more recent comic run by David Walker. The Netflix series isn’t just a superhero story, each episode refers to black writers, artists, musicians and culture in a way that makes it central to the story and to Luke Cage. This is one of the first times that being black was central to the character himself. Word of warning, the Netflix series is not school appropriate.

On to Black Panther…

Ta-Nehisi Coates and Brian Stelfreeze helped to revive the character’s comic popularity in 2016. Roxane Gay wrote a series about his female bodyguards, World of Wakanda and…

You know what? I’m just going to be quiet and say that you should read this from TIME Magazine: The Revolutionary
Power Of Black Panther, oh, and this: Black Panther: An Allegory of the World Wanting Blackness but Not Black People and definitely take some time and read as many of these as you can if you really want to feel the importance of this film…#WhatBlackPantherMeansToMe.

One of the saddest parts of all of this is that the comic books continue to struggle. It’s a tough business and unless it’s X-Men, Batman or some other hero who has maintained popularity over the last 60 years, none of them are really safe. There will be new series, specials come and go, and there are always graphic novels, but the bottom line is that if we want to see more characters like this then we need to support them with our dollars.