Current location:	Marvel Universe
Current mood:	Stormy
Entry tags:	anti-racism, comics, ethics, feminism, storm, thinkitude

In which our heroine asks, "What would T'Challa do?"
As an aside in Pam Noles' excellent recent post about the Black Panel at Comic Con, in which she reiterates that some black men should stop their sexism towards black women, she mentioned Eric Jerome Dickey as an example of a man who writes black women well. I'm glad Pam Noles enjoys his work and I'm glad he's an extremely successful author. I can't judge Dickey's novels because I've never read any of them but I've read his Storm comics and I have a few problems with them especially when I compare the story they tell to Storm's first origin story as told by Chris Claremont and John Byrne.

I didn't say anything at the time because I didn't want to incidentally draw anyone's attention away from the important discussion of the panel. I also know that most professional writers have both strong and weak points in their writing abilities and, as readers, we all like different styles.

I'm into character. I'll turn a blind eye to all kinds of crack-addled plots and expository dialogue if a writer manages good characterisation but there're some things I can't pretend aren't happening such as when an achievement by a character who is part of an underrepresented group in comics is taken away from that character and given to someone else for no reason; when an actively self-determined female character is rewritten to take her self-determination away from her for no reason; when a black character's ethics are rewritten to appear more criminal especially when that black character's relationship with a white character, who was originally presented as a criminal himself, is rewritten so he's now a white victim of her crime and she's the black perpetrator of that crime*.

I have no problem with past canon being rewritten because of an overwhelming necessity within the story. Yes, I might grumble about it when a plot point I liked is retrospectively altered, because I'm a fan and we do that, but if the new canon is worthy of the change then I'm not going to hold a grudge. If the new canon is worthy of the change. But when a writer takes an achievement, a genuine victory, away from one character and gives it to another then there'd better be a good reason, when a writer takes away a female character's self-determination and gives it to the men around her there'd better be a good reason, and when a writer turns a black victim of white crime into a black perpetrator of crime against a white person then there'd better be a !%@%! good reason.

So when Eric Jerome Dickey decided to rewrite the established history of Ororo and T'Challa's first meeting, the time when Ororo saved T'Challa from the eeevilwhitefolks, and changed it so that T'Challa rescued Ororo the black criminal, there was a good reason for that right? Right? Except there was no good reason at all. Dickey took a self-determined black woman's achievements away from her so he could give them to other people for no reason other than his personal preference as a storyteller.

Dickey took a black woman's self-determination, her decision to leave her familiar life as an urban street-child who survived by thieving and walk (literally) into the unknown in search or something better, and rewrote that self-determined young woman as an inveterate thief forced to flee from the consequences of her crime. Dickey took the same self-determined black woman's decision to intervene on behalf of a stranger who was under attack and gave that decision and intervention to a black man. Dickey took the same self-determined black woman's victory in battle and gave that victory to a black man. Dickey took a story about a young woman with superpowers rescuing a young man who was a half-trained warrior with no special powers and turned it around so the half-trained male warrior saved the superpowered female.

Let's be blunt. The purpose of Marvel Comics' Storm mini-series featuring Ororo and T'Challa and written by Dickey was commercial: to sell more comics, to sell more comics specifically to black readers who're perceived as being more open to black characters, to sell more graphic novels to women readers who're perceived as more open to romance novels than to superhero comics, to sell the idea of a Storm and Black Panther wedding to existing fans of those characters, and to prop up the falling sales of the current series of Black Panther comics written by Reginald Hudlin.

Dickey's preferred way to sell an Ororo and T'Challa relationship was to make Ororo more criminal, less self-determined and less heroic while he simultaneously made T'Challa more self-determined and more heroic.

I wonder what T'Challa would have said about that?

Imagine for a moment that T'Challa isn't a character on a page, he's a real man, in a real situation. The situation is an interview which T'Challa has granted to an author who's writing an unofficial biography of Ororo and T'Challa. Let's call this fictional author Eric Jerome Dickey. Now ask yourself: "What would T'Challa do?" ;-)

* * * * * *
T'Challa: "So, Mr Dickey, you want to give me credit for someone else's achievement?" *STARES at author*

T'Challa: "You intend to misrepresent someone else's victory in battle as if it was mine?" *STARES at author*

T'Challa: "You're perhaps implying that I, the Black Panther, King of the most technologically advanced nation on Earth, holder of a Ph.D. in physics from Oxford University, winner of more battles than I can remember, so sorely lack achievements of my own that you must credit me with someone else's?" *STARES at author*

T'Challa: "You perhaps chose to believe it might be undignified for a man to be protected by a woman?" *looks pointedly at his female bodyguards the Dora Milaje*

Female bodyguards: *both STARE at author*

T'Challa: "You perhaps feel that your readers, who are mostly American men like my friends the Falcon and Captain America, are so insecure about their masculinity they can't understand the value of a powerful female ally, team-mate or partner?" *STARES at author*

T'Challa: "This interview is at an end. Goodbye Mr Dickey." *narrows eyes*

T'Challa: *waits until author is almost out of earshot*

T'Challa: "And don't let Wakanda's door smack your ass too hard on your way out!"

T'Challa: *Panther grin*

Female bodyguards: *secretly fangirl T'Challa*

* * * * * *

*Note: yes, I'm aware that the single, white, de Ruyter character in Storm's first origin story by Claremont and Byrne was subsequently rewritten as two brothers by Dickey but that makes no difference to the ethical shift.

Relevant comics: Uncanny Origins 9 by Jim Alexander and Marc Campos
Uncanny X-Men 267 by Chris Claremont and Homage Studios
Uncanny X-Men 102 by Chris Claremont and Dave Cockrum
Uncanny X-Men 226 by Chris Claremont and Marc Silvestri
Marvel Team-Up (vol.1) 100 by Chris Claremont and John Byrne (reprinted in Marvel Milestones 14)
Black Panther (vol.2) 26 by Priest and Sal Velluto (reprinted in Marvel Milestones 14)
Storm (mini-series 2006) 1-6 by Eric Jerome Dickey and David Yardin and Lan Medina

Linguistic disclaimer: I'm British. I speak English. We say black. I'm aware that not everyone shares my linguistic sensibilities.

Ethical disclaimer: my comparison of the different criminal actions presented in the two differing versions of the story doesn't imply a real-world ethical judgement, on my part, of street-children who steal to survive.

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