5 FANTASTIC FACTS ABOUT "THE BLACK PANTHER MOVIE"

1) The is the first big budget black super hero movie.  After tons and tons of white superheroes, with Don Cheadle and Anthony Mackie inserted for a moment here and there as friends of Iron Man and Captain America, respectively, in a very tokenish sort of way, I am welcoming this change of direction from Marvel.*

2) Ava DuVernay was Marvel's first choice to direct "The Black Panther." But there is still a black director, Ryan Coogler, directing this Marvel Superhero movie.

3) Now that Danai Gurira has joined the Black Panther Movie cast, there are now two black women in a major motion picture, the other is Lupita N'yongo. Let me say it again and clarify: There are two black women in a non-FUBU movie were you won't have to google their parents to figure out whether or not they are black. 

4) Most of the Black Panther origin story was placed inside the movie "Captain America Civil War" This is important. Most directors get bogged down in the first movie, spending way too much time telling the audience how a superhero came to be the superhero rather than starting a story we care about, the part where there's an actual worthwhile enemy to be overcome.

5) Some of the storyline for this first Black Panther Movie is being taken from Ta-nehisi Coates Black Panther Comic (auther of "Between The World And Me")

In other words, after all the 96% white superhero movies we've seen, this superhero movie is blackety-black-black. Coogler better take advantage of the fact that the origin story has already been told in a Captain America-- and jump into a full action story line immediately.  

*********

Samuel L Jackson is in the Avenger/Iron Man/Captain America linked movies and he appears to be powerful enough to make damn sure he gets some real screen time --unlike Mackie and Cheadle. But he is NOT "super" More importantly, Jackson IS, in real life, 65 to 70 years old. He doesn't really count as a black superhero. But he is holding his own in most of these movies. I smile when I seem him coming. 

Wait!

Oh yeah, I forgot.

Don Cheadle moved out of the token zone, a little. He did manage to get shot in the spine by friendly fire and lose his ability to walk so as to make the other white superheroes feel sad, like something real had been sacrificed. Of course Cheadle's superhero buddy character who probably had 10 minutes worth of dialogue over the course of the entire movie.

BUT

The token roles of Mackie and Cheadle have led to Boseman, so ain't whining TOO much.