Black Panther And The Crew: C'mon Son

Black Panther and The Crew has been cancelled after just two issues and there's been a lot of outcry. There's been talk about how people beg for comics with black leads but don't really support them. There's been complaints about how Marvel doesn't advertise comics with minority leads to the same extent they publish others. Did anyone stop and think that maybe, just maybe, it wasn't that good?

The series saw black heroes like Black Panther, Storm, Luke Cage and Misty Knight investigating the death of a black man who died while in custody of Harlem police. The man's name is Ezra Keith and he had been a well known civil rights activist. The city is on the verge of all out war between police and citizens, so the heroes are drawn in to keep the peace. But after poor sales Marvel cancelled it after just the first two issues.

I wish I could tell you this book was doing something ground breaking, but it's just not. Right now, Misty Knight is one of the main characters in Sam Wilson: Captain America. I don't like Nick Spencer, he doesn't like me, it's been well documented on Twitter and by TYT's Nerd Alert. But, he's already done a similar story in that book, with Misty already involved. The Americops are not some new enemy The Crew is taking on.

Then there's Luke Cage. Have you read Power Man and Iron Fist? Because they've also taken on a group that changed criminal records and caused people to be beaten and falsely arrested by police. We don't need to see Luke go on a spiritual journey about police brutality and false imprisonment because he's been there and done that for decades. In fact, the only character who may possibly learn where they stand on the issue is Storm because T'Challa has already had a dozen solo arcs dedicated to the same thing. That's not even touching on DC, Image and independent content that

I like Ta-Nehisi Coates, I like him a lot. I think he's an incredible writer. The problem is that sometimes it seems as if he doesn't know that you can't write a comic the same way you right a nonfiction article, column or book. Don't get me wrong, there's still some great moments in his stories, but at the same time it reads like an after school special from the 90s in some places.

You never see Miles Morales' or Migue O'Harra's books advertised. We still haven't seen Marvel release a movie staring a non white male hero. I'm always down to talk about how shady Marvel and Disney are towards minorities. At the same time, it's been documented I'll sit through bad content if it's created by minorities just so we at least get a chance to be bad.

However, this isn't one of the times where the book was fated for failure by the shadowy figureheads in charge. It wasn't because people begged for this book and didn't support it. World of Wakanda was something that people asked for and it's something that people support it. In this case, it's just a bad book rehashing things that have already been done. You want something with a collection of Black heroes doing awesome stuff, bring back The Mighty Avengers and let them take on global threats again. That was fun, this is depressing. If you're going to pretend that it can't be bad just because it's black, I have to quote Ed Lover and ask you "C'mon Son"

You can hear Darrell on the CP Time and Powerbomb Jutsu podcasts. He also plays classic arcade games on The Cabinet. You can also check out his playthrough of Sleeping Dogs or Skyrim

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