Writer, Journalist Ta-Nehisi Coates To Write Black Panther For Marvel

By Nick Tylwalk | Sep 22, 2015

It’s not often that you expect the writer of an upcoming Marvel Comics series to come from the pages of The Atlantic. It’s slightly more common for newcomers to the company to come from the ranks of award-nominated writers in other fields. Ta-Nehisi Coates qualifies on both counts, making it pretty cool that he will write the new Black Panther series that will kick off next spring.

More from Comics

In an interview with the New York Times, Coates confirmed that he’s pretty much alone as a comics nerd on the Atlantic staff, but that he doesn’t feel like writing for comics will be any different from his other work in terms of what he expects to get out of the experience.

He also revealed the broad plans for his first arc on Black Panther, which will be illustrated by artist Brian Stelfreeze. Titled “A Nation Under Our Feet” like the Pulitzer Prize-winning book of the same name by Steven Hahn, it will find T’Challa dealing with “a violent uprising in his country set off by a superhuman terrorist group called the People.”

Sounds like it could be a nice blend of the topical and the fantastic, which is something good super hero comics can pull off. Also intriguing is Coates’ admiration for the work of Jonathan Hickman, though he told the Times that rookie comic book writers don’t enter the field with that amount of skill.

"You don’t come in off the board and come in at that level. But it helps to want it to be great. I want to make a great comic. I really, really do."

I’d expect to see more info directly from Marvel on the new Black Panther series before the end of 2015.

More from Bam Smack Pow