Of Black Panthers and Rising Knights

Anthony Phills
5 min readFeb 20, 2018
Black Panther copyright Marvel Comics — Tony Knight copyright Anthony Phills

I’m sure you’ve all heard the old phrase about nothing more powerful than a good idea whose time has come. Well, the time has certainly come for black protagonists.

Black Panther exploded over the weekend, proving to people in Hollywood and the world that a black cast, black protagonist, and afro-centric storyline can sell to a diverse audience. The success of Black Panther can be pinned to many things. Timing certainly played a part, as well as, the newness of an all-black cast. But there was so much more in the making of this blockbuster than just social politics. As my good, comic-book loving friend pointed out — Black Panther was just plain old well-written. And don’t get me started on the cast! The cast was composed of Oscar-worthy talent: Chadwick Boseman, Lupita Nyong’o and Angela Basset, just to name a few. This movie was based on a comic that was groundbreaking when my man Stan Lee first put it out through Marvel. Over the years, The Black Panther garnered a huge following not because it had a superhero in it that just happened to be black, but because it had a black superhero. Follow me?

The Black Panther is not the first black person of color in the role of a superhero or seen within the pages of a comic. Comics and comic book movies have had black characters in them before. There was Eartha Kit as Catwoman (my favorite Catwoman by far), Halle Berry as Storm, Will Smith in Hancock, and more recently Sam Wilson as Falcon and Idris Elba as Heimdall. What makes the character Black Panther different was that he was designed not as an afterthought or addition to a mostly-white super hero team, but because his comic, The Black Panther was designed from the very beginning to be what it was, a black comic. And yes, there is a difference.

While it was progressive and –dare I say? — nice of Kenneth Branagh to cast Idris Elba as Heimdall in the Thor movie, many of the criticisms leveled at Branagh by fans were valid. Heimdall was not a black character. Idris Elba was a black actor playing a Norse god who was, according to the mythos, the whitest god in the pantheon. Black movie goers are not stupid. We know what’s going on. We knew this was just a filler casting. I would bet that white people were probably happier about it than most black movie-goers. Despite ladies all over the world swooning at Idris on the screen, it still wasn’t satisfying in the way that Black Panther is satisfying. You see, unlike Idris trying on the traditionally white role of Heimdall, Chadwick Boseman wears the role of Wakanda like a suit that was made for him. This is why The Black Panther feels authentic to us as movie-goers; it feels right.

When I created my character Tony Knight I was creating a black special agent. From head to toe, Tony Knight is black. His backstory is black. His family is black. His manner of speaking is black. His style…is black. He is an authentic, modern black man and that is why he feels real. I’m going to paraphrase –more like butcher — the words of James Baldwin and say that stories only have power when we believe they are not only true, but true of us. We have to connect with a character for him or her to last. We have to believe he’s true.

KNIGHT Trilogy Trailer 1: On The Edge Of Knight — Case1: Showdown In The City, Case 2: Knight In The Jungle and Case 3: Discovering The Deep State

Now, neither my special agent Tony Knight nor Wakanda are realistic characters in the sense of those boundaries of human physicality, but they are real in how developed and purposeful they are. If a man had the technology…if a man had magical powers…if a man had the super strength then how would a black male or female character with those powers act? He or she would act like Wakanda and Nakia and he would also behave like Tony Knight. They are authentic, purposeful characters.

As humans we long to see our roots and our faces represented in the arts. I don’t blame the young white males who enjoyed watching the Lord of the Rings, knowing it was based on Tolkien’s idea of European prehistory. I would love to have seen a black fantasy (more on that in a bit) that was true of my heritage. I don’t want to watch a reboot where they put Morgan Freeman in as Gandalf (although he would make a great Gandalf). I want to watch something that feels true and authentic to me — and yes, that can be an all white cast of Lord of the Rings (that’s authentic), but it can also be the all black protagonists found in the Black Panther. It could be an all black planet in Star Wars if we believe it is true and true of ourselves. And it can also be a black secret agent who drinks a little too much, dresses way too cool for school, and has his touch points and roots in the warm breezes of Trinidad.

KNIGHT Trilogy Season 1 available on iBooks, Amazon Kindle, Podcast, iPhone App, Web App, Soundcloud, Medium Blogs and Paperback Today! — Powered by Binge Publishing.

The Knight Trilogy is my Black Panther. It is my love letter to Trinidad, my family, and to all the people of color out there like me out there who watched Ethan Hunt, Jason Bourne, and Le Femme Nikita and said, “Where’s my hero?” I’m also collaborating on a book 2 of a fantasy series where there are black wizards, fighters, and fantasy creatures — not because I don’t enjoy Lord of the Rings (I do) but because I don’t need a black man playing Gandalf in the reboot when we can have our own authentic version.

So congratulations to Black Panther and its box office explosion, thank you to my friend Stan Lee for planting the seeds, and I hope you all enjoy the Knight Trilogy. I wrote it for you.

On The Edge Of KNIGHT
On The Edge Of KNIGHT

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Anthony Phills

Author, Designer, Public Speaker and A.I.: Business Strategies and Applications Certified — Http://Phills.com