Posted in: Avengers, Comics, Comics Publishers, Current News, Ike Perlmutter, Marvel Comics, Marvel Studios, Movies | Tagged: black panther, mcu, Wall Street journal

When Marvel Was "Cautious" About A Black Panther Movie

The Black Panther movie may have made north of a billion dollars, but some people at Marvel were nervous about the appeal of such a film.

In April 2015, Bleeding Cool broke the news that Marvel Chair Ike Perlmutter was briefing against the idea of a Captain Marvel movie. Something that other news reporters managed to catch up with three weeks later (crediting someone else with the discovery, of course). Perlmutter was accused of blocking Captain Marvel and Black Panther films by Disney boss Bob Iger in favour of his pushing The Inhumans and an X-Men beating franchise. Iger is quoted as saying, "I called Ike and told him to tell his team to stop putting up roadblocks and ordered that we put both Black Panther and Captain Marvel into production."

Back in July, The Wall Street Journal's podcast, The Journal, hosted by Kate Linebaugh and Ryan Knutson, ran a series of episodes by Ben Fritz looking at the rise of Marvel Studios from comic book publisher to film studio to Disney purchase and the executive and creator battles within. It made a few headlines, but there are lots of gems that seemed to be missed, such as Marvel's initial relationship with Sony Pictures, led by our favourite Marvel executives, Avi Arad, and Ike Perlmutter, two toy manufacturers who took over the comic book company and made it profitable again. Catch up on more of our coverage with this tag.

John Turitzin was Marvel's former Chief Administrative Officer, Executive Vice President, and General Counsel, with a different take. "Well, we had a long history doing diverse characters in our comic books. But promoting one of those characters, elevating one of those characters to a movie, and backing it with a $250 million production budget was a whole different level of concern and a whole different level of risk. So, for us, we were quite concerned about audience reaction [and] audience reception to breaking the mold of the traditional successful superhero movie starring a white guy… We had a published film lineup of movies we intended to make over the next several years, and one of them was Black Panther on that list. It was on the list. We wanted to make the movie, but we were cautious about it."

Black Panther – and Captain Marvel – were both ten-figure revenue movies. And that frog was never going to be put back in the box. Ike Perlmutter only lasted a few more years before he was fired.

It wouldn't be the only time Marvel were that cautious over introducing Black Panther and it shows in the difference between Black Panther's first design by Jack Kirby, when he was known as Coal Tiger. And then how he appeared on the cover of Fantastic Four #52 in 1966.

And below is Jack Kirby's original cover design, with what was intended to be the final design for the Black Panther. It is notable that he does not have a full face mask and we can see his nose, mouth chin – and skin.

Marvel editor Tom Brevoort explained back in 2019:

This was in 1966 and having a black superhero in 1966 was a fairly revolutionary thing… it's kind of impossible to think about that these days but it was true, and in fact there was such concern and what this might do to the sale of the Fantastic Four in southern states or whatnot, that's the whole reason his costume was changed and he got the full cat face mask, so that on that first appearance cover, he looks cool but you can't tell what his ethnicity is. It worked out, he looks great, it was a great moment, but there's a little underbelly to it that's not as wonderful.

Indeed. Black Panther's costume is the way it is, because Marvel had to consider the feelings and reactions of racists – whether that be printers, distributors, retailers or readers. To whom, the front page promotion of a black superhero standing alongside white superheroes – and getting star billing – was unacceptable. On the cover at least.

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