Editing Marvel Comics (section)

===Black Panther===
The most prominent and well-known of Marvel's African super-heroes (with the possible exception of Storm, who mostly operates outside the continent), as well as one of the earliest African superheroes in a mainstream comic publisher. T'challa is the heir to the throne of Wakanda, a reclusive and highly technologically advanced African nation. Originally, this was because Wakanda had A: avoided being caught up in the slave trade, and B: had developed a custom of sending its best and brightest abroad to study the most advanced technologies they could and then bringing them home to apply their knowledge to bettering their people. This was further augmented by the fact Wakanda was the only known deposit of the alien super-metal Vibranium, which made it kind of like if America had been the only country in the world with plutonium/uranium when trying to invent the atomic bomb. This was then retconned into Wakanda having always been centuries ahead of the world in terms of technology due to said Vibranium, because the original backstory didn't make them special enough... even though this makes no sense when you think about it because, seriously, how is a culture with Iron Age technology supposed to make anything useful from a metal whose entire defining schtick is "being indestructible"? It's not like they can beat it into shape the way they could with iron ore!

Anyway, as King of Wakanda, T'challa has imbued a mutagenic/magical plant called "The Heart-Shaped Herb", which has given him superhuman strength, speed, senses, reflexes and agility. In later versions, his costume has also gone from just [[Batman]]-esque stylized bodyarmor to a hyper-advanced suit of [[Power Armor]]. Mostly concerned with keeping Wakanda safe from outside threats, or sometimes with opening up Wakanda to the outside world - it depends on the series/media. Wakanda being characterized as arrogant, elitist, aloof and xenophobic (think the worst portrayals of [[Elf|elves]]), this is often a lot harder than it sounds.

Spent a lot of time out of the public eye, but was catapulted into mainstream darlinghood with his debut in the Marvel Cinematic Universe. It is a legitimately good film, but don't fall for the [[SJW]] [[hype]] about it being "the first black superhero movie!" That would actually be Image Comics' Spawn, in 1997, with [[DC Comics]] releasing a Steel film in the same year. It's not even "the first black Marvel superhero movie!" - that would be Blade (1998), which actually got two sequels and was Marvel's first big film-related success prior to the Spider-Man and X-Men films. It can, however, be legitimately argued as the ''best'' black superhero movie out there so far.
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