Black Panther and Thor: Ragnarok Are Parallel Stories
In Ragnarok, Thor’s journey is a series of reckonings of his imminent crowning as king of Asgard, of his family’s dynasty within the nine realms and of his role as a hero. After Odin dies, Thor and his brother Loki are confronted by Hela, their estranged and long-imprisoned sister and Odin’s firstborn. Through Hela, they learn of the heinous, colonial past that gained Asgard its empire. The nine realms didn’t exist in harmony out of mere bureaucratic agreement and compromise they were conquered by Odin and Hela and the might of the Asgardian military. It was only after Hela’s taste for expansion grew beyond his that Odin thought to lock her in the underworld, to be released upon his demise.
Such is a complete shattering of the Odin and the Asgard we, and Thor, had come to know. Beneath the prosperous Norse city of gold lies a foundation of bloodshed and beneath the vestiges of a wise old ruler lay the heart of a ruthless conqueror. It’s a watershed moment for the Odinson, who is forced to reconcile his idea of home with its dark reality, and take down his own sister to protect it. Ultimately, the best way to protect Asgard turns out to be enacting Ragnarok and burning it down in order to start again with those who matter its people.
T’Challa in Black Panther faces the opposite problem: Wakanda keeping itself hidden from the outside world in order to protect it from colonizers has begun to become an issue. Maintaining a solitary existence is what’s allowed them to prosper, yes, but it’s what breeds Killmonger’s attempt at the throne in the movie. Growing up a fatherless child after his Wakandan father is killed by T’Challa’s in Oakland, California, Killmonger dedicates himself to one day challenging to become ruler of Wakanda, as is his birthright, and outsourcing the country’s weapons to cause an uprising of oppressed people of color around the world. He resents that this idyllic place where African identity has flourished without colonial suppression has seemingly done nothing for the African-American community, simply because it is not their way to invade or interfere in other countries.
And he’s not wrong. The country’s technology and innovations, the most advanced on Earth, would be immensely helpful to a great many people and issues around the world. Wakanda could provide humanitarian aid and outreach services to an unprecedented level if they so chose. But with letting the outside world know of their prosperity, with letting other countries and world leaders see who they really are, they become a target for the greedy and the bigoted. They’re opening their uninterrupted African cultural legacy to scorn and attack, which is why they’ve resisted the idea for so long. T’Challa himself begins the film very pro-strict borders, anti-wider outsourcing, but goes against the will of his father and ancestry, calling them out as wrong, by deciding that Wakanda needs to come out of the shadows and be more of a global player.
Thor and T’Challa are both leaders who must forge a new path if they and their lineage is to survive. For Thor, this becomes taking his people away from the place they called home for so long to build anew, hoping that despite his father’s sins they can seek solace on the shores of another world. For T’Challa, he makes Wakanda the beacon of hope and inspiration kids like Erik Killmonger never had. Rather than a place of myth, it becomes somewhere concerned with more than just itself. They’re both on a journey to build a new world on what unites people rather than what divides them, on paths forged by the ingenuity of great storytellers.
Black Panther and Thor: Ragnarok Are About The Same Thing
There’s been a common back-and-forth going around concerning Black Panther. Someone, in a tweet, comment or piece of editorial, calls or implies Black Panther is the first superhero film centered on a black protagonist, quickly earning it the reply Blade? Hancock? Steel? Spawn? This open mockery suggests someone could be so absent-minded as to forget a franchise from 20 years ago, a poorly-reviewed Will Smith vehicle, that time someone thought Shaquil O’Neal could shoulder an entire film, and a poorly received adaptation the original creator has been trying to do-over for years. While the minute number of comic book movies about a black hero should itself speak volumes, no, Black Panther technically isn’t the first, but it is the first to wear race and culture on its sleeve the way it does.
The character and the setting are African. Not African-American; African. He’s a hero and the king of a country completely absent of colonialism or imperialism. Thus, his first solo outing is all about bringing Pan-Africanism and African heritage and culture to the big screen on a blockbuster budget and scale. Wakanda and its tribes are dressed in the traditional garb of the continent. They wear jewelry and symbols from various African countries and speak a composite African language. The country is one where there’s a mixture of rustic agriculture and new technology, existing in harmony because neither has been uprooted for the other to exist. Speaking on his direction approach, Ryan Coogler stated his focus was on tradition vs. innovation - working to bring the historic and the contemporary together and allowing them to elevate each other.
The world of Wakanda is a fantasy built on legitimate history. And like T’Challa’s decision to unveil Wakanda to the world, Marvel allowing Coogler to imbue so much actual culture into the visual language has meant that African heritage is being seen and celebrated the world over in a new light through the power of cinema.
Taika Waititi’s madcap science fiction in Thor: Ragnarok doesn’t have such a historical grounding, but it does come from a similar sense of auteurship. Waititi was allowed to create a new tapestry for the Thor series that wasn’t just coming from the previous two installments. Using the work of Jack Kirby as an inspiration, the film creates its own space opera-esque settings that are big and bold and lavish and quite unlike anything the MCU had previously produced. More than previous Marvel Studios productions Ragnarok really made use of its soundtrack, too. The Mark Mothersbaugh original themes really add to the sense of wonder and grandeur of the whole film, expanding its powers as a great action-adventure in its own right rather than just another Marvel movie.
What binds the two on a technical level is directors being allowed to bring their own artistic vision and prowess to this massive stage and letting them have as much control as possible. The pair are vastly different directors in substance, but they both thrive in situations where they can choose what goes where and who to hire for which. Even within a studio machine like Marvel they understand how to do things that are unexpected and create films that audiences may not be expecting. Black Panther isn’t just a superhero origin story, it’s a celebration of African culture and a vehicle for the discussion of Pan-Africanism and what we can all do to better understand our own history. Thor: Ragnarok begins as Thor fighting a load of demons, moves to him and Hulk incidentally leading an uprising against Jeff Goldblum’s The Grandmaster and ends with an Asgardian refugee crisis. How’s that for an atypical way to tell an Odinson story?
The Marvel Cinematic Universe isn’t going away, and with so many superhero movies, getting tired of superhero adaptations is a real potential. And yet, as the last two chapters of the MCU before the crescendo of Phase Three begins in Avengers: Infinity War, Thor: Ragnarok, and Black Panther are among the most fresh-feeling and invigorating movies the genre has ever produced. They’re interesting, with attempts to challenge both narratively and technically, and they come from newer creators worthy of the mantle. They bring together the traditional and the innovative and if Phase Four brings more of the same, the MCU’s greatest days may still be ahead.
- Avengers: Infinity War Release Date: 2018-04-27 captain marvel Release Date: 2019-03-08 spider-man homecoming 2 Release Date: 2019-07-02 Ant-Man 2 Release Date: 2018-07-06 The Avengers 4 Release Date: 2019-04-26
