Stan Lee’s Changes to the Black Panther / Chris Tolworthy

Stan Lee’s Changes to the Black Panther

A companion piece to the article ‘Stan Lee and Jack Kirby: Who did What?’

Chris Tolworthy

T’Challa, the character who we know as the Black Panther was created by Jack Kirby as the ‘Coal Tiger’. He had tiger stripes on his costume and no face mask. Stan told Jack to change the name to ‘Black Panther’, make the costume all black, and add a full face mask. Most fans say this was a great improvement. They say ‘Coal Tiger’ sounds silly and the new costume is cool. This is of course a matter of opinion. But we cannot overlook the serious problems with the changes. For example, while Jack’s original design showed T’Challa’s face, Stan wanted it covered. So Jack gave T’Challa a half mask. But Stan wanted T’Challa’s face completely covered, and the cover redrawn; the new cover pushed T’Challa into the background.

Why cover his face? Perhaps to set up a big revealing? Perhaps because he was a man of mystery? But so was Black Bolt, so was Gorgon, Galactus, the Silver Surfer, and pretty much every Kirby character from this time period. Only the black guy has to hide his face. Why? Well, whenever comics showed a black character during this period, they got letters of complaint.

“Comic characters are a white man’s land,” admits Alfred Andriola, artist and co-creator of Herry Drake. “Let’s face it. You can’t deal with race or color in comics. A colored maid or porter brings on a flood of letters. And if we show the Negro as a hero we get angry letters from the south.”

(‘How The Funnies Handle Race’, Ebony, November 1966; just a few months after FF #52; emphasis mine)

So black characters were seldom seen; and when, four years earlier, DC reprinted a British adaptation of a movie that featured some black people (Dr No), they recoloured their black faces to be white.

In his defence, Stan did allow T’Challa to take off his mask at the end of the story. But by then the comic was paid for, and hopefully the reader liked it. And after that, black characters became a little more common.

There may have been some internal hand-wringing about the Black Panther. The first version of the cover had shown the Panther’s black skin; the published version did not. Previews in other titles that month suggest Marvel couldn’t decide how much of him to show—or how to characterize him. “Don’t miss the mystery villain of the month!” read the ads, which blocked out the cover art. (Once Marvel committed to a policy of representing black characters, however, change came quickly. The cover of the following month’s romance comic Modeling with Millie proudly introduced a black British model named Jill Jerold to its cast.)

(‘The true story of life at Marvel Comics in the glory days of Jack Kirby and Stan Lee’, an excerpt from Marvel Comics: The Untold Story, Sean Howe; the Gizmodo website, 17 October 2012)

“Tiger, tiger, burning bright”

Coal Tiger would be an awesome name if not for our racist assumptions. T’Challa’s life is summed up by Blake’s famous poem:

Tiger, tiger, burning bright

In the forests of the night,

What immortal hand or eye

Could frame thy fearful symmetry?

In what distant deeps or skies

Burnt the fire of thine eyes?

On what wings dare he aspire?

What the hand dare seize the fire?

And what shoulder and what art

Could twist the sinews of thy heart?

And when thy heart began to beat,

What dread hand and what dread feet?

What the hammer? What the chain?

In what furnace was thy brain?

What the anvil? What dread grasp

Dare its deadly terrors clasp?

When the stars threw down their spears,

And water’d heaven with their tears,

Did He smile His work to see?

Did He who made the lamb make thee?

Tiger, tiger, burning bright

In the forests of the night,

What immortal hand or eye

Dare frame thy fearful symmetry?

Hot coals of vengeance!

Coal’s main property is that it burns. Being black is only secondary. And when it burns, it’s red on the inside, like T’Challa’s cape. To better understand the symbolism of coals, look to Shakespeare. Occasionally it means “coal black”, or red, but usually coal refers to fire, and passion, and vengeance!

To make coals cheap, —a noble memory! (Coriolanus: V, i)

And all eyes else dead coals! fear thou no wife; (The Winter’s Tale: V, i)

Your breath first kindled the dead coal of wars (King John: V, ii)

There is no malice in this burning coal; (King John: IV, i)

The cat, with eyne of burning coal, (Pericles, Prince of Tyre: II, v)

That I have blown this coal: I do deny it: (King Henry VIII: II, iv)

Than is the coal of fire upon the ice, (Coriolanus: I, i)

Men would carry coals. They would have me as (King Henry V: III, ii)

Is kindling coals that fires all my breast, (King Henry VI, part III: II, i)

If he could burn us all into one coal, (Coriolanus: IV, vi)

Hot coals of vengeance! let no soldier fly. (King Henry VI, Part II: V, ii)

Have blown this coal betwixt my lord and me; (King Henry VIII: II, iv)

Faith, at the latter end of a sea-coal fire. (The Merry Wives of Windsor: I, iv)

At the round table, by a sea-coal fire, upon (King Henry IV, Part II: II, i)

And add more coals to cancer when he burns (Troilus and Cressida: II, iii)

A coal of fire, sometimes plue and sometimes red; (King Henry V: III, vi)

Gregory, o’ my word, we’ll not carry coals. (Romeo and Juliet: I, i)

Look at T’Challa’s story: he is smouldering with vengeance since Klaw murdered his father long ago. He is like a fire that will not go out. Shakespeare would have understood the name. I could also go further back and cite hot coals in the Bible (what with Kirby being Jewish), but I hope I have made my point.

Tigers are cooler than panthers (and less racist)

The name ‘tiger’ suggests strength and beauty. But ‘panther’ is more about being black (panthers are black). And to make it super clear, Stan wanted ‘Black Panther’ or ‘BLACK Black Cat’. Add the totally black costume, and it looks like Stan saw T’Challa as just one thing: black. T’Challa was being defined by his skin colour.

What our reaction to ‘coal tiger’ says about us

Everyone seems to think ‘Coal Tiger’ refers to skin colour, but they do not approach the names of white characters in the same manner. Is Emma Frost (the White Queen) named ‘Frost’ because of her frost-white skin? No. The color is not the point; it’s about coldness (just as coal is about heat).

Is Pinky Pinkerton (of the Howling Commandos) named for his pink skin? No, other connotations of ‘Pinky’ are more important.

We ignore colour when it comes to white people. But a black man? Coal must be about colour. Because colour is all he is, apparently.

The political name

The name ‘Black Panther’ later caused problems because it was also the name of a controversial political group. So in Fantastic Four No. 119 Stan tried to change it.

That was just bad luck, right? The Black Panther party did not begin until October of 1966, a few months after Fantastic Four No. 52 came out. But it got its name from a ‘Black Panther’ party that was active in Alabama in 1965.

The 1965 elections in Alabama (photo: Doug Harris)

In 1966, shortly before Fantastic Four No. 52 was created, the New York Times ran an article about that Black Panther party. Jack Kirby was an avid reader and observer of trends, so Jack avoided the naming problem. But Stan Lee walked right into it and later regretted it.

The problematic costume

Jack Kirby’s Black Panther costume doesn’t look as good as Stan’s idea for the costume, right?

But look closer: it’s the exact same costume, complete with side cape, strap, stripes on the gloves and boots, and so on. The only difference is the absence of colour, and removing the tiger stripes on the torso. Sure, Jack’s character design looks garish, but it’s supposed to: it is a reference design, for the purpose of highlighting details. The finished comic shows how it looks in practice. All Stan did was make it entirely black. Jack’s version would have looked exactly the same, but with a splash of colour. Was removing colour a good idea? Aesthetically, it’s is a matter of opinion. Some people will prefer one, and some the other. But again it opens Stan up to the racist charge. This is why:

When Jack thought of T’Challa he thought of a tiger! The symbol of strength and beauty! His costume was bright and proud! Look at authentic African costumes, they tend to be highly colorful! Kirby’s instincts were spot on. But to Lee, African meant just... black, black, black.

In Jack’s cover, T’Challa is big, bold, proud, in control! But Lee pushed him into the shadows. Throughout history, white people have preferred that black people stay hidden. I don’t suppose Stan Lee intended it that way. It’s just another unfortunate accident, along with the full face mask and political connotations. But Stan has a lot of these accidents, and Jack doesn’t.

The question of creativity

Finally, Stan’s name change and costume change caused a problem because there was already a character called The Panther who had an all-black costume, from Issue 77 of Two-Gun Kid. Reusing it just creates confusion.

However, this does allow us to make a useful comparison. Here we have two ‘black panther’ characters, and the only difference is that one is entirely by Stan Lee and the other is by Stan Lee with Jack Kirby. The Stan Lee character is a guy who dresses up in a costume to scare people. It was instantly forgotten. But add Kirby to the mix and we have a character who makes history (first black superhero), with a rich and fascinating back story, who supports his own comic titles over the years, and is about to become a major Hollywood movie (I write this in July of 2016). So what does the Black Panther tell us about who contributed what? You decide.

Lee’s position is not under threat

This is starting to sound like an attack on Stan Lee. So again I must emphasise Lee’s achievements. Stan made the business work. Stan connected different creators’ stories and thus created the connected Marvel Universe. Stan raised the profile of artists and writers, and tirelessly built an audience of millions. Stan wrote easier-to-read stories. Stan connected with people in a way that Jack Kirby could not. Stan deserves his millions and his fame. But this article is a companion piece to a more specific question: Who did what in writing The Fantastic Four?