I was beyond livid. Marvel, what the hell, we coulda had it all! Six years may seem like a long time in real time, but in comic book time (since these characters really don’t age), that’s maybe what, a good two and a half years? At best? We never got to see all the mechanics of their marriage that could be. You don’t give these two Black characters this amount of power up on a platform then just toss it away for a 2012 Avengers vs. X-Men “war” that won’t mean anything in a few months, man. Reginald Hudlin and Scot Eaton didn’t redefine T’Challa’s beginnings in this series for this shit right here. You gotta give the fandom way more than a couple story arcs of marriage. Does T’Challa do dishes? Who is the better cook between the two? Who claims the right side of the bed? Who is the better driver? Naaah, you gotta come with more character development and growth as a union than that, baby.
This shit fucking hurt for a good while. Storm running round with Wolverine, and T’Challa appearing ever so often singing, “I can love you better… but not at the moment tho, ’cause Marvel ain’t lettin’ us be great or have it all,” outside her window, specifically in Hickman’s New Avengers: Time Runs Out storyline. But then a hero comes along with not only the strength to carry on but the strength to write them wrongs five years later in 2017. Those heroes are Ta-Nehisi Coates and Brian Stelfreeze bringing the power couple back together one mo ’gain in Black Panther, vol. 6, #13. T’Challa is dealing with the gods/orisha that have protected Wakanda abandoning them in their time of need. This leaves T’Challa with many questions about how gods operate. So, who better to talk to about godly shit than the woman worshipped as a gawd her damn self, Ororo Munroe? Yeah. Hell yeah, man. T’Challa, the pragmatic scientist, asking Ororo about her experiences as a goddess in an expensive-ass room somewhere outta our tax bracket? Drinking the finest Wakandan champagne? T’Challa trying to get a better understanding of where the Wakandan gods stand with his people? Storm helping enlighten this man dealing with religion, history, and context so much bigger than him.
Grrmmmm-hmmm! *rapper hearing a sick beat growl* That’s the jam I want on my French toast. Ta-Nehisi Coates and Brian Stelfreeze gave our ship wind to its sails again. This was evident when T’Challa asks Storm, “And what of you? What became of all your worshippers?” “Silly king. I need no religion,” Storm replies. She then says, “And I only require the worship of one man,” while holding T’Challa’s face in her palms and kissing his forehead. Let’s fucking go. Let’s fucking go, Black-ass love. Come on. In later stories in the series Storm is there to bail T’Challa out, bail Wakanda out, and once Coates starts the Intergalactic Empire of Wakanda storyline Storm is on the front lines showcasing why she is Top Five Heroes and Bad Bishes Dead or Alive.
Lemme be clear, this isn’t to say these two characters aren’t interesting in their own rights or need the social construct of marriage in order to be prominent. I’m just big on follow-up, especially since we never had a chance to see this couple develop. I mean, come on, man, they were given a backstory of knowing each other as kids from way back in Marvel Team-Up (1980) with Storm saving T’Challa’s life. That mythos was expanded upon in a retcon to set up for their marriage. Also, I’ll shut up when you can tell me a prominent Black married couple on par with T’Challa and Storm. I’ll wait. I’ll wait even longer. Mister Fantastic and the Invisible Woman been married for how long again? Peter Parker got married to M.J. back in 1987 (then had that taken away in the One More Day storyline in 2007). Luke Cage and Jessica Jones got married in 2006, they’re still married. The X-Man Northstar (Jean-Paul Beaubier) married his Black boyfriend, Kyle Jinadu, in 2012. No prominent all-Black or -Brown married couples tho.
So, forgive me if I am happy to see T’Challa and Storm still being something of an item all these years later, and I’m still wondering, what do they do for date night? What could Storm get as a gift for the man who has everything? Is T’Challa used to folks wanting to take one pic with him in it and a selfie with just them and Storm? Do they have Thanksgiving in Wakanda or the X-Mansion? What are the Black American cultural faux pas, culture gaps, idioms, and slang that come up in conversation that Storm has to explain to T’Challa? These are questions we need answered. Though their marriage is over (for now, dammit), with their romance hinted at continuing, hopefully we can see more of that.
You may be saying, “Dude, get over it.” To that I say, “I hope your firstborn child loses their first championship high school game or academic decathlon.” You knew what this was, fuck was you still reading for, then? But hear me out tho. I grew up on Marvel, man. As I’m older now, married now, hindsight be one hell of a drug when you’re a consumer. I’m going to have bars for that ass. I’m just sayin’ I enjoy seeing Black and Brown characters flourishing and exploring aspects of a relationship (as well as enjoying being alone). If I’m being reflective about it, perhaps that’s because my parents were divorced, so the way relationships are and could be are pretty different growing up under that point of view as a kid. Again, you start to look for other Black and Brown couples in Marvel and they’re not too common.
Looking back, the ones I can recall offhand are Storm and Black Panther as a pair again, Monica Rambeau and Brother Voodoo (a funny whatever-ship from the Marvel Divas comics), Misty Knight and Sam Wilson, Monica Rambeau and Adam Brashear, Surge and Prodigy from X-Men (very short-lived but counts). I’m sure I may have missed some, but I’m talking post-Blaxploitation era and into the 2000s. Take the time to think about it tho, it’s really only a handful. Ya might’ve noticed I listed Black-Brown interracial couples on that as well. I noticed a pattern at Marvel where a majority of their white characters that star in their own solo titles are in relationships with people of color, which is dope when done correctly. Do y’all remember when Cindy Moon, aka Silk, debuted in Spider-Man? Silk was bit by the same spider that bit Peter Parker but was kept away for years in a bunker to protect her from an enemy tracking her. When Peter and Silk meet, they have this animal attraction to each other and can’t help but make out.
Man, we ain’t seen Peter do that with any other woman or person with Spider powers… but okay. It comes across rather fetishy, as Cindy Moon is Asian. Thankfully she becomes a character outside of Peter, but that initial presentation feels like a ball drop and reinforcing for an exotic stereotype/trope. But there are examples of it being done well as well: there’s an issue of Secret Wars: Secret Love (#1, 2015) where Iron Fist is doing Misty Knight’s hair in bantu knots. I mean, it don’t get much more “awww” and cute as fuck as that, does it? It’s a good example of showing a person learning an element of someone else’s culture and participating in it. A similar scene occurred in Creed where Adonis Creed (Michael B. Jordan) is doing his girlfriend’s (Tessa Thompson) hair. Beautiful real-world representation in two different ways. Yet, we often see more occurrences of a white person taking part in an aspect of a culture that’s outside their own.
Marvel has a big majority of comic book titles that have a white character shipped/paired with a person of color as the main love interest. Which can serve as a reflection for those in those relationships in real life, ’cause representation. However, one, usually those POC love interests are new characters and only exist as a love interest for the lead character with no agency of their own. Two, there are certain POC characters that will have or appear in their own title, and they are dating a white partner as well. Three, we don’t see many people of color in interracial relationships with other people of color. The first interracial couple I saw in media was in an X-Men comic: Storm and Forge. Storm kissing Forge, the genius mutant inventor of the X-Men, was my first time seeing in comic books two Brown people kissing. At that age, I knew Storm was Black and Forge was Indigenous American, but the impact didn’t really hit me then.
I looked at the page thinking, “Hey, look at these Brown folks kissing. Nice. I’m currently too young to understand the significance of this, but somewhere in me I do know it is significant. It will probably affect me subconsciously throu
ghout my life in some way that will hit me later… perhaps while I’m writing an essay. All right, let’s see where the action scenes are in this issue.” This was my first comprehension of an interracial couple, not realizing at the time that my sister and brother were products of an interracial marriage. My mother is Black, and her first husband was a dark-skinned Brown Tamil South Indian man. I realized just how close to home this was when I was reading an issue of Ms. Marvel. Ms. Marvel is the hero identity of Kamala Khan, a Pakistani American Muslim girl from Jersey City. In one issue we see Kamala’s brother, Aamir, marrying Tyesha, a dark-skinned Black West African Muslim woman.
Aamir and Tyesha are supporting characters in Kamala’s book, but this wedding was incredible; we see two people of color with different cultures meeting each other in the middle in solidarity. Aamir and Tyesha end up surprising each other at their wedding by wearing traditional wedding garbs from each other’s culture. Aamir shows up wearing a boubou (a traditional West African formal attire for men) because, as he tells his sister, Kamala, “I wanted her to feel safe. Not like she has to give up the things that are important to her just to fit in with us. So I wore this instead of a kurta.” Tyesha shows up wearing a shalwar kameez (a traditional combination dress worn by Pakistani women usually accompanied with a long scarf or shawl called a “dupatta” around the head or neck). My moms had similar experiences going into a different culture, and her meeting in the middle was learning Indian dishes from her sister-in-law that married into the family too. Years later, after my mom got married again and had me, she was still making Indian dishes. Funny part is, I didn’t know that some of the dishes she made for me to eat were Indian. I didn’t even know she knew how to make Indian food. I just ate whatever she made without question. It wasn’t until I was in an Indian restaurant with my father in 2016, where in passing he said, “Your mother made this better,” while eating his order. Seeing the confusion on my face, my father then informed me of all this information I just told y’all.
There’s a picture of my mother with her first husband’s family where the women are all in saris and she’s in this fly-ass ’70s-era fit Black as fuck. Being her son, I too am Black as fuck and my wife happens to be Punjabi Indian (from Australia). When I was visiting her extended family in India with her, I saw a crispy bread dish my mom used to make that they were serving. My wife told me it was called “puri.” I told her I’d called it “pocket bread” since I was a kid. I ate that dish for years not knowing it had a proper name. At our wedding I dressed in Punjabi attire and did a dance number with my wife because I’m pretty sure I had to prove I could dance to get into the family as the final test. Black folk dance at a wedding for fun; Indian folk dance as a trial by fire. I passed. You don’t know trill till you see a whole family flood the dance floor for a number. My god. It just goes to show that interracial doesn’t mean white + POC as the default as we’re seeing in media. People with dark skin, Brown skin, or Black skin can be in an interracial relationship or biracial as well.
Also, let’s be clear, I’m not trying to stan for marriage as the be-all and end-all of relationship evolutions, I understand the dynamics of relationships are way different, as we have folks that are polyamorous, asexual, nonmonogamous, or open with their relationships, as well as other expressions of partnership. I’m also not saying that because I am in an interracial marriage I JUST wanna see more POC + POC interracial relationships. No. My reader, what I’m saying is I want to see Black couples, Indigenous couples, Asian couples, Aboriginal couples, Arabic couples, Pacific Islander couples, front and center. Black/POC with other people of color as a norm for interracial up in this muhfucka. Not solely white + POC as the main definition of interracial with Black/POC characters created just for a white lead who will disappear to the wayside once a new writer takes over, a storyline finishes, or the series concludes before a new series starts over. Oh, and I want that across all genders, all nonbinary gender–conforming folks, and all sexual orientations. We gon’ mention that off the strength, fam.
We may be far off from Marvel exploring all those routes simultaneously across the board with their characters but have TV shows and other comics doing the work in that regard. But listen, y’all ain’t got to mind me tho. I’m just talking my shit and unpacking all these feels from the icebox where my heart used to be (I know, I thought long and hard about making that reference). I’m just so happy to see that there’s still something between Ororo and T’Challa that doesn’t literally involve the end of the world for them to get together for old times’ sake. I’m just happy to see Black people out here expressing love to each other in a healthy way for all of us to see all up in these panels, nah mean? I’m just here to shout out Aamir and Tyesha Khan being respectful and adhering to both their cultures as they join in union, ya feel me? Power to the power couples!
Whenever I Watch Underworld, I Feel Like Kate Beckinsale Wants to Break Up with Me
WILLIAM EVANS, aka The Black Lycan Student Council President
THERE ARE A great number of things that I should and still kind of love about the Underworld series while fully realizing that it’s not exactly the Dark Knight trilogy for vampire flicks. I mean, making werewolf transformations happen in live action ain’t never been easy, and this latest movie had rumbles of a lawsuit because its story strayed a little too close to the game Vampire: The Masquerade, but still. Despite its can’t-really-walk-in-the-daylight weaknesses, I can still watch undead or emo beasts of the night merge supernatural powers and gifts with modern-day weaponry and feel like I didn’t waste a couple of hours. Give me gadgets and full auto pistols with UV light bullets. Give me a man that transforms into a beast in mid-run on the walls. I’m here, fam. For all of it. Especially a really attractive protagonist letting them thangs go in a sleek black zero suit. Well, about that.
Maaaaan, listen. I want you to flash back to 2003 with me, when a young William was in his early twenties, brimming with the confidence of a mediocre white dude. I was smart, in prime athlete shape, I knew all the house dances, I could get in free to the fall icebreaker depending on what frat was hosting it; it was lit more than a decade before anything would be called lit. Underworld had me hype, because vampires. Kate Beckinsale was basically coming off of being the extremely pretty “it” girl with previous flicks like Serendipity and Pearl Harbor. So, when I saw the trailer of Beckinsale breaking out of romantic-interest plot-point role and moving into undead-but-very-much-badass heroine out to restore balance and fend off the coming vampire-lycan war, I was all in. I mean, fam. Selene is not here to play with you heauxs.
Still-frame game turned up to eleven. So yes, muthafuckin’ yes, I was up in the theater ready to see all this glory. I’d tell you who I took to the movie, but I don’t remember and that’s not important anyway. That night was about me, Selene, and some pale-on-beast violence.
And then, about an hour into the movie, I felt like Selene got up from our dinner, went to the bathroom, and then had the waiter send me a note like, “Sorry, I had to leave. I know that’s rude to stick you with the bill. But the chicken was dry anyway, so don’t pay full price.” At first I thought the movie depressed me because it only has two color schemes in the whole film. But nah, I was depressed because Kate invited me back to the spot, asked me to come in, then told me to sit on the couch and watch TV by myself while she went to bed. I sat in the theater like… do I just sit here in my seat till she gets back… or go home?
Watching any of the Underworld films makes me feel like Kate Beckinsale is completely bored with my existence, fam. I feel like she invited me over to the crib to chill and listen to music, but just speaks in deep sighs all night because she actually hates her own vinyl collection. And because she’s talented and gorgeous, I’m over here like, “Kate, what can I do to make it better? What can I do to engage you and make you happy?” And she, while still rocking the black leather and badass cape, just looks at me and says, “Baby, I don’t really know. Nothing is probably going to help.
Get taller maybe?”
If Selene ain’t banging them hammers or using the vampire/Dark Knight gadgets, she looks like she at the DMV on a Monday. Like nobody wants to stand in this line, but what you gonna do, not drive? All I want Kate to do is get her license and have good hair in the pic, man. All I wish for Kate to do is discover online registration, yo. She for real out here on that Diddy, “if you don’t *blank expression*, you don’t eat.” Maybe I’m projecting. I dated a woman once who was always down to go out with me, but turned into posing for the Mona Lisa when we would link up. She hit me up three years later saying we just got together at a bad time for her, because a family member had a long-term illness and was in their last stages. Bad breaks, ya know. I’m not a lycan, I have a heart and understand.
So I thought maybe that’s what’s going on with Kate Beckinsale. We don’t know all there is to know about celebrities’ lives. Maybe someone in her fam was going through some rough shit when Underworld dropped. By Underworld: Evolution I was like, “Oh, same shit, okay this shit must be terminal.” When I saw Underworld: Awakening, I said, “Aiight, somebody been dying of the same shit for about a decade now.” Ain’t no more excuses, yo, Kate just rather be getting a root canal than playing Selene. Kate rather be washing her hair than playing Selene. Kate probably screen-test Selene while still wearing the breathing mask she slept in, fam. We can’t try to call it something else anymore.
Black Nerd Problems Page 11