What happens next can only be described as a one-way trip to “fuck outta here.” Henchman #8 ran right into a fucking hip toss like he was in the Royal Rumble. How you catch the hip toss into obscurity and get the just for good measure no-look back kick to your face as you down on the ground? If you hip toss a man you can at least look at him before or while kicking him while he’s down, right? Pfffft, not Blade. Can we talk about how Blade’ll never be a licensed chiropractor?
You see him Jenga Henchman #10’s and #11’s necks one after the other? Blade caught ’em in Finn Bálor’s Sling Blade before finishing ’em off like Billy Bob Thornton in Sling Blade. Blade blowing necks and backs out on some Sleepy’s box spring mattress. Blade adjusting folk vertebrae like it’s an antenna not picking up reception. How he snap into a dude’s neck on some Slim Jim shit before UPS overnighting another SUUUUPER-KIIIICK? Blade superkicked Henchman #12 so hard I thought he was one of the paintings on the wall. Dude went into the air like Rick James when Charlie Murphy kicked ’em. Blade making all these nameless dudes working overtime hold all these damn L’s. Blade took someone’s electric baton and proceeded to nail these dudes with all of Nightwing’s combos from Injustice, then hit the drum breakdown from Phil Collins’s “In the Air Tonight” all over they chest. You on some other shit when you jam a baton in someone’s face. Blade plugged that shit in Henchman #23’s face like it was a USB port. Dude took a phone charger straight to the face. It’s safe to say everybody in this scene probably shit themselves on this fade. However, every hospital bill Blade made these folks have to pay (that their health care won’t cover or copay) was nothing compared to the shit he saved up last. To this day it’s still the most disrespectful shit I ever seen.
BLADE DEADASS GRABBED HENCHMAN #27, PUT ’EM IN A HEADLOCK, THEN LIFTED HIM IN THE AIR FOR A FUCKING STALLING SUPLEX JUST FOR THE FUCK OF IT. Who fucking suplexes a man just to prove a point in a fight?! Blade held that suplex before coming down with it so it’d hurt more. There must have been a time traveler in the audience, ’cause somebody shouted, “World Star!” at this in 2002 and WorldStarHipHop wasn’t founded until 2005. That man’s spine got turned into Vermont jam. That man’s spine is loose enough to be used for double Dutch jump rope now. That man’s spine looking like angel hair pasta with the lobster sauce. That’s some fucking sicko shit. Again, your favorite hero could never take disrespect to these heights! Reinhardt got off easy by getting cut in two. If I’m one of the henchmen I’d be pissed about that. Like, “Hey, man, what the fuck, you over here giving us ECW and NJPW pro wrestling finishers for just doing our job. Put Reinhardty’s ass in the Coquina Clutch like you did to Gary… Gary was Henchman #2; we have names, Blade! You kill the mid-level boss with a slash but I saw you put Jarod in the fucking Boston Crab. He’s working this job to buy his kid a bike, man. Don’t you just walk away all cool as the music cuts off, Blade! Don’t you catch your shades that ya mans Whistler threw to you all dope-like in midair while I’m yelling at you, Blade. What am I supposed to do about my legs, Blade? Huh? My legs lookin’ like ramen noodles. Shoulda never gave you niggas a hero film! Ya don’t know how to appreciate shit!”
Now we could end this highlight reel right here, with the hero being triumphant and taking a win. Blade II don’t get down like that. Blade came back for this sequel to give us a WrestleMania-level final boss battle and oh my god did he deliver. Nomak put all of the hands all over Blade. Blade took his L’s with the utmost dignity. My man dove after Nomak with the Link Down + A Smash Bros. attack and a Van Daminator. Nomak said, “Word? Let’s get it, then.” Fam, you see Nomak hit the spins moves with his coat before the fake-out by sticking his hand in Blade’s face?! Nomak gave ’em Kristi Yamaguchi finesse with the spins before hitting him with that good night right hook. That fake-out may as well have been the “Expose him! EXPOSE HIM!” crossover. Blade got the AND1 Hot Sauce fake-out before that red-eye flight to “Fuck you thought this was?” Blade’s face got tsunami waves from the impact, man. How you hit a man so hard his face get ripples on it like ya fist was a skipping stone?
Blade got ahold of Nomak and asked what that health insurance do as he broke his arm with a Kimura lock. Man, Nomak rolled up over the top Blade’s head, took his broken arm, and Affordable Care Acted that shit back together like it was nothing. Nomak legit said, “Pop, lock, and drop it,” to his arm and was good to go. Dude, Nomak didn’t even need Robitussin for that break. Nomak must have had a mom that put the fear of god in ’em if he ever broke something and she had to take ’em to the hospital. Listen, Blade was getting lit the fuck up. I ain’t ever seen a hero get his ass kicked like this in his own movie. I seen it happen in their own TV show (the Flash knows what I’m talking about), but in your own movie?! For this long?! Unheard of. Gawtdayum. Blade tried to rush Nomak and Nomak sent Blade’s ass out like a bellhop with fucking Usos’s superkick. The worst part is the fucking setup for the superkick. He got that Shawn Michaels tuning up the band in the distance Sweet Chin Music superkick. Blade was having a superkick party earlier; he caught a mean one and was like, “Damn, is this what I been doing to people?” Blade hit the elevator so hard it crumpled like the aluminum foil a Nestlé Crunch is wrapped in. Elevator folded in on itself like a politician promising tax cuts for the middle class. Elevator looking like hope post–student loans debits.
Listen, I ain’t ever come close to throwing the towel in on a hero getting they ass beat down, but good Yeezus. When Nomak grabbed Blade by the ankles and spun him around? Yo, I ain’t ever seen a hero get the Super Smash Bros. toss throw in real time. Bruh got caught in the Cesaro Swing. Nomak merry-go-round’d Blade and things were never the same. The swing is bad enough, but Blade’s head colliding with a column is that extra insult to injury. Hurts more.
Nomak bounced Blade’s head off the wall like a stress ball. Name the last time you saw a villain hammer throw a hero like he was trying to qualify for the Olympics? As if that wasn’t bad enough, when Blade landed, Nomak fucking climbed the wall like he was climbing the fucking turnbuckle goin’ to the top rope! Nomak jumped off the wall and hit Blade with Kairi Sane elbow, landed, and gave ’em two more elbows of equal force to the first. I let out a Ric Flair “Wooooo” watching this shit. I love Blade, but this is Summer Jam screen worthy right here. This shit needs to be a highlight on ESPN SportsCenter. Look at the height! My man took it to gravity to drive home the point.
Do you have any idea how many fucks you have to not give to deliver the fade in the form of a fucking elbow drop? Legend. Nomak is a fucking legendary villain off the strength, off the fucking strength, of these ’bows alone. *standing ovation* I knew this was going to be a good-ass fight when Blade and Nomak rushed each other and just collided. They started swinging on each other, and they both got knocked down to a knee and kept fucking swinging. Yes. Yes. THIS IS HOW YOU FUCKING BEEF! First and foremost, if a hero and villain ain’t beefin’ like Blade and Nomak, then they fucking failed the hero movie genre. Look at that fight scene segment, man. Don’t look at these words, look at that fucking fight scene. That’s the definition of beef-on-sight. Dare I say peak beef. Grade-A, grass-fed, and exported-from-Portlandia beef. What Solange’s size 7s said to Jay in the elevator beef. What 2008 Kanye said to George W. Bush beef. Stand the test of time beef. “Et tu, Brute?” beef. Judas selling out Jesus beef. Drank thrown in somebody’s face so you know it’s real beef. Takeout from Arby’s beef, my guy.
*wipes sweat off forehead* It’s been sixteen years and no Marvel or DC movie has come close to embarrassing cats on hand-to-hand game like Blade. I already got a petition to get these ass-whuppings from Blade in Blade II donated to the Smithsonian National Museum of African American History and Culture. I want these fades on the curriculum to be covered for Black History Month in schools. These fades deserve to be studied in a lecture hall for Throwing Hands 101. In the list of things to never forget:
The Warriors blew a 3-1 lead.
Megan Thee Stallion is nerd prime minister.
/> Fifty-five percent of white women voted for Donald Trump.
Henrietta Lacks’s HeLa cells proved Black women are magic/Highlanders.
Blade II made disrespecting henchmen in a fight scene its own genre of high art.
Chadwick Boseman’s Wakanda Salute Is Canon in the History of Black Language
WILLIAM EVANS, aka Wakanda’s Transportation Secretary
WE CATCH IT at about the forty-five-second mark of the second Black Panther trailer. Chadwick Boseman, aka T’Challa, aka the Black Panther, is walking through an Afrofuturistic lab where he greets Shuri, the Wakandan princess played by Letitia Wright. The greeting follows the two-beat tradition. The dap is always on the upbeat. The initiator. Anyone can get this step. Even the outsiders. Even the colonizers. The open-hand clap. We’re not shaking hands. The fingers angle up toward your recipient’s heart, not at their feet. The downbeat is what tells us what the relationship is. If the fingers lock? We cool. A default setting. Maybe we just met. Maybe we ain’t as cool as we used to be. But we respect each other enough. And this is fine. Maybe it’s a hug. Older heads might pull you in. Now the fists are at the center of our chests. New generation, the hand dap breaks apart before the hug. We clear space. Make room for more. Let nothing hinder this embrace. But Black Panther gave us something new.
Chadwick and Letitia were on some other shit. The dap. Then the arms crossed in front of the body. Fists at your shoulders. The sentient form of “you hold me down and I’ll hold you down.” And we all went, “Oh shit. That’s the move.” It was so simple. It followed our rhythms. It fit into our arsenal of greetings that say, “I see you, and by doing this, I know I’ll be seen.”
The clenched fists are perhaps the most important part of the salute. There is a tension between what appears to be an embrace of one’s self vs. the fists tight against your shoulders. It is resistance. It is a coiled snake. Don’t start none, won’t be none. When you make this salute at someone it means “I got you.” But also, “if we need to, we ride tonight.”
After the bombastic success of Black Panther, the actors were everywhere. And as you would expect of the title character, Chadwick was everywhere. It followed the movie-release blueprint, but obviously, something was different. No movie with a predominantly Black cast and a Black director had ever made this much money before. Which is a long way of saying no Black film had ever brought this many white people to the theater. But it was also different because it didn’t submit to the white gaze. Chadwick and the team worked on a specific, non-colonized accent. Ruth Carter, the famed costume designer, wove together her own ideas of futuristic design with a reported one hundred samples of clothing from across the African continent and its communities. And so, the guilt of enjoying something with largely Black aesthetics that pandered to white folks didn’t exist. So we were all aboard. And we all wanted nothing more than to see the cast talk about their experiences with the film, with each other, and with us after the release.
I usually have a hard time with the way we conflate a character and an artist. When someone exclusively refers to a performer by the name of a character they played, I’m usually quick to state there’s a real person under that costume and makeup. But Chadwick loved being Black Panther because we, Black folks, loved him being Black Panther. And nobody did the Wakanda salute more than Chadwick. At the MTV Movie & TV Awards, when he won for best hero and then gave his award to James Shaw, Jr., who had fought off a gunman at a Waffle House. On The Tonight Show Starring Jimmy Fallon, when he greeted fans expressing their gratitude toward Black Panther and the representation it held. At the Howard commencement ceremony, where he told the graduates about legacy and purpose. At the NBA All-Star Weekend, when he gave Victor Oladipo the Black Panther mask and salute during the dunk contest.
And because the living and breathing internet needs to validate its existence from time to time, the discourse became that Chadwick must be tired of doing the salute. That he looked like he was going through the motions. But then Chadwick again showed us who he was. That he was one of us. On a Breakfast Club interview he said, “I’m not gonna tap-dance. It means something. If you give me the salute, I’m gonna give it back.” Black folks know what tap-dance means. There’s a visceral reaction to invoking the action, when it was predicated by a demand. Chadwick was showing a resistance to commodifying the action. The movie was breaking records, the salute wasn’t a promotional tool anymore. If it ever was. It was a communication. A language we had become fluent in.
In 2018, about a month after the movie had come out, I had to replace the tires on my car. Probably overdue. I walked into the tire place and handed them my keys. I was the only Black person in the waiting room including the staff that I could see. They told me it would take two hours and so I walked the two miles back home. When I returned two and a half hours later, my car wasn’t ready. Actually, they hadn’t even started. The man behind the counter wasn’t very helpful or empathetic. They got busy, he was saying. What I was seeing were cars that weren’t here when I arrived earlier already being done. I was about to argue with this man, pin him down, make him admit he had shoved me to the back of the line. But there was a Black employee, the only one I could see now, who had watched the whole interaction from the mechanics’ bay. He came into the store lobby and told the other guy, “I got him.” They began to argue for a moment before the Black employee shut it down: “He’s been waiting, man, I said I got him. I’ll do his car now.” And then he looked at me. He shook his head. And then he gave me the Wakanda salute. And I smiled, probably the biggest smile that my body could produce, and I gave him the salute back.
After Chadwick Boseman died at the age of forty-three from cancer, I found myself tagged in different social media posts. They were mostly of me posing with friends at our Black Panther premiere party. Arms crossed across our chests, fists burrowed into our shoulders. The pictures are from more than two years ago, and today they mean “hold fast.” “Hold tight. We lost another one.” I think of the salute as it originated for me before Black Panther. We’ve all seen salutes by the military on TV, whether they were fictional depictions or at a funeral of a former leader lying in state. But I was never in the military, even when so many of the men in my family were. And I still never saw a salute in person. A lot of uniforms but no salutes. And I wouldn’t, by function. The salute wasn’t intended for me. It was a brotherhood in which I was not a member.
The Wakanda salute is a bitter pill in this way. A simple gesture linking so many of us. An evolution of the nod. The dap from across the room when the distance makes knowing glances too ambivalent. I cross my chest like a sarcophagus in a crowded room and you know what I mean. Any of the dozens of things I may mean. But now, it is no longer just a gift that Chadwick gave us, but an inheritance. Black folks inherit so much, even if it ain’t wealth, so much is left for us. And what could be worse than wasting what your ancestors left for you?
Outro
YOU CAN’T SEE it, but the entirety of this outro is taking place in a red 1997 Range Rover that has “Anime Is Life” written on the windshield and the Uchiha Clan’s Sharingan painted on the hood of the truck. William is driving, and Omar is leaning out of the window shouting the following:
OMAR: Yeaaaaaaaah, muthafuckas. You wanted that Black subculture nerd shit? Now you got it. You wanted that blerd substance? There’s two hundred–plus pages for ya. You wanted everything from Aloy to The Wire? Well, there the fuck it is. We done gave it all to you in key of X gon’ give it to ya. Are you not entertained?! Are you not satisfied?! Fuck heart and soul, we done went and put all of our AllSpark in this shit for y’all.
WILLIAM: On everything, if you told me ten years ago, “Aye, Will, one day you and Omar gonna go so deep in the nerd shit, you’re gonna write a book about it. And muthafuckas gonna be up in Barnes & Noble, Target, or Half Price Books buying that shit,” I would’ve sent you back to the store with that shit like Cube told Regina King in Boyz n the Hood. This right here is for all the Bl
ack nerds who secretly loved Captain America while being on the board of your school’s Black Student Union. This is for the Black nerds who grew up during the zenith of hip-hop but wore a Portishead record out. This is for the Black nerds who identified with every single Black character in Higher Learning. The athlete, the nerd, the revolutionary, the teacher. We got you. Just know we got you.
OMAR: All those years of waking up at 6:00 a.m. to catch the Sailor Moon and Iron Man cartoon block before school, every action figure bought, every pop culture T-shirt, and every combo ever pulled off in a video game was all in preparation to deliver this book for the culture. *takes glasses off and holds them in the air* To all my nearsighted and farsighted fellows, we bequeath this to you. So take it! Take this! Our love (for anime), our anger (over fanfics and webcomics that have gone unfinished), and all of our sorrow (for shows canceled in their prime).
WILLIAM: I remember when my parents asked me who I wanted to be for Halloween one year. And I was like, “Gandalf the Grey!” with all the strength in my chest. And my dad looked at me for a long-ass time and said, “Nah, you want Gandalf the White, when he came back and led everyone to glory.” NO, DAD, THE GREY SHIT HIT HARDER. I’m a quest starter, Dad. I am a shepherd, b. Let me liiiiive.
Anyways, Pops was mostly right. Something about sacrificing and coming out shining on the other side just hit different.
Omar and I said the nerd game needed more hip-hop references, more “you only know this shit if you grew up in a Black home, but here’s how it relates to X-Men” dialogues. I’m glad y’all took this journey with us. I’m glad y’all invested in some dudes that say muthafucka as easily as drawin’ breath.
Black Nerd Problems Page 25