From Wakanda with Love

Three Memphis authors make their Marvel mark in the Jesse J. Holland-led Black Panther anthology.

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T’Challa, king of the fictional Afrofuturist nation of Wakanda, and, as the Black Panther, its superpowered protector, debuted in Marvel Comics’ Fantastic Four No. 52 in July 1966. Since then, Stan Lee and Jack Kirby’s creation has become one of the most famous and influential Black characters, in comics or in any medium. In the pages of Marvel comic books, Black Panther has joined the Avengers and the Illuminati, safely wielded the Infinity Gauntlet (yes, that Infinity Gauntlet), and protected Wakanda from enemies both foreign and domestic. Ostensibly a minor character in his cinematic debut, T’Challa, played with poise by the late Chadwick Boseman, stole the show in 2016’s Captain America: Civil War, imbuing his every scene with kingly gravitas. That was before Ryan Coogler’s Black Panther standalone wowed audiences and shattered box office records, making Black Panther a household name.

Now the protector of Wakanda is getting his own prose anthology, Black Panther: Tales of Wakanda (Titan Books), due March 3rd. And what’s more, the collection, edited by Memphis-born journalist and historian Jesse J. Holland, will feature a short story by Holland as well as stories by three other Bluff City-based writers. Memphians all, poet/editor/author Sheree Renée Thomas, teacher/author/hip-hop artist Danian Darrell Jerry, and FIYAH publisher and writer/essayist Troy L. Wiggins are all featured in the anthology, alongside big names like Nikki Giovanni, Tananarive Due, and Cadwell Turnbull.

Troy L. Wiggins

After the coronavirus pandemic effectively canceled comic book franchise films for all of 2020, moviegoers might not be feeling the symptoms of “superhero fatigue.” That said, for anyone with lingering doubts about the potential intellectual credibility of comic book characters, a conversation with author Troy L. Wiggins is the cure.

Publisher of the FIYAH magazine of Black speculative fiction and author of the essay “Let’s Talk About Afrofuturism” for Apex magazine, Wiggins may be the Memphis man best qualified to explore the cultural implications of pop franchises.

“My story examines some of the stuff we’ve been dealing with in this country and on this planet for years,” Wiggins explains. “Some of the xenophobic systems that we have in place in the country and some of the racist ideas that people in this country and other countries have about Black people and about Africans. It also looks really specifically at domestic terrorism.”

“In the universe that Marvel allowed us to play in, people have advanced technology, people can fly, they can shoot laser beams out of their eyes and throw tanks.” — Troy L. Wiggins

The Memphis-based writer is a veteran of other anthologies, such as the much-lauded Memphis Noir compilation, and every indication is that his take on T’Challa will show Wiggins in the best light, firing on all cylinders and operating in familiar territory. “It’s kind of a noir story. Not on-the-nose noir, but very much inspired by detective fiction,” Wiggins continues. “I like taking something established, like comic books or super heroes, and applying a different lens or a different set of ideas to it.

“You have so many opportunities to subvert convention,” Wiggins says, referencing the detective fiction of Walter Mosely as an inspiration. “In the universe that Marvel allowed us to play in, people have advanced technology, people can fly, they can shoot laser beams out of their eyes and throw tanks. It becomes an opportunity for a writer to buck convention and buck expectations for readers.”

Wiggins points out that in the Marvel Cinematic Universe, blending of genres — and the subverting of those genres’ baked-in expectations — has become the norm. What happens, for example, when, as in Winter Soldier, you put the incorruptible Captain America in a spy movie, a genre whose hallmark is that even the most upright of protagonists aren’t really “good” guys? “You get to play around with some of the awesome parts of those conventions, but you get to give it that technicolor veneer that superhero comics have. It can be as serious, but not as depressing. The folks who are doing this stuff are wearing tights, not kevlar, you know?”

When asked about balancing expectations with ambition, and walking the fine line of social commentary while writing for an established character, Wiggins says his biggest fears are simply slipping up and forgetting comic book continuity. “For me personally, in my growth as a writer, I’ve gone from really wanting people to understand my position, and use that understanding to make that journey through my work, to just wanting to tell ’em a story. If you get it or like it or agree with it, that’s cool. If you don’t like it or don’t get it, that’s cool, too.”

But in the universe of speculative fiction, in that technicolor world of pop culture, “there’s a different kind of pressure,” Wiggins says. “I’m sure anybody writing Star Wars books would tell you this, but there’s the pressure of fandom.

“Politics can’t be separated from fiction. Sometimes the message can be as banal as making the protagonist a woman or a queer person. You have to deal with those things, but also, these worlds you’re working in come with an established lore, come with an established cannon. As a comic book fan and aficionado and reader, I’m more worried about that.”

And Wiggins is a bona fide comic book fan. “I’m a big fan of Christopher Priest’s Black Panther run, the ’98 run. It’s one of the classic Black Panther runs,” Wiggins says. “I actually took a couple years off of reading comics because I was trying to be a ‘serious artist.’ And that was dumb. Comics are great.” The avid reader also mentions a genre-spanning selection of graphic fiction, including science-fiction and fantasy comics like The Wicked and the Divine, Saga, and Victor LaValle’s Destroyer. “They tell stories that are not superhero-based at all but are stories about people, magic, and belonging, and that stuff is really important to me.”

Beyond Black Panther, Wiggins has had some other recent successes, including a story featured in the Tiny Nightmares anthology. “It’s actually a really Memphis story. These three kids experience a tragedy where one of them dies, and the story picks back up with them again when they’re adults.” Wiggins says that trying to capture the mythology that accompanied the feeling of goofing off down by the riverfront as a child, was important to him. He also wrote an essay about Barret Wallace for Imaginary Papers. “I just wanted to write about Barret. I have a lot of complicated feelings about him, being the first Black Final Fantasy character and appearing the way he did in that first game.”

Still, success is an iceberg, with only the recognizable moments open for the public to see, while rejection letters, unfinished manuscripts, and hours upon hours of drafting and editing and rewriting make up the bulk of the berg below the water’s surface — and that’s in a “norma” year.

“This year’s been a lot of trying to reset, trying not to get COVID, and working on longer-form stuff,” Wiggins tells me. He says it’s felt strange not to produce as many short stories or essays, but he decided it was best to focus on family, community, and “being a good literary citizen.” Still, being included in a forthcoming Marvel anthology is anything but small potatoes — nor is writing a novel, another task on which Wiggins recently embarked.

“The pieces I’ve produced have been a victory,” Wiggins says, and when one of your victories is writing for Marvel, well, it’s okay to make time to enjoy that win.

“This is a dream come true for me. I’ve always wanted to work for Marvel. I’ve read Marvel comic books since I was eight years old,” Wiggins says. “I want to go on record thanking Jesse Holland for making this opportunity for a bunch of Black writers to contribute to one of the most impactful Black characters in the history of pop culture.”

Sheree Renée Thomas

“I was like, ‘This is a dream that I wouldn’t have said aloud.’ I was thrilled. Can this year get any crazier?” says Memphis writer Sheree Renée Thomas, who is having something of a banner year. Her short story collection Nine Bar Blues (Third Man Books) was published in spring of 2020, and she was the first writer to be featured in the then-newly remodeled Pages space in this magazine. Since then, though, Thomas has contributed to the Slay vampire anthology, and she was named the new editor of the long-running Magazine of Fantasy and Science-Fiction. She will also be a special guest and co-host of the 2021 Hugo Awards Ceremony in Washington, D.C., with Malka Older. So how did Thomas rack up so much success, seemingly overnight?

“It’s a 20-plus year overnight success. I spent years quietly just working, publishing, of course, but not getting huge fanfare beyond the anthologies,” she says. “That’s how it is for everyone, but we focus on the exceptions.

“Writing is a long game. You’ve got to be a long distance runner. It’s one thing my mentor [Memphis author] Arthur Flowers has always said,” she continues. “It may be a while before you’re published in something your family recognizes.”

“When Chadwick Boseman passed, that was a big blow to everyone. I had to take a moment to kind of regroup from that. I think it had an effect on us. We were so hoping that he would be able to enjoy the book. So it put new passion into the writing to honor his amazing performance. He embodied the Black Panther.” — Sheree Renée Thomas

But if there’s a list of high-profile recognizable characters, Black Panther is indisputably on it. Though Thomas is a longtime reader of sci-fi and fantasy, she says she’s newer to the world of comics. “I wasn’t able to read comics regularly as a child. [It was], ‘Here’s your library card, go to the library.’” But, the author says, she is a fan of the character. In fact, she dressed up in the garb of the Dora Milaje, Wakanda’s elite all-female guard corps, to attend the 2018 screening of Black Panther.

Thomas even made it onto some news clips about the night. “They show me in my Wakanda outfit with a huge afro. I was ready for Wakanda,” Thomas says with a laugh. And anyone who’s read her work can attest that Thomas will be right at home in the Afrofuturism of Wakanda. (Thomas’ short story “The Dragon Can’t Dance,” included in Nine Bar Blues, for example, deftly balances technology and tradition, art and appropriation, mythology and music, familiar motifs to any devotee of Black Panther comics.)

“When Chadwick Boseman passed, that was a big blow to everyone,” she continues. “I had to take a moment to kind of regroup from that. I think it had an effect on us. We were so hoping that he would be able to enjoy the book. So it put new passion into the writing to honor his amazing performance. He embodied the Black Panther.”

Of course, writing for Marvel means digging into decades of history; the character of T’Challa debuted in 1966. “When I was writing my story I had to do a lot of research,” Thomas says. “You’re not using the Marvel Universe; you’re using the cannon. And of course, the new story threads that are being written out by Ta-Nehisi Coates and others.”

Coates’ work on Black Panther was mentioned in several of the interviews for this piece, and his run stands as an excellent example of both the blending of seemingly disparate genres and the infusion of social commentary into superhero comic books. Every indication is that the forthcoming prose anthology will continue that trajectory.

“For me, this is a dream that I never knew I had. I wasn’t able to purchase comics as a child but was able to sell them to others when I worked at Sandra Burke’s Gallery Three Five O on South Main Street when I was at Rhodes,” Thomas says. “Being a Marvel writer and appearing in a groundbreaking anthology with heroes like Nikki Giovanni and Tananarive Due among so many other great writers is just thrilling. I can’t wait for Memphis and the world to read these stories.”

Danian Darrell Jerry

“I’ve always been a big Marvel fan,” says Danian Darrell Jerry. “Not just Black Panther, but anything they’ve put out — X-Men, Spider-Man, Avengers, Doctor Strange. So this is a great opportunity for me to get in there and tap into some of the things I imagined as a child. It’s a little surreal, but it’s fun.”

Jerry is a native Memphian with deep roots in the city’s creative scenes. He’s a hip-hop artist who works with the Iron Mic Coalition. “I’ve always been interested in reading and books and comics, but I’ve always been interested in the arts in general,” he says. What’s more, Jerry works here to help promote literacy — from childhood on to adulthood.

“We use comics and fantasy to promote literacy to kids, teaching kids how to read through comics.” — Danian Darrell Jerry

He holds an MFA from the University of Memphis, where he now teaches composition and literature classes as an adjunct English instructor. “This last semester I got a chance to teach Ta-Nehisi Coates’ Between the World and Me in my lit classes,” he says. “[It was great] taking my literature class and adding a BIPOC focus and lens to it, examining hard questions on race relations in class, which was very productive.”

As founder of Neighborhood Heroes, a community outreach program, Jerry has used comic books as a tool to foster an appreciation of reading. Now he’s writing some of those same characters. “We use comics and fantasy to promote literacy to kids, teaching kids how to read through comics,” Jerry says. “Last year, we threw an event at Mud Island, and it’s funny because we had ‘Black Panther’ come out and greet the kids and take pictures. We had cosplayers, and they loved it. Last year I was doing that, and this year I got the chance to actually write in the Black Panther book.”