State of Wakanda: The Black Panther Discussion

[SilverZeal]

When it comes to Hudlin's run I do feel that the detractors of it tend to go overboard with their critiques. Some of those critiques are valid but quite embellished.

For every person I've seen show up in a Black Panther thread and say they tried Hudlin's run and hated it, I see about two people say they tried it, saw some problems with it but didn't find it remotely as bad as others were claiming it was.

While I don't agree with Thatguy's view on Hudlin's run I do respect the fact the he was consistent with his stance and never centers his arguments on things that never happened in the book or some imaginary "kill whitey" theme running through the it. His issues have largely been about the quality of the writing throughout the series.

Other complaints on the other hand were based on the perception of the book and character more than anything. I've said before that it's telling that people can only cite a couple lines of dialog or a couple pages of a 41 issue run as evidence that Hudlin's work was "anti-white". It got to a point that people were just making things up about the book and some were taking it as the truth:

"Black Panther beats up all the white superheroes"

"Hudlin put a bunch of heroes that had no previous history together just because they were black"

"All the villains in the first arc were white racists"

"Black Panther is always made to look more formidable than Storm"

"Hudlin turned the Inhumans into slave traders"


I also to this day have NEVER seen a character get so consistently bashed for winning battles. It wasn't so much about HOW, he won, but the fact that he won at all.

Perfect post abt d critiq & critix of Hudlin's run on BP...agreed, co-signd & QFT!

[jabu46]

[QUOTE=Mr MajestiK;16329830]The job of a writer is to promote whatever it is they're writing and in this, Reginald Hudlin did not fail.

He used whatever resources and connections he had within industries outside of the usual comic industry to raise awareness about the project he was attached to at that time which in turn made the work more accesible to readers who would not normally have given such a product the time of day.

[B]I never said this wasn't true. I also said I'm not hatin' on that. I just said let's not pretend there are reasons outside of the actual comic of why it sold so much, and more than Priest's, since Hudlin had way more connections. And since a few on here like to brag how much it sold more than his run, I pointed it out along with other reasons. That's all, not hatin' the playa or the game.
[/B]
Hudlin did what any responsible professional writer ibnvested in a project would do in similar circumstances.

He promoted the hell out of his project and took the kind of chances other writers had failed to take in times past.

Whether he was a brilliant writer or not doesn't really come into the equation and at this point is totally irrelevant.

It's the fact that he put out a body of work that albeit for the duration of his period writing the character, actually attracted more readers which is something that many established and supposedly more seasoned writers have been unable to do.

I think you are responding to one thing, when I'm actually talking about another.

I admire your tenacity in being quite consistent in your assertions as to how substandard you feel Hudlin's work was but I find myself wondering why as Vic Vega asked a few posts back, Reginald Hudlin still seems to be so important to people who claim to have no interest in his work?

I never said i have no interest in his work. LOVED Boomerang, House Party, and may go see Django Unchained. Enjoyed Flags of our Fathers and think he might be a good fit for Cage. I'm specifically speaking of the way he handled race in his run and how in some ways I don't think it fit the character and turned off other potential fans and fans of Priest while writing for one demographic..

THAT'S where my interest in this particular work lies.Also responding to others on here

There are a number of even more puzzling generalizations that you continue to casually throw around that do not stand up to scrutiny but I'm just way too tired to go over the same tired arguments that have marred previous threads.

I most likely would disagree with you but many on here I also would say are doing the same. But bias does that to most.

While you remain steadfast in your dislike of Hudlin's work suffice it to say that nothing you've psted on the subject over the last few pages will ever change the fact that his work did what it was supposed to do.

Attract abandoned and ignored readers rather than appealing to the same status quo.

Absolutely did. All I've been saying it could have done that while keeping the ones the character had while gaining more, instead of turning off some existing fans while not gaining others in said status quo.

Peace.

[marvell2100]

No to the unfans because they will lead you no where. Again, Hudlin's Panther was never about screw you white people, it was screw you haters and that's exactly what he did. We've gone through this all before. You cannot satisfy the unfan. Marvel has tried. They gave us the Roy Thomas Panther. They gave us the Mayberry Doom War Panther. They tried to saddle Mr Liss with that Panther but he got out of that quickly. And through it all, Marvel didn't gain a single unfan and alienated alot of real fans.

If Mr Hudlin gave us social commentary in his work, so be it. Claremont did a ton of it in Uncanny X-Men and so did Mark Gruenwald in Captain America. I've said it once and I'll say it a thousand times though many have disagreed:Black Panther is not a superhero. He should not be written as a superhero. He is a king and should be written accordingly. Some things that he does as a king makes many uncomfortable. Yet what has he done differently than Doom or Namor other than show more humility and leniency.

[FLEX HECTIC]

Hold up there jabu46...


I think Marvel (Now Disney owned) is a much bigger and more recognizable company than Bet or Vibe plus a whole lot of it's writers work on movie scripts and cartoons as well as ongoing comics like Whedon or Loeb!

There are far more "Connected" persons at Marvel than whoever you think Hudlin knows to assist him!

So explain to me why other writers can't sell Black Panther under the umbrella of a parent company who has pockets fatter than anything short of Microsoft or Apple with an advertising budget that rivals Nike!

Oh that's right you can't state facts but here is one...

Marvel has a less than 2% residence of black creators on staff all day everyday!

So to answer your question on why Black Panther does not sell after Hudlin is because of pure and simple blocking and a cold glass of Hatorade!

Perhaps if said company actually put in the work Hudlin did as opposed to blatantly deconstructing him to appease those fans you seem to want it to cater to it might actually sell better!

You need to get out of the house and get into the field and smell the fresh air with the rest of the Hudlin faithful!

I live in the Hollywood area and most of my clients are in the industry and I sometimes make guest appearances at the comic shops where many of the "Architects" do their shopping!

You know I here things... I'm really being nice about the racism so don't tempt me to go all in and put specific persons on blast!

You my friend need to pay more attention to trends like "Blocking" and "Hatorade" which are disguised versions of racism!

Activate your polymathic genius level intellect and then make the proper calculations before you post so that you can understand fully what it is that you are talking about!

This hate for Hudlin is beyond the normal comic shop banter especially for someone who should be praised for making Black Panther relevant moreso than most other black characters this side of Spawn!


Did I ever tell you about the time a movie director was dissing Denzel and Wesley right after I had just trained (I'm a personal trainer BTW) him and he went over to congregate amongst the white trainers to speak his mind until I came over and set him straight in the way that I do... That director has fallen off the map and hasn't done anything big since his name was attached to a huge franchise! (One of my peeps said he went broke with no work)

I know code when I see it so don't be disrespecting our best entertainers and directors when they out do you with more class and more talent while working with less and the odds stacked against them!

Hudlin went into a hostile environment and pulled off the "Wedding of The Century" while working as a president of tv station... Top that with any "Architect" I double dare you and prove that any of these guys didn't have full Carte Blanche from Marvel!

Many of these "Architects" are given whatever creative team they want, an entire office and editorial catering to their needs and full confidence of Marvel turning their back and letting them retcon what they want, kill off who they want and place in limbo who they want!

If Hudlin is weak then who are you praising in comparison to him?





jabu46 Power Point Presentaion begins right now... GO!!!

[marvell2100]

Hold up there jabu46...


I think Marvel (Now Disney owned) is a much bigger and more recognizable company than Bet or Vibe plus a whole lot of it's writers work on movie scripts and cartoons as well as ongoing comics like Whedon or Loeb!

There are far more "Connected" persons at Marvel than whoever you think Hudlin knows to assist him!

So explain to me why other writers can't sell Black Panther under the umbrella of a parent company who has pockets fatter than anything short of Microsoft or Apple with an advertising budget that rivals Nike!

Oh that's right you can't state facts but here is one...

Marvel has a less than 2% residence of black creators on staff all day everyday!

So to answer your question on why Black Panther does not sell after Hudlin is because of pure and simple blocking and a cold glass of Hatorade!

Perhaps if said company actually put in the work Hudlin did as opposed to blatantly deconstructing him to appease those fans you seem to want it to cater to it might actually sell better!

You need to get out of the house and get into the field and smell the fresh air with the rest of the Hudlin faithful!

I live in the Hollywood area and most of my clients are in the industry and I sometimes make guest appearances at the comic shops where many of the "Architects" do their shopping!

You know I here things... I'm really being nice about the racism so don't tempt me to go all in and put specific persons on blast!

You my friend need to pay more attention to trends like "Blocking" and "Hatorade" which are disguised versions of racism!

Activate your polymathic genius level intellect and then make the proper calculations before you post so that you can understand fully what it is that you are talking about!

This hate for Hudlin is beyond the normal comic shop banter especially for someone who should be praised for making Black Panther relevant moreso than most other black characters this side of Spawn!


Did I ever tell you about the time a movie director was dissing Denzel and Wesley right after I had just trained (I'm a personal trainer BTW) him and he went over to congregate amongst the white trainers to speak his mind until I came over and set him straight in the way that I do... That director has fallen off the map and hasn't done anything big since his name was attached to a huge franchise! (One of my peeps said he went broke with no work)

I know code when I see it so don't be disrespecting our best entertainers and directors when they out do you with more class and more talent while working with less and the odds stacked against them!

Hudlin went into a hostile environment and pulled off the "Wedding of The Century" while working as a president of tv station... Top that with any "Architect" I double dare you and prove that any of these guys didn't have full Carte Blanche from Marvel!

Many of these "Architects" are given whatever creative team they want, an entire office and editorial catering to their needs and full confidence of Marvel turning their back and letting them retcon what they want, kill off who they want and place in limbo who they want!

If Hudlin is weak then who are you praising in comparison to him?





jabu46 Power Point Presentaion begins right now... GO!!!

Dude, lol.

[Genki Sudo]

I come here on my lunch break and see Brotha Flex channeling GZA and throwing razor sharp darts

Next time I'm in LA I'm tracking him down

[Moose100]

Hold up there jabu46...


I think Marvel (Now Disney owned) is a much bigger and more recognizable company than Bet or Vibe plus a whole lot of it's writers work on movie scripts and cartoons as well as ongoing comics like Whedon or Loeb!

There are far more "Connected" persons at Marvel than whoever you think Hudlin knows to assist him!

So explain to me why other writers can't sell Black Panther under the umbrella of a parent company who has pockets fatter than anything short of Microsoft or Apple with an advertising budget that rivals Nike!

Oh that's right you can't state facts but here is one...

Marvel has a less than 2% residence of black creators on staff all day everyday!

So to answer your question on why Black Panther does not sell after Hudlin is because of pure and simple blocking and a cold glass of Hatorade!

Perhaps if said company actually put in the work Hudlin did as opposed to blatantly deconstructing him to appease those fans you seem to want it to cater to it might actually sell better!

You need to get out of the house and get into the field and smell the fresh air with the rest of the Hudlin faithful!

I live in the Hollywood area and most of my clients are in the industry and I sometimes make guest appearances at the comic shops where many of the "Architects" do their shopping!

You know I here things... I'm really being nice about the racism so don't tempt me to go all in and put specific persons on blast!

You my friend need to pay more attention to trends like "Blocking" and "Hatorade" which are disguised versions of racism!

Activate your polymathic genius level intellect and then make the proper calculations before you post so that you can understand fully what it is that you are talking about!

This hate for Hudlin is beyond the normal comic shop banter especially for someone who should be praised for making Black Panther relevant moreso than most other black characters this side of Spawn!


Did I ever tell you about the time a movie director was dissing Denzel and Wesley right after I had just trained (I'm a personal trainer BTW) him and he went over to congregate amongst the white trainers to speak his mind until I came over and set him straight in the way that I do... That director has fallen off the map and hasn't done anything big since his name was attached to a huge franchise! (One of my peeps said he went broke with no work)

I know code when I see it so don't be disrespecting our best entertainers and directors when they out do you with more class and more talent while working with less and the odds stacked against them!

Hudlin went into a hostile environment and pulled off the "Wedding of The Century" while working as a president of tv station... Top that with any "Architect" I double dare you and prove that any of these guys didn't have full Carte Blanche from Marvel!

Many of these "Architects" are given whatever creative team they want, an entire office and editorial catering to their needs and full confidence of Marvel turning their back and letting them retcon what they want, kill off who they want and place in limbo who they want!

If Hudlin is weak then who are you praising in comparison to him?





jabu46 Power Point Presentaion begins right now... GO!!!

Im in stitches. Yeah its almost like people block in their mind that Hudlin is an executive. Who commands way more $$ and respect b/c of his status in the industry.

[neohuey89]

Im in stitches. Yeah its almost like people block in their mind that Hudlin is an executive. Who commands way more $$ and respect b/c of his status in the industry.

Isn't that basically what Jabu had been saying?

[Moose100]

Isn't that basically what Jabu had been saying?

Then we are in agreement! I just find Flex;s posts amusing.

[neohuey89]

I think everyone has good points. everyone is on the same team just not yet lol. Kinda like most superhero teams.

[Moose100]

I think everyone has good points. everyone is on the same team just not yet lol. Kinda like most superhero teams.

Cosigned.

Last night was just me qubbling with a few points. I dont doubt anyone's passion for the character for a second. I admit we do play a little rough sometimes. But that is the nature of this thread.(i.e. no hard feelings.)

[Booshman]

I don't understand this mantra that "Hudlin was problematic, because his writing turned off some readers." That's not something that is unique to Hudlin. It happens all the time with comic books. People constantly get mad at writing/art/whatever in their favorite series, and skip a few until it changes. Or until they get tired of missing out on the action. In addition these books, because of the way readership works with this niche hobby, tend to have a flat out net loss because they don't bring in new readers when they lose some. Hudlin lost some readers, but gained a crap ton of new ones in exchange. For some reason though, that hasn't stopped this "problematic" line from being blurted out like it's a grand travesty, and is a legitimate reason as to why he should never do this again.

[PupsOfWar]

I do but I am not aware of how much he is liked by others, can you go in depth regarding do's and do not's and the counter examples to BP please?

went to sleep before this reply went up last night, but here goes:

So, first of all, Batwing tries to be a much more grounded hero than T'Challa.

A common critique of T'Challa being that he isn't grounded, because Wakanda is a fantastical invention and the office of King isn't relatable, etc. etc, whatever people say. I've seen it said in turn that an African superhero should definitely be grounded, in reflection of the poverty and other hardships that the Continent endures.

Batwing is a street-level vigilante who is based in a fictitious city (modeled on a real city) in a real country (The Democratic Republic of the Congo), in the Gotham/Bludhaven/Metropolis/Star City/Hub City mold. He has a glaring personal weakness in that he suffers from PTSD, and has a backstory involving both AIDS and Child Soldiery.

That's grounded, at least in the manner that some of BP's non-fans wish he were grounded.

Batwing isn't a super-scientist like T'Challa: he's reliant upon Batman for his gear. (While he's stated to have super-intellect, comics writers being comics writers, they've had a hard time getting that across with him getting his gadgetry from elsewhere, with a few cool scenes excepted).

Batwing isn't a super martial-artist like T'Challa or like other Batclan members.

Batwing isn't a master of escape-artistry, forensics and all other skills central to life as a street vigilante, like so many other Bat-template characters.

He is really just a smart cop in a suit of armor.

The issue with this portrayal is that it often falls apart in execution.

The AIDS is just kind of there rather than being confronted, with a prevailing impression coming across that Bad Sh*t is just the rule of thumb in Africa and AIDS is a part of that. Which is an attitude that too many westerners – especially white westerners of th' demographic that read Batman books – have already.

The Child Soldiery is more developed in some decent sequences throughout the first arc, but there is this awkward thing going on where Batwing and his brother, rather than just being child soldiers, were strange, unprecedented child-supersoldiers with some sort of poorly-explained innate acumen for fighting that allowed them to fight dozens of people to a standstill as children. This has some uncomfortable implications and eroded the character's groundedness in a manner that was unnecessary, since the whole thing was seemingly a mechanism to explain him being a Batclan-calibre combatant when the writer who didn't feel able to make him a master martial-artist, ignoring both that the Asian martial-arts have a strong presence in Africa (due to the much-overlooked asian communities there) and that many African peoples have their own martial-arts traditions.

But those things are somewhat overlookable I guess (the lattermost especially being more my personal preference). What's more glaring is the use of the African setting.

Batwing is supposedly based in this particular city, but his references to his location and personal identity are almost always “Africa!” or “African!” rather than “Tinasha, Congo!” or “Congolese!” or anything about a cultural grouping. The tagline is “The Batman of Africa” and he flits all over the continent in a way that isn't the case for any other Batman Inc member.

Nightrunner isn't treated as “The Batman of Western Europe!”, he's just the Batman of Paris.

T'Challa doesn't take responsibility for all of Africa in the MU

This has the effect of condensing the entire continent down to the level of attention Batbooks normally give a single city.
It's understood in the paradigms of Bat-writing that an intimate connection with a city is key.

But we don't see much of Batwing's City, Tinasha. It's just this dusty locale where he resides in between flitting all around the Continent. The writing and art doesn't convey any awareness of the vibrancy and size that it should possess if it's an analog to Kinshasa, as it's implied to be. It's a supposed metropolis whose portrayal is indistinguishable from being some frontier village.

So Tinasha isn't the setting, a generalized notion of Africa! is.

Some of this might be alright, if the writer were going for some sort of genuine pan-African sentiment, but it doesn't come across this way the times national-level politics do come up. It comes across more as dismissal/ignorance of the diversity and scale of African civilization, the very size of the Continent's landmass and population. And even if it weren't, Africa as a bloc of mostly indistinguishable tribes is an attitude that, again, too many westerners (especially white westerners) already have, and not the kind of thing you'd write in for a western audience. It's much preferable to celebrate the continent's vibrancy, pan-Africanism being a movement that is intended to benefit people who are a part of that diversity, not people who are unaware of it.

Some of this might also be alright, if they were going to portray Batwing as having a much harder and vaster task than the other Bats, but this doesn't happen due to not wanting to step on the toes of other, more established characters I guess. Batwing rarely sasses anyone – say, Nightwing, when they teamed up and Nightwing teased him about various things - about how he's responsible for nearly a billion people and a landmass three times the size of the United States while they're only in charge of a single city. Which is glaring given the strong history DC has of, like, Aquaman sassing people over the larger size of the area he's responsible for.

Furthermore, the generalized Africa that is Batwing's setting is comprised almost entirely of either fictional constructs or locales that are familiar to the white american mind from the news or from pop-culture permeation.
Batwing has a confrontation with his villain at the Pyramids of Giza for no particular reason, other than that it's a recognizable backdrop.
Batwing fights Somali Pirates. Why would he care about Somali pirates? He's the guardian of Africa, not the guardian of western commercial interests off the coast of Africa, and there are far more direct threats to African populations (this ended up having a good reason, in that the Pirates led him to a broader plot, but it was foreshadowed for a couple of issues before this that he wanted to be confront piracy in Aden, so I'm still counting it as weird).

There's no awareness of either rich African history or of the more vibrant, in-the-process-of-modernization side of the continent and its juxtaposition with grinding disadvantage conveyed. It's always grinding disadvantage, which robs Africans of agency. There's almost a heart-of-darkness thing going on, where it's about one man's struggle against a pervasive corrupting influence innate to the continent itself. Which is backward, really.

If Batwing is supposed to be a pan-African superhero, then why not have his random forays take him to some of the touchstones of pan-African cultural sentiment? The Madrasah of Sankore? The monasteries of Ethiopia? Olduvai Gorge? The ruins of Great Zimbabwe?

And if he's not supposed to express pan-African sentiment, why not simply develop his particular locale and his connection to it more intimately?

I think he ends up being less the guardian of Africa, more the guardian of the west's stereotypical vision of Africa.
Which really is just a function of a well-intentioned white writer who probably neither knows much about Africa nor thinks of these issues as important enough to research, but still.

The fictionalized setting of Wakanda does allow a lot of these problems to be sidestepped.

To write a grounded African superhero, you have to be able to write Africa accurately and sensitively, both celebrating it and confronting the issues it faces, as well as accounting for its status as maybe the most culturally, ethnically, linguistically, politically diverse of the world's continents.

To write Wakanda, you just have to be able to avoid doing anything offensive with the inhabiting POC characters while portraying this cool, fictionalized utopia whose history is enfolded in the comic-book lore that you presumably already know and respect when taking on the project.

Not that you can't mishandle Wakanda, in misunderstanding what it represents, but it's mishandled in different ways whenever it is.

Wakanda, in being presented as isolated and distinct, doesn't lead to an uncomfortable generalization about Africa: it's just “this is what Africans can accomplish,”
which might lead to being overly-dismissive of the rest of the continent, but that's a different issue.

I think Batwing is still a decent superhero comic.
David Zavimbe works reasonably well as a character,
his supporting cast is alright, for how little attention they're given
there are strong moments
some things are well-handled (I thought the handling of police corruption went about as well as it could, some of the stuff about a precocious young David's participation in bootstrapped technological infrastructure was neat)

but as a book that wants to bring attention to Africa, it has a lot of problems

and in general is illustrative of how the “They should just ditch all of that fanciful Wakanda stuff and make Black Panther into a gritty African Batman,” idea that some un-fans espouse doesn't really solve the character's mass-appeal issues.

[Onyenkwere]

Hold up there jabu46...


I think Marvel (Now Disney owned) is a much bigger and more recognizable company than Bet or Vibe plus a whole lot of it's writers work on movie scripts and cartoons as well as ongoing comics like Whedon or Loeb!

There are far more "Connected" persons at Marvel than whoever you think Hudlin knows to assist him!

So explain to me why other writers can't sell Black Panther under the umbrella of a parent company who has pockets fatter than anything short of Microsoft or Apple with an advertising budget that rivals Nike!

Oh that's right you can't state facts but here is one...

Marvel has a less than 2% residence of black creators on staff all day everyday!

So to answer your question on why Black Panther does not sell after Hudlin is because of pure and simple blocking and a cold glass of Hatorade!

Perhaps if said company actually put in the work Hudlin did as opposed to blatantly deconstructing him to appease those fans you seem to want it to cater to it might actually sell better!

You need to get out of the house and get into the field and smell the fresh air with the rest of the Hudlin faithful!

I live in the Hollywood area and most of my clients are in the industry and I sometimes make guest appearances at the comic shops where many of the "Architects" do their shopping!

You know I here things... I'm really being nice about the racism so don't tempt me to go all in and put specific persons on blast!

You my friend need to pay more attention to trends like "Blocking" and "Hatorade" which are disguised versions of racism!

Activate your polymathic genius level intellect and then make the proper calculations before you post so that you can understand fully what it is that you are talking about!

This hate for Hudlin is beyond the normal comic shop banter especially for someone who should be praised for making Black Panther relevant moreso than most other black characters this side of Spawn!


Did I ever tell you about the time a movie director was dissing Denzel and Wesley right after I had just trained (I'm a personal trainer BTW) him and he went over to congregate amongst the white trainers to speak his mind until I came over and set him straight in the way that I do... That director has fallen off the map and hasn't done anything big since his name was attached to a huge franchise! (One of my peeps said he went broke with no work)

I know code when I see it so don't be disrespecting our best entertainers and directors when they out do you with more class and more talent while working with less and the odds stacked against them!

Hudlin went into a hostile environment and pulled off the "Wedding of The Century" while working as a president of tv station... Top that with any "Architect" I double dare you and prove that any of these guys didn't have full Carte Blanche from Marvel!

Many of these "Architects" are given whatever creative team they want, an entire office and editorial catering to their needs and full confidence of Marvel turning their back and letting them retcon what they want, kill off who they want and place in limbo who they want!

If Hudlin is weak then who are you praising in comparison to him?





jabu46 Power Point Presentaion begins right now... GO!!!

This post just about lays a Dwayne "The Rock" Johnson type Peoples Elbow on the Jabroni anti-Hudlin argument before putting its boot straight up its candy a@@.

If you smelllll what Flex is cooking!!! :)

[Onyenkwere]

went to sleep before this reply went up last night, but here goes:

So, first of all, Batwing tries to be a much more grounded hero than T'Challa.

A common critique of T'Challa being that he isn't grounded, because Wakanda is a fantastical invention and the office of King isn't relatable, etc. etc, whatever people say. I've seen it said in turn that an African superhero should definitely be grounded, in reflection of the poverty and other hardships that the Continent endures.

Batwing is a street-level vigilante who is based in a fictitious city (modeled on a real city) in a real country (The Democratic Republic of the Congo), in the Gotham/Bludhaven/Metropolis/Star City/Hub City mold. He has a glaring personal weakness in that he suffers from PTSD, and has a backstory involving both AIDS and Child Soldiery.

That's grounded, at least in the manner that some of BP's non-fans wish he were grounded.

Batwing isn't a super-scientist like T'Challa: he's reliant upon Batman for his gear. (While he's stated to have super-intellect, comics writers being comics writers, they've had a hard time getting that across with him getting his gadgetry from elsewhere, with a few cool scenes excepted).

Batwing isn't a super martial-artist like T'Challa or like other Batclan members.

Batwing isn't a master of escape-artistry, forensics and all other skills central to life as a street vigilante, like so many other Bat-template characters.

He is really just a smart cop in a suit of armor.

The issue with this portrayal is that it often falls apart in execution.

The AIDS is just kind of there rather than being confronted, with a prevailing impression coming across that Bad Sh*t is just the rule of thumb in Africa and AIDS is a part of that. Which is an attitude that too many westerners – especially white westerners of th' demographic that read Batman books – have already.

The Child Soldiery is more developed in some decent sequences throughout the first arc, but there is this awkward thing going on where Batwing and his brother, rather than just being child soldiers, were strange, unprecedented child-supersoldiers with some sort of poorly-explained innate acumen for fighting that allowed them to fight dozens of people to a standstill as children. This has some uncomfortable implications and eroded the character's groundedness in a manner that was unnecessary, since the whole thing was seemingly a mechanism to explain him being a Batclan-calibre combatant when the writer who didn't feel able to make him a master martial-artist, ignoring both that the Asian martial-arts have a strong presence in Africa (due to the much-overlooked asian communities there) and that many African peoples have their own martial-arts traditions.

But those things are somewhat overlookable I guess (the lattermost especially being more my personal preference). What's more glaring is the use of the African setting.

Batwing is supposedly based in this particular city, but his references to his location and personal identity are almost always “Africa!” or “African!” rather than “Tinasha, Congo!” or “Congolese!” or anything about a cultural grouping. The tagline is “The Batman of Africa” and he flits all over the continent in a way that isn't the case for any other Batman Inc member.

Nightrunner isn't treated as “The Batman of Western Europe!”, he's just the Batman of Paris.

T'Challa doesn't take responsibility for all of Africa in the MU

This has the effect of condensing the entire continent down to the level of attention Batbooks normally give a single city.
It's understood in the paradigms of Bat-writing that an intimate connection with a city is key.

But we don't see much of Batwing's City, Tinasha. It's just this dusty locale where he resides in between flitting all around the Continent. The writing and art doesn't convey any awareness of the vibrancy and size that it should possess if it's an analog to Kinshasa, as it's implied to be. It's a supposed metropolis whose portrayal is indistinguishable from being some frontier village.

So Tinasha isn't the setting, a generalized notion of Africa! is.

Some of this might be alright, if the writer were going for some sort of genuine pan-African sentiment, but it doesn't come across this way the times national-level politics do come up. It comes across more as dismissal/ignorance of the diversity and scale of African civilization, the very size of the Continent's landmass and population. And even if it weren't, Africa as a bloc of mostly indistinguishable tribes is an attitude that, again, too many westerners (especially white westerners) already have, and not the kind of thing you'd write in for a western audience. It's much preferable to celebrate the continent's vibrancy, pan-Africanism being a movement that is intended to benefit people who are a part of that diversity, not people who are unaware of it.

Some of this might also be alright, if they were going to portray Batwing as having a much harder and vaster task than the other Bats, but this doesn't happen due to not wanting to step on the toes of other, more established characters I guess. Batwing rarely sasses anyone – say, Nightwing, when they teamed up and Nightwing teased him about various things - about how he's responsible for nearly a billion people and a landmass three times the size of the United States while they're only in charge of a single city. Which is glaring given the strong history DC has of, like, Aquaman sassing people over the larger size of the area he's responsible for.

Furthermore, the generalized Africa that is Batwing's setting is comprised almost entirely of either fictional constructs or locales that are familiar to the white american mind from the news or from pop-culture permeation.
Batwing has a confrontation with his villain at the Pyramids of Giza for no particular reason, other than that it's a recognizable backdrop.
Batwing fights Somali Pirates. Why would he care about Somali pirates? He's the guardian of Africa, not the guardian of western commercial interests off the coast of Africa, and there are far more direct threats to African populations (this ended up having a good reason, in that the Pirates led him to a broader plot, but it was foreshadowed for a couple of issues before this that he wanted to be confront piracy in Aden, so I'm still counting it as weird).

There's no awareness of either rich African history or of the more vibrant, in-the-process-of-modernization side of the continent and its juxtaposition with grinding disadvantage conveyed. It's always grinding disadvantage, which robs Africans of agency. There's almost a heart-of-darkness thing going on, where it's about one man's struggle against a pervasive corrupting influence innate to the continent itself. Which is backward, really.

If Batwing is supposed to be a pan-African superhero, then why not have his random forays take him to some of the touchstones of pan-African cultural sentiment? The Madrasah of Sankore? The monasteries of Ethiopia? Olduvai Gorge? The ruins of Great Zimbabwe?

And if he's not supposed to express pan-African sentiment, why not simply develop his particular locale and his connection to it more intimately?

I think he ends up being less the guardian of Africa, more the guardian of the west's stereotypical vision of Africa.
Which really is just a function of a well-intentioned white writer who probably neither knows much about Africa nor thinks of these issues as important enough to research, but still.

The fictionalized setting of Wakanda does allow a lot of these problems to be sidestepped.

To write a grounded African superhero, you have to be able to write Africa accurately and sensitively, both celebrating it and confronting the issues it faces, as well as accounting for its status as maybe the most culturally, ethnically, linguistically, politically diverse of the world's continents.

To write Wakanda, you just have to be able to avoid doing anything offensive with the inhabiting POC characters while portraying this cool, fictionalized utopia whose history is enfolded in the comic-book lore that you presumably already know and respect when taking on the project.

Not that you can't mishandle Wakanda, in misunderstanding what it represents, but it's mishandled in different ways whenever it is.

Wakanda, in being presented as isolated and distinct, doesn't lead to an uncomfortable generalization about Africa: it's just “this is what Africans can accomplish,”
which might lead to being overly-dismissive of the rest of the continent, but that's a different issue.

I think Batwing is still a decent superhero comic.
David Zavimbe works reasonably well as a character,
his supporting cast is alright, for how little attention they're given
there are strong moments
some things are well-handled (I thought the handling of police corruption went about as well as it could, some of the stuff about a precocious young David's participation in bootstrapped technological infrastructure was neat)

but as a book that wants to bring attention to Africa, it has a lot of problems

and in general is illustrative of how the “They should just ditch all of that fanciful Wakanda stuff and make Black Panther into a gritty African Batman,” idea that some un-fans espouse doesn't really solve the character's mass-appeal issues.

Incredible post! :)