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They are military test pilots. It takes a certain personality type to undertake such a dangerous job for such low pay -- the pilots were dying at a rate of one per week. They were largely adrenaline junkies, drinkers, womanizers, egotists, high I.Q., mostly right-wing : those were the men drawn to the profession. Can those qualities be made sympathetic to a viewer? For me, yes. In this the show is successful.

Just as everyone of European ancestry alive today is a descendent of King Charlemagne ( basic family tree math), if T'Challa's family has been ruling the much smaller, more genetically isolated Wakanda for a thousand years, every Wakandan must have royal blood. And I assume that the royal family haven't been marrying their own siblings for generations, so their bloodline must be becoming more and more diffused. So yeah, it doesn't make sense if you think about it -- but it's comic book stuff, we're not meant to think about it, and I'm ok with that. I mean, getting bit by a radioactive spider isn't really going to give you superpowers either.

I think, upon seeing the movie, some right wingers recognized and approved just how right-wing Wakanda itself is. A warrior-based culture. Absolute monarchy. Hierarchies by bloodline. Isolated and closed off from contamination by inferior races. It's close to 19th c. Japan.

According to the comics anyway, the herb that conveys the Black Panther powers can only be taken by those of royal blood. To all others, it is poison. I guess the MCU can change that, but I don't know why they would need to. Shuri is eligible, she has been the BP in the comics at times, and if they don't decide to go that route they can introduce a cousin.

T'Challa is in one sense the African Steve Rogers : both idealized figures of heroic nobility. There is no dark side to such characters -- no Tony Stark arrogance or Black Widow's red ledger. One of the things that movies and comic books do is to provide such unrealistic, mythic paragons of goodness as a model for young people to aspire to. Whoever will be the next BP, it is important that they be brave, unselfish, wise, and psychologically balanced. I get why actors, writers, and directors grow bored with such characters ( think of what they've done to Superman over the years), but people need myths.

Maybe a soap opera or a comic book can gradually redeem a villain over the years, but would BP2 movie goers forget that in BP1 that Killmonger was a murderous psychopath who, among other things, killed with relish museum guards just going about their jobs? Having Killmonger become the Black Panther would insult everything T'Challa -- and, by extension Boseman -- stood for.

It's a comic book movie, in that it's completely silly -- goofy fun, if you like that sort of thing (I do). If, on the other hand, you're looking for plausible world-building or realistic characters, it's not for you.

Shuri seems next in line for becoming the Black Panther, but is she a compelling long-term solution to the void left by Boseman's tragic death? She might be better served in being a transitional figure. Perhaps they might introduce a T'Challa in all-but-name, a male royal --a cousin, maybe -- that will eventually take on the Black Panther guise when Shuri quits it, because it's not what she wants to do with her life. Not a recasting, technically, but a new BP that can assume T'Challa's unfulfilled story lines. Edit : just read an article in Hollywood Reporter. Up to a week before his death, Boseman still believed he would beat the cancer. And, no one at Disney or Marvel knew he was ill.

Any recast would have to explain away the obvious : why does T'Challa now look different? They could come up with something, but that something would be cheesy -- and the audience of course knows the real explanation : Boseman died. It would pull the audience right out of the story.

I expect Shuri to inherit the Black Panther mantle -- and the new BP, and Wakanda, will remain important parts of the MCU. But I'm doubtful whether we'll see BP2, at least in the near future. I suspect the franchise will be put on indefinite hold. The future of the Black Panther in the MCU, of course, is of secondary concern as compared to the death of a talented actor still in his prime.

You can't recast T'Challa. Chadwick (RIP) owns that role. But the Black Panther persona itself has never belonged to any one individual -- it is inherited, as is a royal title. Whoever inherits the Black Panther role, however, the franchise (if it even continues ) will be lesser for Boseman's loss.

Rory publishes Gilmore Girls, the one book she has in her. The book develops a small cult following. Its devoted readers occasionally make a literary pilgrimage to Stars Hollow. Lorelai sells the hardback edition in her inn's gift shop. Rory teaches English and journalism at Chilton and lives with her daughter in Stars Hollow. She remains single, although there is a handsome Chilton history teacher who she finds to be annoyingly opinionated, and yet... It's a good life.

Jane's Underground has been developed beyond Grant Morrison's original conception into the most compelling aspect of this show. As to the family relationship arcs -- I'm hanging in there with Cliff and his daughter, but I've grown impatient with Larry's ongoing family plot line. I hope we've seen the last of the Trainor clan. In general, I prefer the way that Morrison structured his narratives : a series of adventures presented episodically, with audience interest being concentrated in the wildly imaginative ideas, images, and situations -- not in character relation soap opera.

I remember watching the Man Show and seeing Jimmy doing blackface. It had an edgy, transgressive vibe even back then -- Jimmy knew it was offensive. The humor was in the shock of breaking a taboo. He was inspired in this by Howard Stern, who also donned blackface, and also, like Jimmy, dropped the n-word " ironically ". It was the era of the "shock jock". It's not a case of Jimmy "evolving and maturing", imo, but of changing cultural fashions. When being sexist and racially transgressive in a self-conscious way was cool, Jimmy was those things on TV. When cultural attitudes changed, so did Jimmy. No enduring principles, just going along with the zeitgeist.

You can look to this era's movies for the popular culture's ideal woman of the day --- tough, witty, independent. I hope we're not going to be getting "why aren't you at home cooking dinner for your husband, little lady" as an ongoing reaction to Daisy. The 30's weren't the 50's.

Nandor didn't want Guillermo to know that he had turned Benjy. That trip to Delaware was just to fool Guillermo. That's my take, anyway.

Nandor had to have turned Benny. Benny's old, and vamps don't age. If Benny was already a vampire, then he would have had to been turned by some unknown vampire recently.

Can see we'll be subjected to a lot of misconceptions of Depression-era culture. It was the norm for black men to dress elegantly. By 1931, women had already been NYC police detectives for 20 years. Etc.

This season is standard science fiction of the ontological puzzle sub-genre, a la Philip K. Dick. Is Caleb human, or has his consciousness been downloaded into a host? And whose consciousness, exactly? Has William been downloaded? What is Bernard's function? What is Dolores up to, really? Are there any surprises still to be revealed about the nature of Serac's AI? Etc. The Genre drug conceit was kinda cool, but more than a little forced. Come to think of it, "kinda cool, but more than a little forced" characterizes this season as a whole.

There are strong hints that William committed suicide by cutting his wrists in the same bath that his wife killed herself in. Which means that William, like his father-in-law, has had his consciousness downloaded into a host. I'm wondering if the same has happened to Caleb, who while a soldier had been shot in the head. Maybe that is why Delores has taken such an interest in him?

Didn't Caleb mention last episode about having been shot in the head? Are we sure that he's fully human? There is a parallel with Charlotte's son realizing that host Charlotte isn't really his mother, and Caleb's mother thinking that Caleb is not really her son. Don't know yet what to think about the mirror world. Are characters moving between worlds?

Rumors (for what they are worth) are that Sam turns down the Cap role, as it involves taking the super serum, and that US Agent will be the new Cap.

Yale Rory was all set-up, no payoff. She goes from high school star to average college student. Interesting potential arc, but it never really goes anywhere. Then she falls in with the Puffs -- the privileged world of her grandparents, in opposition to the working class world of her upbringing. Which one will she chose? Or maybe she'll find a third way, involving intellectual pursuits? We keep waiting for her to become disillusioned with Logan's crowd. This potential disillusionment seems to be carefully set-up, but it just peters out.

In today's politicized cultural climate, people sometimes like or dislike the concept of a comic or movie without concerning themselves with whether it's actually good. Frequently with comics, they only know the concept, and have no intention of reading the book. Comics have become pretty niche. But with a movie it's different. They will see the movie. If there is any controversy, it's only after the movie has left the theaters that partisans will take a less heated, more dispassionate view. People on the right suspicious of a possible left wing political agenda with the Black Panther can then, after it has finished its run, admit that the movie was good. On the other side of the political divide, defenders of Captain Marvel, after that movie had run its course, can admit that it could have been better. The Iceman solo comic which explores Iceman as a newly out gay man gets cancelled because of low sales, and the New York Times rights an article about it. So it gets un-cancelled, but people still don't buy it, and it quietly gets cancelled once again, and this time no one really cares. The whole situation sucks. Everything is seen through the lens of the culture war. Fiege will have his work cut out for him in the years ahead in maintaining a undivided fan base for the MCU -- something the Star Wars franchise has failed at.

If one wants diverse characters who aren't merely ripoffs of legacy heroes ("our new Iron Man is a 15 year old African American girl! our new Hulk is a Korean teenager!") then the X-men is the motherload -- a motherload that Fox barely dipped into. Original diverse characters with cool powers and compelling conflicts and personalities. They don't need to be confined to X-men movies -- bring Storm into Wakanda, or involve her the Asgardians or Captain Marvel, whatever.