Synopsis
Ibi Zoboi, a National Book Award Finalist and New York Times best-selling author, joins Marvel Universe storytelling with this heartfelt novel that takes Okoye to America for the very first time.
Okoye is a new recruit for T’Chaka’s royal guard: the Dora Milaje. Known for their loyalty and warrior abilities, the Dora are respected and revered in Okoye’s home country of Wakanda. But when Okoye is sent on her very first mission—to America—she’ll learn that her status as a Dora means nothing to New Yorkers and her expectations for the world outside of her own quickly fall apart. Chosen to accompany King T’Chaka on a humanitarian mission, Okoye finds herself trying to help teens dealing with addiction and gentrification in a forgotten neighborhood in Brooklyn.
Caught between duty to her country and listening to her own heart, Okoye must find her own way and determine the type of Dora Milaje—and woman—she wants to be.
The Good
Looking at the story it had good ideas.
The Bad
I. Telling vs showing & being lectured at.
It spent so much time telling (lecturing) Okoye the same things over and over instead of letting the story unfold that it lost many things.
a. nuance/short changed conversations- Was the diaspora conversations given the space to fully breathe? Did they feel jammed in? Why are we not giving more focus to someone selling drugs to people in community especially when some of them are kids?
b. seeing things on ground happening – would it not been more entertaining to see manifestation of powers & build of tension/mystery then introduce Bliss all while showing how they are dealing with gentrification differently? It felt like we were above the actual interesting action of the story.
II. Point of View
Okoye should have not been the point of view/lense that this discussion was told from. Instead people from the community or regular degular folks should have been at center of the story.
I think about how Static Season One (comic) and Black Lightening (the show) handled similar conflicts happening in them. So I do wonder why not use heroes like Static Shock or Miles Morales?
Thoughts
I. Diaspora Wars
Every time (in prose) we see Wakanda/Wakandians there is a diaspora conversation undercurrent which can be tough to read and messy but also kind of frustrating as a comic reader.
A. Messy/Tough
We keep (voluntarily) getting how Wakanda is failing the diaspora specifically Black Americans.
In general, even outside the diaspora stuff the more Wakanda is represented the more they look bad.
B. Frustrating
Sometimes it can feel like the Wakanda prose is stuck on the Black Panther movie greatest hits so they explore diaspora war stuff instead of fighting aliens or problems in Wakanda. They are missing what made Black Panther fun.
III. Was this the right medium or way to tell this story? Would this have worked better as a comic?
themollyweather 