The official release of Marvel’s highly anticipated Black Panther film over the weekend was a momentous cultural moment for Dr. Yona Harvey.
A poet and assistant professor of English at the University of Pittsburgh, the film’s premiere is significant to Harvey because she is one of the first African-American female writers to have written for Marvel, contributing to the Black Panther comic spinoffs “World of Wakanda” and “Black Panther and The Crew.”
“It feels exciting to have contributed to the comic that maybe led to the film being released,” she said. “A lot of people are just thrilled to see more complicated and nuanced images of Black people, queer people and people of color in visual media and visual culture.”
Marvel has made strides in reflecting diversity in its superhero collection over the last few years. The publishing group introduced African-American, Islamic-American and LGBT versions of characters such as Spiderman, Ironman, Ms. Marvel and Ice Man among other prominent characters in its Marvel Universe.
On her inspiration for joining the “World of Wakanda” and “Black Panther and The Crew” projects, Harvey said it was simply a desire to work with her longtime friend Ta-Nehisi Coates, a classmate from her time at Howard University.
“I was just really excited to work with him,” she said. “He’s super busy just like when we were younger, so I know the best way to spend time with Ta-Nehisi is the geeky way … to be working on something. When we were younger, it was trying to be these great poets, and so for this project, it was trying to make the best comic that we could make.”
Writing alongside Coates and Dr. Roxane Gay, an associate professor of English at Purdue University, Harvey wrote for the characters Zenzi, Storm and Luke Cage – her favorite character, she said.
