Robert Townsend
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Black Panther may not be the first superhero film to place a black lead front and centre – Wesley Snipes made two great Blade movies plus another one, and the '90s delivered a handful of now-forgotten fare with black men behind the mask ( Spawn , Steel , Blankman , The Meteor Man ) – but it is the first to surround its hero with an equally diverse cast, and announce itself as the new blockbuster status-quo, not a one-off alternative for a widely underrepresented audience.
Despite what some less informed commentators have stated elsewhere, “Black Panther” is not the first major motion picture to feature an African-American superhero at its center—films ranging from comedies like “The Meteor Man” and “Blankman” to the Shaquille O’Neal vehicle “Steel” to the “Blade” trilogy beat it to the punch decades earlier and I am sure that I am forgetting a few here and there.
Though there have in fact been black superhero movies before, they’ve been minor ones, like Robert Townsend’s “The Meteor Man” or Shaquille O’Neal’s “Steel.”
Eldest brother Keenen Ivory Wayans, cowriter of 1987's Hollywood Shuffle with Robert Townshend, broke out as director, writer, and star of the hilarious blaxploitation pastiche I'm Gonna Git You Sucka in 1988.