Variety reports Shaquille o’Neal, famous veteran basketball player, is developing a comic at Archie, about the history of a former African king who’d fallen victim to slavery and gained freedom through piracy:
NBA legend Shaquille O’Neal has partnered with Archie Comics to develop “Vengeance Unchained: The Legend of Black Caesar,” a new comic book series about the rise of the mythological West African pirate. Stephanie Williams will write the series, while Ray-Anthony Height and Studio Sky-Tiger will handle the art.
The official logline for “Vengeance Unchained” reads, “An African king of extraordinary physical presence must navigate the brutal transformation from royalty to slavery to piracy, searching for his kidnapped love while discovering that freedom in the Caribbean comes only to those willing to take it by force.”
“Growing up I always loved stories about warriors who refused to quit,” said O’Neal. “Black Caesar starts as a king, loses everything, and takes his freedom back on his own terms. That’s the kind of story I want to help tell. We built something that’s going to entertain you and make you think, and I’m ready for the world to see what we created with Archie Comics, an iconic brand I have been a big fan of for many years. Archie has such an incredible legacy of storytelling and being able to collaborate with a brand that has meant so much to generations of fans made this project even more exciting for me.”
What I don’t understand is why O’Neal wants to do this with a company that’s long succumbed to wokery, and based on that, is hardly the best place to do such a project. There’s bound to be plenty of independent publishers where he could’ve produced this project, and it would’ve been just as significant. I’m sure the history O’Neal’s building on has importance, but doing it at Archie is decidedly not recommended. They tainted their legacy in the past 15 years, and it still doesn’t seem like they’ll ever mend it.
Originally published here
Avi Green
Avi Green was born in Pennsylvania, and moved to Israel at the age of 9. His first comic was the Fantastic Four. He considers himself a conservative-style version of Clark Kent, and his blog the Four Color Media Monitor is where he says "if we're going to try and stop the misuse of our favorite comics and their protagonists by the companies that write and publish them, we've got to see what both the printed and online comics news is doing wrong." His blog focuses on both the good and the bad, the newspaper media and the online websites. Unabashedly. Unapologetically. Scanning the media for what's being done right and what's being done wrong. Follow him on X @AviGreen1
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