Black Panther fans, rejoice!  Your movie scores a Best Picture Oscar nomination.  The joyous celebrations are well underway.  Lovers of great cinema along with comic book and superhero fans feel a kinship as they celebrate a glorious cultural milestone.  Everyone is overjoyed.  Well, everyone except for cable talk show host Bill Maher.

Black Panther Bedevils Bill

Marvel’s Black Panther is the first superhero film based on a comic book to earn the coveted Best Picture Academy Award nomination.  It’s a historic moment for Hollywood, the African American community and a triumph for American comic book culture.  Comic book fans don’t need an Oscar to endorse or otherwise acknowledge their beloved preoccupation, but it’s always nice to make some public and respected noise about something you dearly love.

For decades, comic book movies fueled major blockbusters.  Early classics such as the Superman movies starring Christopher Reeve and Margot Kidder and director Tim Burton’s Batman, with Michael Keaton paved the way for the Sam Raimi helmed Spider-Man films starring Tobey Maguire, and X-Men films with Patrick Stewart and Ian Mckellen. 

Today comic book powered films make billions at the box office.  They make scores of fans happy.  Marvel is allowing a terminally ill fan  to see Endgame – the 2nd part of the wildly successful Avengers: Infinity War – early.  Everyone’s having fun and making a difference in life because of comic books.

Everyone except for cable talk show host Bill Maher.

Laugh Trek got inside info from someone around Maher.  It’s said when the Academy released the Oscar nomination list, Maher was getting out of the shower.  Dripping wet and shaking with shock, Maher warbled something close to this, ‘Black Panther – Best Picture Oscar?  How could I have been so wrong?  What else am I screwing up?  Maybe I’m also wrong about Donald Trump too?”