Since I’m going to check out Christopher Priest’s run of Black Panther, and his Captain America & Falcon mini-series, it’s worth checking out his earlier work with the Falcon, which also features a character which will be relevant to his Black Panther run.
The Falcon #1-4
The first issue has art by Paul Smith, who I love from his brief X-Men run, Nexus fill-ins and Leave it to Chance. The rest is by Mark Bright, who is solid.
It starts quite weird morally. A drunk kid is about to rape his girlfiend, when the Falcon stops him and encourages her family not to press charges, which fits with his civilian identity as a social worker. There is a sense of a guy trying to prevent someone from his neighborhood from becoming a lowlife, even if the story would be told differently now. An important context is that these comics are 40 years old. If you were to use Fantastic Four #1 as the start of a new era of comics, this is in the first third of Marvel. I’m not sure I should think about how old these comics are.
In the second issue, Falcon is attacked by a malfunctioning Sentinel, which I recall Jarvis addressing in the Busiek Avengers run. It delays him, which results in a tragic police shooting and a race riot, a story that is quite ahead of its time. Later issues feature the kidnapping of President Reagan, and a showdown with a major Spider-Man villain. It’s unrealistic even in the context of superhero stories, but there are some good sequences, and it’s legitimately thought-provoking.
B