Call me crazy, but this is exactly what I envision when I hear Black Panther and the Agents of Wakanda. With the addition of 2-3 specialized characters that are working with him. A damn Gorilla definitely doesn't sit well, smart, dumb or otherwise
Why does it feel like every of book but the title book seem to have interesting things going on with Black Panther. I don't think Coates editor even cares about the narrative of the character in the overall of the current Marvel universe, hell you can tell they're not even the same guy.
At some point, one just has to come to terms with the disingenuous nature of the agenda some choose to push.
Three years of diminishing the titular character to the very background in his own SOLO BOOK, behind every supporting character thrown kitchen sink like in T'Challa''s direction.
Three years of portraying T'Challa as an out of touch monarch in name only who meets with foreign dictators and other shadowy Internationalists to discuss ways and means to crush decent within a nation that was civilized for millennia whilst the world outside its hidden borders, was still living in caves.
Three years of sub par, pseudo African made up African lore as envisioned through the eyes of a wilfully (where the Black Panther mythos are concerned,) ignorant writer, pushed as superior to anything that came before irrespective of the fact that what said writer has been pushing is another than a fake "woke" narrative that remains nothing more than a joke that no one is laughing at. (Other than possibly the very writer himself.)
Three years wherein the writer in question, has used the Black Panther solo book as an ongoing storyboard to show how good he is at writing Storm's character than practically every other X-scribe only to find himself overlooked in favour of Jonathan Hickman, the very writer who finished Secret Wars II with T'Challa and Wakanda on the verge of leading the rest of Earth into space on a uniquely Wakandan led space program.
But of course, genuine Black Panther Mythos enthusiasts who voice their concerns and displeasure at the decrepit direction Ta Nehisi Coates has taken T'Challa, Wakanda and the entire mythos in are low key trolled for not bowing down and worshipping at his feet like newly converted devotees to the Church of Storm.
I think not.
This level of rubbish would not be tolerated in a book edited by someone genuinely cognizant or appreciative of the importance of continuity, accurate characterisation and overall narrative synergy across the creative spectrum.
How else can anyone explain why all of T'Challa's solid characterization and verifiable feats, all seem to exclusively occur on panel, outside of his own SOLO BOOK!
The house is indeed on fire and we all know who the blaze originator is.
All I see is another supposedly "woke" writer, deliberately writing a character they're unfamiliar with, into the proverbial ground.
David Walker did much the same with Nighthawk in his I'll conceived and frankly amateur mishandling of a character who was written so well by Michael J. Strazynski in Supreme Power.
Much like Coates wilful diminishment of T'Challa as Black Panther, David Walker reduced Nighthawk to a caricature replete with cosmetic changes and characteristics that did not mesh with the Nighthawk that was portrayed in the Squadron Supreme book written by Robinson.
And to cap it all off, Walker then went on to kill off Nighthawk in the most stupid way possible so as to shoehorn Tilda Wilson AKA Deadly Nightshade into the Nighthawk role.
T'Challa is thankfully, to big of a character to be killed off like that but there are other ways to destroy a character and Coates has been utilising all of those for the past three years.