T'Challa: The Black Panther Appreciation 2024

[Emperorjones]

The jury is still out on Ultimate Black Panther for me. I really want it to be good because of Hill's impressive work on Blade. But so far, I haven't been bowled over on Ultimate Black Panther. It's not bad, but it's not got me on the edge of my seat either. The artwork is good, and the writing isn't bad. I still think Hill's T'Challa is still too reluctant, and I would rather he play around more with his character. We've gotten the kind of ruminating, dithering, I don't want to be a king for successive runs now. How about an impetuous, impulsive, warlike king to do something different.

I finished the last Intergalactic Empire of Wakanda book last night. When I started the Intergalactic run, I thought it was Coates's best writing on BP to date. But as it went on, the old Coatesisms started creeping back in, and the story began to drag, felt bloated (it didn't need to be 25 issues), and Coates fell back into making sure to lacerate T'Challa, as well as T'Challa lacerating himself. I got tired of Kid Bast, and also Shuri as the book went on. It was like Coates forgot how he was writing her in his first couple arcs, and used his last several issues to have Shuri be the main one to berate T'Challa and even tell him who his real mother was (who just so happened to be her birth mother).

Coates took T'Challa's noble pursuit to fulfill his mother's dream and turned it into something selfish and made him take the blame for two thousand years of history that he had had no knowledge of. Everyone else-especially the female characters demanded agency and had it all day-until they needed to blame T'Challa for everything wrong, and he largely took it. T'Challa rarely pushed back, and when he did, it was weak. Coates often had Storm, Ramonda, and sometimes Shuri, speak for him (as well as try to speak sense into him), but the lack of accountability from many of the female characters under Coates's pen got to be too much. The kicker perhaps was Zenzi being made into Bast. She never was held to account for all the crimes she committed. In fact, she was rewarded, and she still got to dump on T'Challa. Coates also seemingly forgot Shuri's new power set too, and they started drawing her to look more like MCU Shuri.

I thought Space Nakia wasn't a bad love interest prospect, but Coates botched that, because he didn't really show them in a relationship, but then when T'Challa made it back to Earth, it seemed like they had been in one, but it was just not on the page. That was weird, and maybe Coates just didn't want to depict T'Challa in bed with anyone but Storm.

I thought Emperor N'Jadaka could've been a great villain, but there wasn't enough time spent with him, and it felt like Prime N'Jadaka (Killmonger) was crowbarred into the book (not sure if that was due to Coates wanting to use him, or Marvel wanting to take advantage of his newfound movie popularity). Killmonger's symbiote design was too cartoony for my taste, whereas Emperor N'Jadaka looked pretty badass to me. The shaman also got short shrift, again, which wasted another potential good antagonist.

Coates did put T'Challa in a better place at the end of his book than the beginning, but for whatever reason, Marvel largely ignored that because they were hellbent on writing him out of his own title. Over Coates's run, I do get what someone had said about them making T'Challa look too old, there was a quite a bit of that, but overall, I enjoyed much of the artwork (with special mentions to Brian Stelfreeze and Daniel Acuna). I did enjoy a lot of the Storm/T'Challa scenes. Coates is one of the better writers when it comes to that relationship. I also liked some of Coates's worldbuilding, though at the same time he had a habit of dwelling too long in the Djalia and Wakanda's past. I thought the Intergalactic Empire was a very neat concept, but he didn't explore that enough. I would've liked to have seen more done with The Between and it wouldn't have hurt to go into more depth about more of the species conquered by the empire.

Coates even gave us a Black Avengers (though he could've done more to play it up). I also don't know why Blade wasn't involved. Many of Marvel's major Black heroes were the battle for Wakanda, with Blade being a notable exception.

Now that I've seen more of Coates's vision, I can understand some of his choices. He looked at a Wakanda wracked by calamity after calamity (from DoomWar on), and logically with T'Challa being king, many would blame him. So, that I didn't have a problem with. I did have a problem often with how Coates explored that kind of trauma by mostly dumping on T'Challa and making him the scapegoat, or rather just the goat. For a man who seems to really like ambiguity, nuance, and complexity, there wasn't enough balance in his depiction of T'Challa and his struggles. It was nowhere close to how bad Ridley wrote him, with Coates understanding that T'Challa needed to win in the end (and that he was necessary), but still, Coates's take made T'Challa a too frequently underwhelming main character.

I still put Coates over Ridley and Ewing. He's about there with Maberry for me because the sidelined T'Challa in DoomWar felt very much like the forerunner of the Coates Era T'Challa. It's just that I recall really, really liking Maberry's "Power" arc more than anything I read from Coates, though his "Intergalactic" arc wasn't bad, for the most part. I also liked his Crew story, even though it didn't really need T'Challa.

Though I mostly praise the artwork and loved a lot of the "Intergalactic" creative design, I never got why Zenzi and the shaman never wore shoes.

How I rank the BP runs I've read:

1. Priest
2. Hudlin
3. Liss
4. Maberry
5. Coates
6. Ewing
7. Ridley

(I can't say I read every Hudlin book, but I read enough of them to get a sense of his writing. I read one of Kirby's volumes, but don't feel that's enough to say I read his run).

[Dariel81]

Best BP run since Priest

[mbeezy561]

Nobody will believe this, because Hickman said it on formspring. But his original plan with the Secret Wars era avengers book was to have Storm be pregnant. It was right of the heels of her divorce with T'challa but Marvel vetoed the plans. He tried again recently but Marvel vetoed the plans again, so this could be his way of trying a third time.

[4sake Baned]

Nobody will believe this, because Hickman said it on formspring. But his original plan with the Secret Wars era avengers book was to have Storm be pregnant. It was right of the heels of her divorce with T'challa but Marvel vetoed the plans. He tried again recently but Marvel vetoed the plans again, so this could be his way of trying a third time.

He not the 1st to try it & have it veto. Mayberry in his BP & Trashwar series thought of doing it at some point.

[Username taken]

Nobody will believe this, because Hickman said it on formspring. But his original plan with the Secret Wars era avengers book was to have Storm be pregnant. It was right of the heels of her divorce with T'challa but Marvel vetoed the plans. He tried again recently but Marvel vetoed the plans again, so this could be his way of trying a third time.

Yeah, this could be Hickman getting what he wants.

[BlackClaw]

Nobody will believe this, because Hickman said it on formspring. But his original plan with the Secret Wars era avengers book was to have Storm be pregnant. It was right of the heels of her divorce with T'challa but Marvel vetoed the plans. He tried again recently but Marvel vetoed the plans again, so this could be his way of trying a third time.

I’ve seen some people say it could very well be the 6160 version of Monica Rambeau as Storm would be too obvious. But like you said this could be Hickman finally being able to execute his original plans, and since this is an alternate universe we won’t have to worry about the usual bullshitery that would happen in 616. Though I’m still hoping it’s someone new tbh.

[Triniking1234]

Nobody will believe this, because Hickman said it on formspring. But his original plan with the Secret Wars era avengers book was to have Storm be pregnant. It was right of the heels of her divorce with T'challa but Marvel vetoed the plans. He tried again recently but Marvel vetoed the plans again, so this could be his way of trying a third time.

I doubt he tried to pull that crap off with a character he didn't have access to. Maybe during Krakoa but thank god nothing happened.

[Devaishwarya]

Once it's written with respect and intention...they could get married have children and forge a Dynasty, it could be an amazing paring if they just treat it right. But... let's keep it in the Ultimate Universe.

Although...what does this mean for her relationship with Killmonger? How would they separate for her to be with T'Challa? I'm not here for more messy Black relationship "drama". Keep that Real Housewives rubbish out of comics. That's not "real" nor is it respectful.

[Dariel81]

Once it's written with respect and intention...they could get married have children and forge a Dynasty, it could be an amazing paring if they just treat it right. But... let's keep it in the Ultimate Universe.

Although...what does this mean for her relationship with Killmonger? How would they separate for her to be with T'Challa? I'm not here for more messy Black relationship "drama". Keep that Real Housewives rubbish out of comics. That's not "real" nor is it respectful.

He stated his inspiration for this run was Dune so yeah some messyness will happen

[MindofShadow]

He stated his inspiration for this run was Dune so yeah some messyness will happen

There wasn't much relationship messiness in Dune though.

[Vordan]

There wasn't much relationship messiness in Dune though.

Paul was in a loveless pure political marriage with Irulan, and she went nuts over it and tried to poison Chani out of jealousy in Dune Messiah. Clear parallel between that and T’Challa’s political marriage to Okoye in contrast with his love at first sight relationship with Storm (although he seem to have some measure of love or respect for Okoye unlike Paul/Irulan).

[Ezyo1000]

Id rather not see that type of dysfunction happen. Whether or not people want to admit it, See that type of messiness and jealousy happening with black characters hits differently than white characters, as they can't get away with it and move past it as easily as a white character. So very to leave that stuff out and go a different route

[skyvolt2000]

Id rather not see that type of dysfunction happen. Whether or not people want to admit it, See that type of messiness and jealousy happening with black characters hits differently than white characters, as they can't get away with it and move past it as easily as a white character. So very to leave that stuff out and go a different route

Well Storm is getting a book this year.

Let hope it's not T'Challa shade fest.

[DigiCom]

So Eve L. Ewing goes from "killed her BP run in less than a year" to "writing a core X-book".

Talk about failing upwards...

[BlackClaw]

Now I’m seeing predictions that the lady made of light could be a 6160 version of Nakia.