Black Panther Appreciation: Wakanda Forever!

[FLEX HECTIC]

Point Man: "STOP THE RANGE ROVER SIR... I think I see Majestic bringing the chaos on a whole other level over there!"

Flex Hectic: "I was trying to say exactly what he just said but since he does it so much better I'm standing down for now!"

Pseudo Batman: "Agreed with Majestic's post 1,000,000,000,000,000%!"


Note: If a DC writer did the reversal I bet that the pseudo Black Panther would have gotten trashed thoroughly and squashed like a roach... And Bruce Wayne would be at Wayne Manor cozying up with pseudo Storm just out of spite!


Carry on...

[MrHashasheen]

Note: If a DC writer did the reversal I bet that the pseudo Black Panther would have gotten trashed thoroughly and squashed like a roach... And Bruce Wayne would be at Wayne Manor cozying up with pseudo Storm just out of spite! Carry on...

I don't think you can point to too many exchanges of DC or Marvel actively burying their competitor's characters in comics. There's historically been something of a respectful attitude between both companies (ignoring some of the more recent shots by that one Marvel dude who run OMD) particularly because guys have worked both companies in different points in their career.

Flex, you're a damn good standard-bearer for ol' BP and I often agree with you in regards to keeping things simple, but sometimes you've got to stop the hyper-aggressive point-manning and be more realistic with what you expect from any individual run or appearance.

[Mr MajestiK]

Point Man: "STOP THE RANGE ROVER SIR... I think I see Majestic bringing the chaos on a whole other level over there!"

Flex Hectic: "I was trying to say exactly what he just said but since he does it so much better I'm standing down for now!"

Pseudo Batman: "Agreed with Majestic's post 1,000,000,000,000,000%!"


Note: If a DC writer did the reversal I bet that the pseudo Black Panther would have gotten trashed thoroughly and squashed like a roach... And Bruce Wayne would be at Wayne Manor cozying up with pseudo Storm just out of spite!


Carry on...

Don't stop FLEX.

Your insight is invaluable.

[Zuri]

T'Challa pre-King of the Dead was beating the hell out of characters like Mephisto, Super Skrulls and generally outwitting and humiliating opponents stupid enough to underestimate him and that was when he was just enhanced by the Sacred Heart Shaped Herb.

Even without the herb, he wen't toe-to-toe with Typhoid mary and Lady Bullseye and more than held his own during David Liss's Kingpin of Wakanda BP arc.

Now as the so-called King of the Dead, he's supposed to possess the knowledge and abilities of every single Black Panther that preceded him going 10'000 years back in Wakandan history.

He's demolished a cadre of Reavers and knocked out their erstwhile leader the Black Swan and owned a character that took several cosmic level heavy hitters to take out so it's patently ridiculous that he should be stalemated by a Batman analogue.

As Flex said, I could give a frak about what happened with the rest of the Illuminati.

I expect to see the upgraded T'Challa kicking mad ass and not waxing philosophical about almost breaking his hand off panel or how a Batman wannabe maybe a better fighter than him.

That's straight BS and Hickman needs to start showing us exactly what T'Challa's upgrades are rather than pussyfooting around the issue.

T'Challa talks way too much for someone who's kingdom was almost destroyed by a mutant just before his wife assaulted him before their marriage crumbled around his ears and the aforementioned estranged wife went off to fuck someone she knew would hurt him on a personal level.

I'd be expecting T'Challa to be causing instant silences just by entering a room with everyone in attendance worried for their personal safety.

Instead we have the spectacle of T'Challa sharing a chuckle with the mutant who almost decimated Wakanda in a near genocidal act of unprovoked war.

I suppose T'Challa will be rubbing Namor's feet when he finally find out that Wolverine in't the only X-man that's nailed Ororo over the last few years. :SMH:

I do not see how the draw with the fake Batman connects with him drinking with Namor... This is being taken out of context and blown completely out of proportion. For cheesy "the face always wins and heel always looses" nonsense complete with a special moves and other such ish watch professional wrestling. Comics unlike wrestling try to present good stories and in sometimes in good stories the hero does not always need to win sometimes they loose and sometimes they draw once this builds to a suitable conclusion of the story and isn't just to depreciate the hero there is nothing wrong with it. I remember in Panther versus the Klan T'challa got beat up by a bunch of random kkk people and strung up on a burning cross did that stop that story from being a really good story? Isn't that story now a classic....

This character Wayne or whatever you/we the reader knows nothing about the characters skill set or powers other that he fills the "batman" role on the great society team he could have greater or equal abilities to T'challa you just do not know so how could a draw be out of the question?

For me heroes are more than the powers and comics need to be more than random displays of feats, so once T'challa is there and contributing to furthering the story and interacting with his teammates I am satisfied. this is a multi person team and everybody will get their chance to shine Strange is getting his now and T'challa will eventually get his chance as well.

[Mr MajestiK]

I do not see how the draw with the fake Batman connects with him drinking with Namor...

Then maybe you need to up your analytical skills and outside of the box awareness before seeking to cast aspersions on my observations

This is being taken out of context and blown completely out of proportion. For cheesy "the face always wins and heel always looses" nonsense complete with a special moves and other such ish watch professional wrestling.

If we were talking about a neophyte character yet to be properly established that no one knew that much about, I'd see your point but as we're talking about T'Challa, a character who single handedly bested the Fantastic Four all the way back in his 1966 debut, you're really not in any position to be describing anyone elses opinion as being "out of proportion" or "nonsensical" so please miss me with the passive/aggressive retorts maquerading as informed opinion.

Comics unlike wrestling try to present good stories and in sometimes in good stories the hero does not always need to win sometimes they loose and sometimes they draw once this builds to a suitable conclusion of the story and isn't just to depreciate the hero there is nothing wrong with it.

When said "hero" has had a virtually unbroken losing streak within the 616 MU all the way from Doomwar to Avengers vs X-Men his tale might as well have been orchestrated by the WWE scriptwriters so your wrestling analogy is ironicallly quite apt. (albeit not in the way you intended.)

But you know what, it's the "let's wait and see attitude" espoused by some readers that have actually made it possible for T'Challa and the entire BP mythos to have been consistently disrespected post Priest, Hudlin and McDuffie to uch a degree that even now, 20+ issues into Jonathan Hickman's New Avengers, we're none the wiser as to what the full range of T'Challa's King of the Dead supposed upgrades are other than the teleportation and light shielding exhibited in NA#1 and his most recent encounter with the Batman analogue from the Great Society.

I remember in Panther versus the clan T'challa got beat up by a bunch of random kkk people and strung up on a burning cross did that stop that story from being a really good story? Isn't that story now a classic....

That may have been a good story for that time but if you hadn't noticed were in 2014 now and the T'Challa of today is supposed to be a helluva lot more sophisticated than the guy who got strung up like a pinata in the 1970's.

Like Reginald Hudlin, I have zero interest in seeing a 21st century Black Panther getting his ass beaten like a government issue mule.

I expect to see T'Challa acting like a man who's been through a crucible that's burnt all doubt from his mind, body and soul.

I'd like to see a T'Challa who hasn't forgotten the face of T'Chaka his late Father as well as all of the other Black Panthers stretching back 10'000 years of Wakandan history whose conciousness and accumulated power reside within his body and multifaceted mind.

This isn't about a character of T'Challa's stature merely "winning" but more about his character being shown to have grown into something truly worthy of wearing the mantle of King of the Dead: Most Dangerous Man Alive.

This character Wayne or whatever you/we the reader knows nothing about the characters skill set or powers other that he fills the "batman" role on the great society team he could have greater or equal abilities to T'challa you just do not know so how could a draw be out of the question?

Funny you mention this especially as guess what, none of us are any the wiser as to what T'Challa's own freaking "new" powerset is supposed to be either.

In contrast, Stephen Strange's power boost has clearly been illustrated in the current issue as well as the New Avengers Annual so readers feeling somewhat dissastisfied at the length of time it's taken Hickman to show us what the frak T'Challa is all about nowadays, are fully within their rights to be feeling somewhat antsy.

For me heroes are more than the powers and comics need to be more than random displays of feats, so once T'challa is there and contributing to furthering the story and interacting with his teammates I am satisfied. this is a multi person team and everybody will get their chance to shine Strange is getting his now and T'challa will eventually get his chance as well.

I am well aware of the fact that this is an ensemble as anyone familiar with some of my previous posts would know but this factor in no way invalidates my opinion or that of my learned colleagues who have also voiced similar concerns.

This being an ensemble book did not prevent Jonathan Hickman from scripting T'Challa backhanding a Hatut Zeraze Elite on panel.....



whilst failing to depict the former Wakandan monarch laying unbroken hands upon Black Dwarf.




It's not as if Geoff Johns had any problem scripting T'Challa kicking the Red Skull's Nazi ass here...



in an equally ensemble based book.

Next.

[Vic Vega]

So its a problem that B.P. effectively drew with fake Batman, now?

When everybody in the Illuminati other than Doc Strange got beat outright?

Just checking.

[Zuri]

Then maybe you need to up your analytical skills and outside of the box awareness before seeking to cast aspersions on my observations



If we were talking about a neophyte character yet to be properly established that no one knew that much about, I'd see your point but as we're talking about T'Challa, a character who single handedly bested the Fantastic Four all the way back in his 1966 debut, you're really not in any position to be describing anyone elses opinion as being "out of proportion" or "nonsensical" so please miss me with the passive/aggressive retorts maquerading as informed opinion.



When said "hero" has had a virtually unbroken losing streak within the 616 MU all the way from Doomwar to Avengers vs X-Men his tale might as well have been orchestrated by the WWE scriptwriters so your wrestling analogy is ironicallly quite apt. (albeit not in the way you intended.)

But you know what, it's the "let's wait and see attitude" espoused by some readers that have actually made it possible for T'Challa and the entire BP mythos to have been consistently disrespected post Priest, Hudlin and McDuffie to uch a degree that even now, 20+ issues into Jonathan Hickman's New Avengers, we're none the wiser as to what the full range of T'Challa's King of the Dead supposed upgrades are other than the teleportation and light shielding exhibited in NA#1 and his most recent encounter with the Batman analogue from the Great Society.



That may have been a good story for that time but if you hadn't noticed were in 2014 now and the T'Challa of today is supposed to be a helluva lot more sophisticated than the guy who got strung up like a pinata in the 1970's.

Like Reginald Hudlin, I have zero interest in seeing a 21st century Black Panther getting his ass beaten like a government issue mule.

I expect to see T'Challa acting like a man who's been through a crucible that's burnt all doubt from his mind, body and soul.

I'd like to see a T'Challa who hasn't forgotten the face of T'Chaka his late Father as well as all of the other Black Panthers stretching back 10'000 years of Wakandan history whose conciousness and accumulated power reside within his body and multifaceted mind.

This isn't about a character of T'Challa's stature merely "winning" but more about his character being shown to have grown into something truly worthy of wearing the mantle of King of the Dead: Most Dangerous Man Alive.



Funny you mention this especially as guess what, none of us are any the wiser as to what T'Challa's own freaking "new" powerset is supposed to be either.

In contrast, Stephen Strange's power boost has clearly been illustrated in the current issue as well as the New Avengers Annual so readers feeling somewhat dissastisfied at the length of time it's taken Hickman to show us what the frak T'Challa is all about nowadays, are fully within their rights to be feeling somewhat antsy.



I am well aware of the fact that this is an ensemble as anyone familiar with some of my previous posts would know but this factor in no way invalidates my opinion or that of my learned colleagues who have also voiced similar concerns.

This being an ensemble book did not prevent Jonathan Hickman from scripting T'Challa backhanding a Hatut Zeraze Elite on panel.....



whilst failing to depict the former Wakandan monarch laying unbroken hands upon Black Dwarf.




It's not as if Geoff Johns had any problem scripting T'Challa kicking the Red Skull's Nazi ass here...



in an equally ensemble based book.

Next.

Lots of stuff is said here, very little of it though has anything to do with what i said and is instead a rant about how you feel T'challa has been treated by Marvel. The story in New Avengers is a good story, a story not chained by whatever bad stories that have involved T'challa before, as it should be. If the writer decides to have T'challa fight to a standstill with a random batman stand in with unknown abilities in order to further the story he is trying to tell that is okay because the stalemate helps the writer make the point he wants to make at this point in story. A hero winning every fight makes for a boring and bad story. T'challa struggling in order to win helped Jungle Action to be good and is why T'challa has not beaten Killmonger even when Hudlin was writing.

Also Strange has always been capable of the stuff you have seen in that comic. the beauty of this plot is that the great society's Dr. Fate analogue was not a real sorcerer allowing Strange the leeway to magically defeat or at least damage the great society. Just as before you did not know the Dr. Fate analogue was a fake you do not know what the batman analogue can do.

Only at the end of a story can you tell if and where a character has grown and what he has grown into. There is still a lot of story left for him to become whatever it is Hickman wants him to be. He might not even be K.O.T.D at the end of this story who knows things like this stalemate are only stepping stones to getting to the conclusion of the story and the full achievements of the character. A hero that does not face setbacks be it being unable to save the earth and multi verse from destruction or stalemating in a fight with some dude on an other earth team or whatever, is not much of a hero. the point of the story is to show how the hero deals with setbacks in achieving his goals.

I am not trying to invalidate any body's opinion, since when does having a contrasting view mean you are trying to invalidate anthers opinion? nor did i describe any body's view as nonsensical. Do not paraphrase me that is the sort of thin g that always leads to problems of misinformation on message boards.

[UltimateTy]

So its a problem that B.P. effectively drew with fake Batman, now?

When everybody in the Illuminati other than Doc Strange got beat outright?

Just checking.

The fight wasn't even over. This really shouldn't be a problem IMO but you can't please everyone I guess.

Great post Zuri

[Mr MajestiK]

Snip

I dropped my post, you reponded, I replied and you reciprocated.

We're both looking at things from different perspectives so at this point it's best if we agree to disagree.

Adios.

The fight wasn't even over. This really shouldn't be a problem IMO but you can't please everyone I guess.

Great post Zuri

At this point it's not really about "pleasing everyone" but just facing up to the fact that T'Challa's powerset has not been adequately revealed enough to differentiate him from what's been established previously.

You don't need 20+ freaking issues on some snail paced BS to establish what a characters abilities are regardless of whether it's an ensemble book or not.

We already know what Iron Man, Reed Richards, Hank McCoy, Namor, Black Bolt, Dr Strange and the Hulk/Bruce Banner can do but almost 2 whole years into Hickman's New Avengers run, can the same be said for T'Challa?

Carry on. (had to borrow that brotha FLEX)

[Mr MajestiK]

I suppose one could say that gathering some of the most dangerous entities in the known universe in the Necropolis is one of T'Challa's new "powers" as the King of the Dead.



This should be fun to watch.

[FLEX HECTIC]

I don't know how he is going to handle all those cosmic heavy hitters if he stalemates "street level" pseudo Batman!


Gosh Dang Darnit Doo Hickey we are back to Hell's Kitchen again!

[Dabpool]

It's not in Hickman's style to drop a whole lot of exposition up front about stuff in his books. I don't think he is ever going to give you a "back of a baseball card" list of statistics and attributes to what KOTD means. He has given enough for me to enjoy the story, we know BP can talk to past BP's and he can fight. I can't remember if BP pulled out shadow blade type things or not, that may have been in a dream I had. Anyway I'm a big fan of Doc Strange and Black Bolt. Now look at both those characters and how Hickman writes them. When it comes to Strange he is just like "Oh know Blood Magic" we assume as the reader it's something bad and unholy and Hickman lets us know that. We don't need a whole reading of the blood bible to explain Strange's new power, ok I don't need that to enjoy the story my B I don't know what others need. Same thing with Black Bolt they call him a celestial messiah in the credits and I think Hickman has touched 0% of what that means in this run of NA now I understand he did in his FF run but the point I'm trying to get at is some writers and I think Hickman is one of them thinks it's lazy writing to just lay down factoids about the characters and situations their in. He is telling a fantastic story that just so happens to have avengers in it. The narrative comes first for Hickman. All that being said I'm a huge fan of Black Panther just a bigger fan for Hickman's writing

[XPac]

I don't know how he is going to handle all those cosmic heavy hitters if he stalemates "street level" pseudo Batman!


Gosh Dang Darnit Doo Hickey we are back to Hell's Kitchen again!

Ever see the real Batman's resume? A LOT of heavy hitters have fallen to the same guy that's struggled against street level characters. The same can be said about Captain America. This is nothing new in comics.

Black Panther under the right circumstances can get the better of Mephisto, yet often can only stalemate or even lose to Killmonger, a guy VASTLY less powerful than a hell lord. For characters like him, that happens.

If you want a character that's always going around fighting cosmic level beings then you probably need to start following characters like Thor and Silver Surfer. A character like Black Panther will face characters with vary levels of power. That can happen when you are talking about a characters whose threat level is really defined more by his intelligence and resources than his actual power level.

[XPac]

It's not in Hickman's style to drop a whole lot of exposition up front about stuff in his books. I don't think he is ever going to give you a "back of a baseball card" list of statistics and attributes to what KOTD means. He has given enough for me to enjoy the story, we know BP can talk to past BP's and he can fight. I can't remember if BP pulled out shadow blade type things or not, that may have been in a dream I had. Anyway I'm a big fan of Doc Strange and Black Bolt. Now look at both those characters and how Hickman writes them. When it comes to Strange he is just like "Oh know Blood Magic" we assume as the reader it's something bad and unholy and Hickman lets us know that. We don't need a whole reading of the blood bible to explain Strange's new power, ok I don't need that to enjoy the story my B I don't know what others need. Same thing with Black Bolt they call him a celestial messiah in the credits and I think Hickman has touched 0% of what that means in this run of NA now I understand he did in his FF run but the point I'm trying to get at is some writers and I think Hickman is one of them thinks it's lazy writing to just lay down factoids about the characters and situations their in. He is telling a fantastic story that just so happens to have avengers in it. The narrative comes first for Hickman. All that being said I'm a huge fan of Black Panther just a bigger fan for Hickman's writing

Honestly I still think the simple reason we haven't seen much of a change in T'Challa's power level is simply because there's not much of a change. I think it's basically the same, and the reason we're not seeing him pick up and toss semi-trucks is because he frankly can't. He's essentially being written the way he's usually written as far as physical stats. And I think that's essentially telling us what we need to know. There might be a SLIGHT increase, just as there was a slight decrease when he was in Hells Kitchen, but practically speaking you couldn't really tell the difference.

That said, there are upgrades we've seen apart from any changes in his physical stats. We've seen him able to talk to previous panthers (not that I think that ability proved particularly helpful at least in that one instance). We've seen a force field and limited teleportation, which I actually think is a very nice upgrade. And we might have seen invisibility in the first NA issue, too. So I think we're seeing improvements. It's just not to the degree some were necessarily hoping for.

And he's using energy daggers again, which I think is also a welcome addition since he for the most part stopped using them after Hells Kitchen. I think he used them like twice or something since then.

[Zuri]

It's not in Hickman's style to drop a whole lot of exposition up front about stuff in his books. I don't think he is ever going to give you a "back of a baseball card" list of statistics and attributes to what KOTD means. He has given enough for me to enjoy the story, we know BP can talk to past BP's and he can fight. I can't remember if BP pulled out shadow blade type things or not, that may have been in a dream I had. Anyway I'm a big fan of Doc Strange and Black Bolt. Now look at both those characters and how Hickman writes them. When it comes to Strange he is just like "Oh know Blood Magic" we assume as the reader it's something bad and unholy and Hickman lets us know that. We don't need a whole reading of the blood bible to explain Strange's new power, ok I don't need that to enjoy the story my B I don't know what others need. Same thing with Black Bolt they call him a celestial messiah in the credits and I think Hickman has touched 0% of what that means in this run of NA now I understand he did in his FF run but the point I'm trying to get at is some writers and I think Hickman is one of them thinks it's lazy writing to just lay down factoids about the characters and situations their in. He is telling a fantastic story that just so happens to have avengers in it. The narrative comes first for Hickman. All that being said I'm a huge fan of Black Panther just a bigger fan for Hickman's writing

I think this "The narrative comes first" thing is the hallmark of current Marvel, stories are more focused on the plot than on feats and in my opinion this has helped create better stories than in the 90s where the focus seemed to be more focused on feats and heroes and villains in these big contests of power.

I think Hickman is still telling the Black Bolt celestial messiah story and inhumanity ties into that... I think he is telling a similarly long story with the KOTD title and T'challa. Once he gets to finish these narratives there is nothing wrong with that, Hickman is great at telling long stories so once he gets to finish the end result should be quite good.

On a different and unrelated note the Batman analogue is being assumed to be street level when nothing has been revealed about his skill set or abilities I think that is a bit premature as is all of the suggestion of T'challa's combat abilities being downplayed.