Marvel’s new Black Panther series reveals a new T’Challa with new challenges

Black Panther #1 is a new beginning for one of Marvel’s most popular characters. After his space adventures, the titular hero returns to Wakanda, where he finds new responsibilities. Does it taste good? It is it good? It is a failure or a success?

Well … it’s complicated.

Black Panther is #1.

John Ridley is the screenwriter who will take over from Ta-Nehisi Coates’s ambitious but inconsistent run (a description Coates might disagree with). 12 years as an SlaveThe ambitious writer The Other History of the DC UniverseAnd the less banal Batman, I amThis is the beginning of a new era in comics and characters. Juann Cabal (Guardians of the GalaxyFederico Blee takes care of the colors, while he handles art duties.

What’s Black Panther #1 about?

T’Challa leads the Avengers to victory against generic brainless baddies™️, yet Captain America calls him to task. Leadership is crucial for the Avengers Consistently, and T’Challa, as a king on Earth and an emperor in the stars, isn’t always consistent.

(Have AnyAre Avengers ever consistent? Are you asking Dr. Dead or Thor, the hammerless Thor? This is strange. These are questions that have to be answered.

What about the whole empire/king thing? That’s not going too well either.

During Coates’ run, Wakanda became a democracy, with the Black Panther serving as figurehead and protector, but no longer an unquestioned leader. Sidelined politically and frustrated by the mundane minutiae of legislation, T’Challa excuses himself from political proceedings only to be confronted and comforted by a soldier. This mercenary tells T’Challa that the people want The appearanceWill eventually long for a strong savior. T’Challa thanks him for “lyrically expressing what I’m feeling.”

The story ends with T’Challa confiding to Shuri that someone has cracked an old state secret of his, and its ramifications could cause chaos throughout the kingdom.

Why is this book so important?

Given the noteworthy success of Black Panther across media, Marvel could Ill afford to let one of its most popular characters sit on the sidelines (especially with a movie scheduled — very tentatively — for next year.) Marvel wanted to keep its iconic franchise prominent as Coates went on to new ventures.

Do you require any reading?

“Democracies pretend to be free and fair when they are not. In the course of an election, they can transform from being allies to adversaries,” T’Challa tells Shuri in Black Panther #1 (2021).

Frustratingly, no. Sure, it would be helpful to be familiar with the last 5 years of Black Panther stories, as T’Challa lost the faith of his people, regained it by creating a democracy, left for space to locate some time-displaced Wakandan astronauts, and returned the owner of an intergalactic empire that he liberated from the descendants of those lost space explorers. But there’s only a passing reference to the Empire, and the nature of democracy is explained in one panel. You might find this book more appealing if it were not so long. didn’tLearn from the past.

This is, frankly, a problem.

Black Panther is the best superhero?

Black Panther is so much more than an animal. FunnyBlack Panther. Character. While the comic is quite good, the character has left me disappointed. It’s all good. here is bad — much is actually pretty good — but nothing is particularly memorable. Nothing SticksYou.

Coates’ T’Challa, far from a swaggering swashbuckler, was guilt-ridden, pensive, cerebral … scared. He listened to others wiser than he, including Shuri, Storm and even the manifestations of the goddess Bast.

So to see T’Challa so disrespectfully dismissive to a woman in power; to see him embrace a militarist ideology that flies in the face of the democracy he willingly created; to watch him act unilaterally, Unsuspecting, when we’ve seen him accomplish so much more with others — it’s galling and frustrating. But frustration, for some people, perhaps for most, might actually be better.

T’Challa here is more inline with previous characterizations from Christopher Priest and Reginald Hudlin, a return to character for a man who annulled a marriage in the middle of a fight and who willingly joined a group called the Illuminati. Still, to see Coates’ characterization rolled back so unceremoniously gave me pause.

This issue is just one, but there are many more stories to be told. Black Panther #1 is an effective, efficient romp that’s well worth your time. It’s worth reading. You might love it in places where I don’t like it. And that’s ok. Black PantherLike all great art, #1 is complex.