In my journey as a comic fan, one character who has become a key focus in Marvel’s universe in Black Panther was never hugely on my radar. My earliest memories of the character were either in the Iron Man or Fantastic Four cartoons from the 90’s I think. In comics, I believe I only knew them from when the Avenger’s showed up and sometimes Black Panther was there, sometimes he wasn’t.
I remember seeing the singles of Christopher Priest’s iconic run from the early 2000’s on the shelves but I had no idea about the wider Marvel universe apart from what I gathered from osmosis. As I gathered more knowledge, my first real memory of seeing Black Panther playing a significant role in comics I was reading was during Civil War. First we saw Black Panther invited to be a founding member of the Illuminati, saying it was a bad idea and leaving. In that one shot prelude to Civil War by Brian Michael Bendis and Alex Maleev that saw the Illuminati form and later, shoot Hulk into space had the proposal of the group be based on a unanimous vote. I always found it interesting that the group comprised of Iron Man, Professor X, Mr. Fantastic, Black Bolt and Namor formed despite T’Challa voting not to go along with the proposal. I thought initially it was an interesting flaw in the origins of the group but when Bendis was asked why the group formed despite T’Challa voting no he embodied the spirit of George Lucas denying Han shot first and stated the vote was unanimously yes even though there being a clear no vote.
His main role in Civil War was getting married to Storm in the run written at the time by Reggie Hudlin. I remember seeing the ads for the start of the series with art by John Romita JR who was and still is a favourite of mine so that sticks in my mind. I also knew of Hudlin because he wrote 10 issues of Marvel Knight’s Spider-Man following the 12 issue Mark Millar run and before the title was relaunched with the same numbering and Sensational Spider-Man.I remember also following Civil War, Black Panther and Storm replaced Mr. Fantastic and the Invisible Woman on the Fantastic Four in a brief run written by the late, great Dwayne McDuffie. There was a lot of controversy at the time I recall that Black Panther was able to put the Silver Surfer in a full nelson hold. It just shows that even before social media where fans pick everything apart, this was still happening in the days before it became prevalent when fans argued over ridiculous things on message boards instead.
Like a lot of heroes at the time, Black Panther joined the pantheon of many characters that I knew existed but didn’t have much more than a surface knowledge of. I knew now that he was introduced in Lee/Kirby Fantastic Four, was one of the first prominent black superheroes and a few things about Wakanda and such. He showed up in Kurt Busiek’s Avenger’s briefly but I’m sure like a lot of people not familiar with the comics, I was got a wider exposure to Black Panther, Wakanda, etc through the movie Captain America: Civil War and then the Black Panther starring the legend that was Chadwick Boseman.The character got a more prominent place in the Marvel universe with a new title written by acclaimed novelist Ta-Nehisi Coates and a whole lot more titles centring around Wakanda and the characters who had been introduced globally through the aforementioned Black Panther movie. I would say that Marvel comics have lost somewhat of an interest in keeping the character as prevalent in recent years but the company tends to get bored quickly of their passion projects that are left to sink or swim before they remember to come back to it later on,I finally decided to read some Black Panther comics when the Christopher Priest run got the omnibus treatment.
This is one of (if not the) definitive run and I’m a big fan of Priest, especially after reading his recent Deathstroke work. Its a very dense read that’s more like a political thriller with Black Panther antagonists like Killmonger attacking Wakanda and the like with economics as well as his fists.Still even though I only understand perhaps 5% of it at times, its deeply compelling and its clear Christopher Priest is a writer with a lot on his mind and does an excellent job using a narrative involving people in costumes to put them across.Its always fun for me to drop in on a character I’m not familiar with and expand my reading horizons a little. I might never read another Black Panther run but I always enjoy thinking about my own journey with certain characters and maybe (hopefully) I’ve made you think a little about that too.
More soon.
Glenn's Grumblings 