chezkevin: Black Panther by Christopher Priest: The Complete Collection Vol. 1

Collects #'s 1-17 of the 1998 series by Christopher Priest, Mark Texeira and more

Reading this collection was lot like binging a TV series...the whole thing goes by so fast that by the time you're done you can hardly remember what you actually watched. Hence, I'm blogging about it. I really didn't know what to expect when I picked this up. I just knew that the Priest run was probably the best of the pre-contemporary Black Panther runs. The movie was pretty dang good so I was open to trying it, and since my library had all 3 volumes, I figured I could go through the entire run myself without complications.

Turns out, this isn't your typical super comic. Black Panther was published in 1998 under the "Marvel Knights" line, an independent-ish offshoot of the Marvel Universe that didn't rely on continuity and instead focused on experimentation and storytelling. The only other Marvel Knights books I'd read previously were the 12-issue Sensational Spider-Man run by Mark Millar/Terry Dodson, and The Punisher: Welcome Back, Frank, by Garth Ennis/Steve Dillon. Considering that these were its sister books, you can expect some edge to it, which shows up in the appearance of Mephisto, the spotlight on street crime, and the romantic storylines around it. Other than that, the main tone of the book is actually satirical -- T'Challa hardly gets the focus in this book. It's mostly about the situations he finds himself in, and the wacky characters that surround him. It's kind of like a sitcom that happens to have superheroes.

Everett Ross is the bumbling "POV" character (imagine the ineffectual Chandler from Friends), a CIA agent assigned to T'Challa, the Black Panther, as his attache while he visits America, to investigate the death of a child involved in a charity that he sponsored. Unfortunately, T'Challa is leaving Wakanda at a time of ethnic wars ongoing in the area, and that's another storyline that he has to address. The timeline gets a little flighty, because most of the story is narrated back to Everett's boss from his POV, but here are some highlights:

Mephisto pays a visit to T'Challa's hotel in the projects, secretly a motivating factor behind the ethnic wars in Wakanda, to bargain for T'Challa's "perfect, noble" soul. T'Challa actually gives in to the request, but because he's bonded with the Panther God, his soul is so noble that it's too much for Mephisto. It's a key establishing trait for T'Challa.
T'Challa must protect his throne from Achebe, a Joker-style character who has taken provisional control of Wakanda along with T'Challa's stepmother.
T'Challa uncovers the drug ring that was behind the child's murder that spurred him to visit America, secretly a <redacted>-sponsored plot to destabilize the region and weaken Wakanda.
The White Wolf, a lost adopted brother, visits T'Challa in America and urges him to command his Hatut Zeraze ("Dogs of War"), a militia of brutal soldiers formerly commanded by T'Challa's father in his role as King of Wakanda.
As further fallout from his encounter with Mephisto, T'Challa accidentally makes out with Nakia, a member of his Dora Milaje, "Adored Ones" essentially declaring his intent to marry her. It starts a whole chain reaction which includes Nakia endangering Monica's life in Wakanda, a former American lover of T'Challa's, as well as T'Challa replacing Nakia with Queen Divine Justice, a Chicago-born woman who happens to be a descendant of Wakandan blood, to humorous results.

The art starts off with Mark Texeira's painted, dream-like style which works really well with the Mephisto storyline. But it quickly turns into generic 90's muscleman art. It actually kind of reminds me of the 90's Howard the Duck books, but it could just be because those were both over-drawn and satire comics. There isn't much to write about with it other than that, but Mike Manley takes over for a couple of issues, and his cartoon-y, Bruce Timm-style pencils do a better job of evoking the tone than the other art style in the book. I'd rather read his Black Panther than the others drawn.

Definitely a unique comic to add to your list. The art is standard to substandard and while there's a lot of cool introductions to the lore of the Black Panther like the Dora Milaje, it's occasionally bogged down by the years of continuity that it attempts to catch you up on, like Monica Lynn's prior engagement to T'Challa, or just who exactly the White Wolf is. That combined with the time jumps from the narrator makes for a dense, unfocused read-through that demands multiple readings just to get everything straight. Maybe it wasn't a great idea to stuff all these issues in together, but it would take so long to collect the run otherwise. And just look at this page, they had to pull up a whole wikipedia entry just so you could understand who Killmonger is.