Is he lost? How many different directions will he take?
Black Panther is a complex character. He just might be more complex than he needs to be. Since T'Challa's debut back in 1966, he has gone through quite a bit of changes. It's almost enough to make you wonder if he knows what he wants to do with himself or whether writers know what they should do with him. Black Panther first appeared back in Fantastic Four #52. This was before he would become king of Wakanda and used the Fantastic Four to prove that could defeat them and be worthy of leading and protecting his country. Soon afterwards, he journeyed to the United States and became a member of the Avengers.
This was the Black Panther I first knew. He was a leader but felt more like a superhero. Despite returning to his country, he continued to appear in different issues, usually fighting supervillains rather than actually leading his country.
Now that he's staying in Hell's Kitchen and soon to be wearing the American colors, which is the real Black Panther, ruler of Wakanda or superhero adventurer? == TEASER == It always seemed that Black Panther was torn between Wakanda and the United States. He returned in his Marvel Knights series and had a Washington D.C. envoy. Then he married Storm (of the X-Men) in a huge Wakandan ceremony. Rather than rule side-by-side in Wakanda, they soon ended up as members of the Fantastic Four when Reed and Sue wanted to take a vacation from the team. They did return to Wakanda only to have T'Challa injured and his sister, Shuri, take on the mantle of Black Panther.
While no longer possessing his former powers, he accepted Matt Murdock's offer to become the new protector of Hell's Kitchen while he tries to sort out his own issues after his possession during Shadowland.
Under a new guise, Black Panther is now living as Mr. Okwonko, the owner of a small diner in Hell's Kitchen. I'm digging his current adventures but it feels a little strange that he left Wakanda once again and has virtually no contact with his wife these days.
To add to the strangeness of his current activities, it appears that he will going in yet another direction as the American Panther. The images have been out for a couple weeks and honestly, I thought it might be some sort of April Fool's Joke.
Then again, there's no definite confirmation that it will actually be T'Challa under the Captain America-inspired costume. Maybe this has something to do with Steve Rogers not necessarily wanting to return to being Captain America. What if Steve wanted to make the Captain America Corps a reality?
Most likely it will be T'Challa going through another change or perhaps it's someone else trying to lure Black Panther out for a fight. He has been making his share of enemies in the short time he's spent in Hell's Kitchen.
The real question is, what should Black Panther do? Is he better off in America fighting crime alongside his superhero friends? Should he try actually spending time with his wife and the X-Men? Is it time he returned to Wakanda and reclaimed his role as the Black Panther? What is the deal with the American Panther costume? Is it a good idea for a temporary guise or just a really bad one?
I guess cause I have been watching avengers cartoon and I like him on that team so I would say put him there but he really needs to be DE POWERED like alot! much like batman I like the human element of the character and have that stupid suit taking herbs is kinda weak
I say put him the TOP avengers team and kick out that novarr guy his lame.
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T'Challa is currently depowered...
Since you feel that T'Challa being empowered by the Herb is weak, how do you feel about Steve Rogers being empowered by that Serum?
the problem with black panther is his origin not interesting enough to most people and the fact that he's from africa. i like black panther cause of the avengers earth's mightiest hero show.
G-man assesment is right they don't know what to do with him. To be truthful the panther really only had 2 good writers that really had a hang on the character. The way Iron Man was a about business, corporate crime and hum frailty, The Black Panther should go deep in geopolitical problems, terrorism and with the current state of Wakanda what it takes to rebuild a great people(easily a metaphor for America). Marvel miss a huge opportunity with a rich character.
@JonesDeini: It was actucally in the very latest Spider-man featuring the Future Foundation, the FF (now with Spider-Man) go on into the future and meet a Future FF and leading them in someone who looks like Black Panther but calls himself Captain Wakanda. The Future-Future Foundation
I guess cause I have been watching avengers cartoon and I like him on that team so I would say put him there but he really needs to be DE POWERED like alot! much like batman I like the human element of the character and have that stupid suit taking herbs is kinda weak
I say put him the TOP avengers team and kick out that novarr guy his lame.
I think that New York(and by extension the whole US at least in the Marvel Universe) is so jaded with superheroes that the above point is quite valid-it would be intriguing to see the least to say this aforementioend team of heroes show up, say in Libya(just to be topical), but of course, I doubt that Marvel's editors are that adventurous(sigh).
Black Panther in American colors, proves that marvel doest know how to use the character.
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I agree, but why? Why is it so much harder to give an understanding of who this character is than say, Namor? I see there is enough interest in the character.
Knowing how much the big two like to copy each other in terms of story ideas, I guess we'd have to think "what is the obvious Marvel answer to Batman Inc". The answer would be "Captain America Corps". It makes sense, and it would present its own challenges. Then again, Steve has the Secret Avengers...and there are already enough superhero teams. Is there really a necessity for a Captain America Corps?
Personally, I just picked up the recent Black Panther Man Without Fear books, but I haven't read them yet. I should check those out and see what T'Challa has been up to.
Maybe he could decide (because obviously he has a lot on his plate) that he cannot be king of Wakanda and instead become their ambassador to the United States. He could live in Hell's Kitchen with Storm so they could stay together and cover his job there. They would be close to the X-Mansion too. As for American Panther, I'm worried.
Return my man Tchalla to Wakanda, and do an on-going series there. One where he kicks everybody's ass who steps on Wakandan soil, and restores the nation to its rightful glory.
Maybe even form an all Black super crew to help out every now and again.
Great...He sounds like every-other Super Person now.
Married but not spending any real time with his woman, whether together or on a team. Spider-man, Superman, Batman (Bruce) or (Dick). It doesn't even have to be about a woman...FAMILY TIME isn't allowed in this line of work.
Green Arrow (random kids), Black Canary, Lady Shiva - Cassandra Cain.
At least Wonder Woman goes home, she has more of a family set up, Batman just collects people that fall in place.
And worse of all fighting causes that have nothing to do with him.
At least Batman stays in Gotham.. fighting crime, not so much JLA or other people's adventures.
EVEN THE LANTERNS show more Responsibility!
In short its means they can't write any good adventure stories for Africa. Gotta write what you know...and we know America.
I love my Country, but that sucks we can't write about something else.
@ImperiousRix: Don't you see you can't have a captain america corps with Black Panther in it he's not only already representing his country as it's protector (that isn't protecting) but he's from Wakanda and he's the king of Wakanda.
Since the marriage of Storm and Black Panther was an extremely racist thing (They got married 'cause they're the most important black kids in Marvel? I mean what?), and she got demoted from team leader to extra, I don't mind they not meeting
In a recent FF comic they meet the Future Foundation of the Future, the FFF, and the team leader seems to be Captain Wakanda, basically a future Black Panther. Maybe Black Panther has become Captain Wakanda and Wakanda's flag and flag's colors happen to be the similar to America's.
Bingo. The character isn't as complex as we've been mislead to believe. He's no more complex than Aquaman, Namor, or any other "torn between two worlds" hero. In fact, the only reason he's "torn" is because writers don't know what to do with him. I've noticed that many writers (including black ones) really don't know what to do with black characters. They often fall into the pathetic habit of making their ethnicity their distinguishing feature. With T'challa, a man's who's heritage is such a big part of who he is, it always struck me as disappointing how little we see it displayed and analyzed in his comics. Point blank, most writers lack the ability and and are afraid of tackling the task of fleshing out Wakanda, its culture, its people, its politics, and T'challa's relationship to it. Writers have a hard time changing their view of Africa as do audiences. So having an African nation be the most advanced on the earth pushes their suspension of disbelief pass it's limits. And that's saying something considering the medium. Another problem is the assumption that american audiences lack the ability or desire to relate to stories that take place outside of it's borders. While this holds true to some extent I think the world has advanced to the point where most WASP now realize that there's a world outside of the U.S. and people who have both wholly unique perspectives and stories as well as universally relatable ones. Until a writer is bold enough to say "No, we're going to make you breathe in Wakanda's air, bath in it's rivers, speak and listen to it's people" then the Black Panther title will always be in this constant flux of inconsistency.
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@Blackreverend said:
" @JonesDeini: COULDN'T HAVE SAID IT BETTER! THANK YOU FOR EXPOSING THE TRUTH!
If I was writing his character I would end the Panther Cult in Wakanda. Have a miniseries about the choice of a new one ( Lion, White Gorilla, Crocodile) Bast the panther Goddess showed up when Vibranium did and should leave with it now that there's no more! Have Shuri become the avatar of that God so there's only one Black Panther.
I would also reintroduce the Wakandan Secret Police to help facilitate her reign. After losing vibranium Wakanda must be in chaos! Shuri is the kind of character that would sanction one.
During Doomwar, T'Challa was exploring what he called "Shadow Physics"... considering that he's a genius I would like to see him find some way to harness this new power so that Wakanda can capitalize on it and work it's way back to greatness.
Like Spider-man, Batman and any other successful hero, the Black Panther has his own rogues and villains. It would be interesting to have them reimagined and sent against Wakanda seeing how Hudlin left them out when he rewrote The Black Panther's origins.
Finally I would have T'Challa lead a team of global heroes to solve humanity's problems. With US Agent, Captain Britain, Red Guardian, a new Major Mapleleaf and him as the Black Panther (A superhero not a ruler and living wherever Storm is). This series could easily replace one of the many Avengers titles... "
These were all great ideas. But, I fear they won't listen. "
To be honest... I'd love to see a "Captain America Corps" with Steve at the helm, T'Challa and a few others filling out the ranks, and Bucky making scattered appearances. I kinda HATE Secret Avengers because it's essentially the Steve Rogers show, so it'd be cool if he actually got his own team...
I wish to see both. I would love to see him in America and the people of Wakanda questioning him where does his loyalty lies and when he goes back to Wakanda, people question him and when he's in America, he gets question of how American is he. That would be some sort of drama.
But honestly i'm so tired of Marvel/DC and how so many of their books just don't have a sense of direction (i could go on but i'm not). But people if you don't think your comics are being done justice then start boycotting the companies or at least the books you don't like. Specially if they do something that cancels a characters death or development (i'm looking at one more day and johnny better not comeback for a decent amount of time). Before you think I'm against the mainstream i do buy my dc/marvel comics just a very small amount.
This is ridiculous! Black Panther is from Wakanda, what would possibly convince the character to wear a patriotic AMERICAN costume and wrap himself in a foreign flag. He has friends from America yes, but there is no way you'd convince me that he'd have the allegiance to do something like that.
That doesn't make sense to me.
Consider this, would an American (or American President for that matter) start wrapping themselves in a foreign flag if they 'simply took frequent trips to a country?'
T'Challa is a great character and I have tried very hard to stick with his books over the years. The problem is that writers seem to not know what to do with him. The beginning of his run on Marvel Knights was amazing. He was a king yet he was also a super hero. Unfortunately, they moved from that characterization and the mag got extremely predictable and boring.
@Kid_Zombie: Unknown soldier was AMAZING so foolish of Vertigo to cancel it due to it not meeting their sales quota...philistines.
@darkcloakx: There's nothing wrong with totemistic power of and within itself, but when it's applied to African characters it's just stereotypical. It's the equivalent of making Asian characters be martial artists, ninjas,or samurai if you follow me. I just don't like the implications of it, folk. Everytime I see it it's like I can see an editor/writer sitting and thinking "Africa...savagery, idol worship, animals, nature...of course!!! It makes perfect sense! Well call him the Zebra!!!"
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