Walk Like A Panther

Earlier this week, I read that Black Panther and the Crew by Excelsior Award nominee, Ta-Nehisi Coates, has been cancelled after two issues, allegedly because of poor sales. As I stated previously, I'm trying first issues of new titles then trade-waiting because I'm finding my habit too expensive. This was a series that I was going  buy as a tpb .

Cancelling a mainstream comic featuring a group of black heroes (and stars of major film and tv franchises ) in the wake of the " Diversity doesn't sell"  controversy seems extremely short-sighted and poorly timed.  Inclusion doesn't appear to be on the agenda and it suggests Marvel doesn't want to do relevance either.

But is the Panther a difficult character to like? I haven't read any other BP comics since the Marvel Knights era but I am aware from other series like Avengers that the character has been retooled in the Twenty-First century as a ruthless manipulator who infiltrated the team out of expediency.( In reality, the Panther only had fairly brief spells as an assembler- roughly 1968-70, 1973-74 and 1977-78. His role as noble and erudite man of mystery was completely usurped by the arrival of the Vision.)

T'Challa's paranoia might seem logical given his fictional country's history: a technological advanced wonderland reversing the Noble Savage tropes of Tarzan yet repeatedly invaded by white super-villains for its miraculous resource, Vibranium.

Originally devised by Jack Kirby as The Coal Tiger, the Panther has almost always been a politicised character. As Marvel's first black super-hero, he had a brief Poitier-type role as a teacher in a Harlem school, prefiguring DC's Black Lightning. Shortly afterwards, he underwent a change of identity as the Black Leopard to disassociate him from the real-world activist group. It was a short-lived and now almost completely forgotten move.  But, aside from his race and regal status, is the Panther anything more than an African Daredevil, with a couple of hokey villains in Klaw and the Man-Ape?

 Perhaps the answer can be found in the Panther's first solo series. Written by Don McGregor, it was originally presented in the awkwardly- titled Jungle Action  and reprinted in the UK in 1976, under equally awkward circumstances- accompanying Burroughsian jungle lord Ka-Zar in the weekly Planet of the Apes comic.

"Panther's Rage" has been described as a prototype of the graphic novel. T'Challa  left the Avengers to face threats to his reign in Wakanda from a revolutionary leader named Erik Killmonger. As in his florid and ambitious War of the Worlds stories, McGregor unleashed a horde of bizarrely- named villains who assaulted the Panther and his allies- in the most purple of prose:
"The chiffon pink haze of sky"; "quasar-like rays bathe the altar in lambent strength"; " taunting turquoise treasures rippled by scarlet streaks"; "woodland sombre is treacherously pastel".

Steve Englehart parodied McGregor's style mercilessly and hilariously in Avengers:

A significant part of the imagery of those stories has stayed with me, however -  Steranko-style sequences; Gil Kane's double-page spread of Baron Macabre (who seems informed by Roger Moore's Live and Let Die); the vampiric Sombre and the hideous Salamander K'ruel.

On re-reading the series in the hardback Marvel graphic novel, there was much also that I had forgotten: the dinosaur -ridden Valley of Serpents and the deaths of King Cadaver and Killmonger.
It's clear to see, however,  why this version of the Panther wasn't as popular as Spider-Man or Conan, say. A year-long war story with an almost entirely black cast, it's overwritten and yet it riffs on the cliffhangers of 30s and 40s movie serials.   Almost every issue sees T'Challa undergo extreme physical punishment, his ceremonial garb shredded to tatters.
Despite its pretensions and sadism, however, it's a sophisticated series for 70s Marvel. It's to be praised for its mature depiction of relationships - especially the veiled gay romance between Venomm and Taku.

The edition I own doesn't carry the Panther vs. the Klan storyline, which I've never read. It does contribute however to the bizarre crucifixion fetish that plagued Marvel circa 1974-76 ( see also https://materioptikon.wordpress.com/2017/02/14/death-machine-for-hire/)


The next incarnation of the Panther was the equally bizarre sci-fi romp devised by King Kirby himself. More of that another time- but we can surmise that the action-heavy mix of Kirby-tech and mythology made the regal T'Challa, in his expressionless mask, a more remote and potentially alienating character. Maybe the sad stories of kings just don't resonate in the home of the brave?

Coming soon: Strange Apparitions

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