REVIEW: Black Panther #5

After Wakanda transitioned from a monarchy to a democracy, political unrest pushed the nation to the edge of civil war. To bring peace, the Black Panther was excited, however mysterious disappearances have been going on in the city of Birnin T’challa where the Black Panther now resides. He must do everything in his power to find out where and how these people have gone.

It’s a short read, it’s relatively straightforward in what’s happening. T’challa is trying to find the kidnapper of a young rich man. In his usual Black Panther fashion he goes around stopping criminals with cool kicks and cool gadgets, and yet this is not enough to grab my attention. Perhaps it is because I’m not following along with the story, so all these different names mean very little to me. But all in all, it was just a really slow read. There are too many factions battling against each other and really none of them is memorable enough for me to care. It’s a shame because I like the Black Panther, especially the movies, but in this instance, I think it has worked against the comic. The movies put you in a mindset of action, drama, and mystery and this particular issue does very little to deliver any of these things. There are two particular scenes however that I did like, the first one being a scene in the roof of T’challa’s apartment where he is meditating and talking to his sister. I think that scene was very well done, and the beautiful sunset in the background does wonders to show you a deeply meditative moment for the Black Panther. There is also the fact that he is talking to his sister, with the mention of the late king of Wakanda to deliver some sage advice, you can feel that these two characters both needed to have this conversation during that time.

Sometimes you don’t need a lot of action to truly make something entertaining, sometimes you need a moment of respite and introspection to really make things sink in. The second really interesting scene in this story has to be the last page, with the full-page illustration of the villain that will show up in the next chapter. I think it was a great reveal and having T’challa drop a little hint to their name in the previous pages gives a really good payoff when you finally see him. Whilst this particular issue was relatively boring (like the trade disputes in Star Wars), it is something that has to happen in order to get to the next part of the story which so far looks to be promising. Eve L. Ewing is a good writer, this review is not meant to disparage them, however, this particular issue felt skippable for me as a reader. I would’ve loved to have gotten maybe one extra scene such as the meditation one and perhaps a memorable fight that had a villain that I cared about and not just some grunts.

The art itself is very good, the character designs are really cool and the new costume that Black Panther is wearing looks fantastic. I liked the coloring overall, but I did notice that each page was treated individually and there wasn’t a consistent color scheme being used throughout the story. The only part where we see a color scheme being implemented is at the end with a range of greyish blues to show a cloudy sky. I think this worked well but then you got some full-color panels when the character goes back into the house, and it kinda breaks the palette’s effect. Had the color scheme been kept all the way through, it would’ve worked better and would’ve delivered an even bigger impact to the last page’s full illustration since the color scheme changed completely on that last page. One page that I did love in terms of coloring and art, has to be on the mediation scene I mentioned previously. I think the use of oranges, purples, and yellows was fantastic. It did a beautiful job of showing you a sunset, it’s just a shame that it lasted for only one page. The Wakandan shield looks fantastic too, the way it contrasts against the dark custom of the Panther makes it look 10x more important than any of his other gadgets, again it’s a shame that we basically only see it fully for like four panels total. Personally, this comic has some really good visual moments, but they were fewer than I would’ve expected for a Black Panther title, whilst everything else just felt like filler.

Lastly the lettering; it is good, it does the job well. We get some nice fonts, a good range of variation on the word balloons and a nice dose of sound FX’s. Sadly this being a Marvel title we look at even more lettering that looks like stickers on top of heavily textured art. This is most apparent in the last scenes when one of the gang elders receives a letter threatening him to leave his territory. The font is so clean and so perfect that it is clearly done after the fact, making it look incredibly out of place. I am not a fan of a lot of Marvel’s lettering, and this is an editor issue, not truly the letterer issue, but they do not ask for a version of the lettering that is just for digital. When you print things on paper, it will inevitably take on the texture of the paper you print it on and that usually does a good job at meshing everything together. When you are displaying comics online and the art has been painted in rasters, the text and word balloons are done in vector format, the distinction between pixels and paths/curves is so obvious that it just looks weird for me. I want to feel like I am reading a story put together by a team of people, but when the work of two artists compete for your attention so strongly it’s harder to get invested into the story.

This issue was a bit gruelling, but I hope that it was a necessary evil for an awesome payoff in the next chapter of the story.

Writing: 3.5 Stars

Art: 5 Stars

Colors: 4 Stars

Overall: 3.5 Stars

Written by: Eve L. Ewing
Art by: Mack Chater
Coloring by: Andre Dalhouse
Lettering by: Vc’s Joe Sabino
Cover art by: Taurin Clarke
Variant Covers by; Chris Allen, Jesus Aburtov, David Marquez, Matthew Wilson & Ernanda SouzaPublished by Marvel Comics

Reviewed by Antonio “Mabs”