Review: King in Black: Black Panther #1

For a couple of years, Tchalla, AKA Black Panther has been on awild ride of irrelevant storylines. There are storylines that having nothing to do with being the King of Wakanda. Agents of Wakanda (that did nothing for Wakanda); he has been fighting in a tournament for the Phoenix force that he does not even want; Tchalla went into space to find Vibranium, and accidentally brought back with a symbiote with a side of Killmonger. Some of the writers have been trying to wedge the Ororo, and Tchalla storyline into several events, but it has fallen flat.

In the current issue of King in Black: Black Panther #1, The Knull symbiote invasions has made way to the walls of Wakanda. The Wakandan Forces have run out of space and time to put in between the plague, themselves. and the civilian population. Ororo, who is perhaps their biggest weapon has fallen, and their individual’s weapons can only stun the symbiotes at most.

I had a hard time connecting my dread of the greater King in Black threat to the rest of the world. It felt like the Knull invasion was isolated to Wakanda. Also there seems to be some sorta shift in characteristics for Tchalla and Shuri. Shuri has for a while now been fully developed as the scientifically more adept of the two; and Tchalla as the Strategic warrior, and General in the field. That is why it at one point it did make sense for him to command the Avengers. But in this issue Shuri is the warrior and Tchalla is the man in the chair? Also know, we are supposed to believe that an earth god is on par with a cosmic force. (Hand of Bast meant to kill Phoenix)

Truth be told, after this I am not sure why Tchalla would remain King of Wakanda. Even his sister has been questioning his decisions. Shurin should have stayed in command of Wakanda by the way. But because we (people in general) commonly misinterpret displays of confidence as a sign of competence, we are fooled into believing that men are better leaders than women. By the way since when did Shuri turn into a Karen?

The interior art was done by German Peralta coloring by Jesus Aburtov. I will say that depicting the infection of the small country, much less one person can be a daunting task. I blame the panel layout because I mentally cannot grasp how big the invasion was. Each person that was infected was just another no name person, and even when a larger character got infected, there was no build-up.

SCORE: 2/5

King in Black: Black Panther #1 will have 2 covers: Cover A, Leinil Francis Yu & Sunny Gho; Cover B, Steve Epting.

Writer: Geoffrey Thorne
Artist: German Peralta
Colorist: Jesus Aburtov
Letterer: Joe Sabino
Publisher: Marvel Comics