REVIEW: Black Panther Long Live the King #6

The Black Panther Universe has become the most intriguing and possibly the most vividly drawn aspect of the broader Marvel universe. It helps that some of the greatest writers of our day ”“ Ta-Nehisi Coates, Roxane Gay, Nnedi Okorafor (in comics or otherwise) are writing into the expansive world of Wakanda. Their stories make visible many of the racial, cultural and colonial complexities with which this fictional nation and its hero kings continue to contend. This is no small feat given the ongoing debates about the cultural appetite for complex stories about race and identity in comics.

Black Panther: Long Live the King, Nnedi Okorafor“s entrÃ©e into the Black Panther set of comic book titles is only available digitally at the moment, but one hopes that Marvel will be smart enough to release all six issues in TPB format sooner rather than later.

Okorafor“s story stars a young Nigerian woman named Ngozi who after a tragic accident that leaves her physically challenged, experiences another turn of events that lead to her bonding with the Venom symbiote and assuming the mantle of the Black Panther. Black Panther: Long Live the King #6 has Ngozi returning to Lagos, Nigeria for her Aunt“s wedding, a grandiose affair with lots of food, family and friends.

Okorafor“s writing feels at home here in the final installment of this “alternative”“ story arc in the Black Panther story world, but she is clearly comfortable and no less adept in using the tools of the Marvel Universe to make her particular contribution to this Black Panther moment resonate”“ to tell her story in an exciting and innovative way.

If you can imagine a powerful story about the limits of monarchal rule in an immersive Black world where the Black Panther suit and the Venom symbiote merge and are wielded by a young Black woman — who even with her own personal experience with disability is slow to see the ways in which young mutants are discriminated against in her home country, then you can begin to imagine this world that Okorafor, with and through the able artistry of Andre Lima Araujo, Tana Ford and others, has skillfully crafted.

Black Panther LLK #6 ultimately raises more questions and leaves many more questions unanswered about Wakanda, it“s relationship to other nations on the continent and the national/continental responsibilities of a superhero who also happens to be a political ruler. In this sense, it is not an ending of Ngozi“s story as much as it is a beginning. 4/5

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