Doomwar is a six-part miniseries (with a double-length first issue) published in 2010; even though it was not branded as belonging to a particular Marvel series, it is clearly a Black Panther story. Despite having guest characters from across the Marvel universe (e.g., the Fantastic Four, the X-Men, War Machine, even Deadpool), the story picks right up from the end of Black Panther volume 5 by the same writer, and the protagonists are definitely T'Challa and Shuri as they struggle to defend Wakanda from an invasion by Doctor Doom.
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from Doomwar #5
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As a result, I didn't expect to enjoy it very much, having not really enjoyed Jonathan Maberry's "Prelude to
Doomwar"... but by the time I was partway through issue #2, I realized I was pretty into this! I had been afraid this would be a big generic Marvel event, but as I said, it's very much a
Black Panther story about the characters of T'Challa and Shuri, and about the politics of Wakanda. It would fit right into, for example,
Christopher Priest's run without a lot of tweaking. Though I still feel like Shuri isn't a very strong character, mostly just being an angry young woman, I felt Maberry had a good handle on T'Challa here, showing how dedicated he was to his country even in trying circumstances. And while I felt like the populist uprising in vol. 5 was kind of contrived, Maberry does a good job with its consequences here.
On top of all this, I kind of groaned when Deadpool showed up (especially when they put him on the cover of issue #4, but he didn't appear until the very end, presumably so they could also put him on the cover of #5), but Maberry makes good use of him, and he doesn't derail the book like I was afraid he might.
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from Doomwar #4
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The story was aided by two other things. One is definitely the artwork; Scot Eaton (mostly inked here by Andy Lanning & Robert Campanella) is the best penciler assigned to
Black Panther since Jefte Palo's
Secret Invasion story
in volume 4, with clear storytelling and good character work. (I think he was doing Ioan Gruffud for Mister Fantastic and Denzel Washington for T'Challa. Of course I approve of the former.) And John-Francois Beaulieu, who I really liked on
the Marvel Oz comics, does a great job as the colorist. Bad coloring can muddy the storytelling, but I felt that even with dark colors, everything popped and was visually clear—even though he obviously uses a very different palette here than he did in Oz!
The other is Doom himself. I haven't read many Fantastic Four comics, so I don't have much of a handle on the character, but I really liked Maberry's take on him here, especially when we find out how Doom was able to overcome T'Challa's locks on the Wakandan vibranium vault. It plays out exactly how I expected... but was nevertheless perfectly done. A great depiction of a great villain.
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from Doomwar #4
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I found the ending both interesting and frustrating. The characters can kill Doom, but don't, so that they're "better" than him. While I believe that, say, Reed Richards would have this philosophy, it doesn't make any sense for T'Challa and Shuri, and surely it only happens this way because
Doomwar is part of a wider Marvel universe, and can't be the story that kills off a key character. On top of this, T'Challa makes a very interesting choice: he destroys all Wakandan vibranium rather than let Doom make off with some of it, preserving Wakandan values but perhaps at the cost of Wakandan security. But this happens at the very end of the story, so we get no implications of his choice. This isn't so much an issue for
Doomwar itself (though I think the way that the country's rebuilding gets a single panel
is) but one that I am afraid future Black Panther stories will not really engage with. I guess we'll see!
Doomwar originally appeared in six issues (Apr.-Sept. 2010). The story was written by Jonathan Maberry; penciled by Scot Eaton; inked by Andy Lanning (#1-5), Robert Campanella (#1-6), Jaime Mendoza (#6), and David Meikis (#6); colored by John-Francois Beaulieu; lettered by Cory Petit (#1-5) and Joe Caramagna (#6); and edited by Axel Alonso. (Note that issue #2 is called "Part 1" and #6 "Part 5" on their title pages.)
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