Legends: Black Panther |
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Collection published: 2022 Contents originally published: 2021-22 Read: October 2025 |
Inkers: Setor Fiadzigbey, Fran Galán, Roberto Poggi, Oren Junior & Ramón F. Bachs
Legends: Black Panther (this is clearly what the cover and title page call it, but everyone calls this book Black Panther Legends for some reason) was a four-issue miniseries telling key moments from the history of the Black Panther. We get the death of T'Challa's father at the hands of Klaw, T'Challa meeting Storm for the first time, T'Challa facing down his uncle to acquire the throne, and the first visit of the Fantastic Four to Wakanda.
To be honest, I don't really get the point of this. I think when you're retelling an origin story, you need to be able to add something new or different; this is aimed at a younger audience, judging by the art style, but is still supposed to be the mainstream Marvel Universe versions of the characters (according to the League of Comic Geeks website, anyway), not an alternate continuity (like the YA-aimed Marvel Action stories are). But in that case, we'd just gotten a new version of the Black Panther's origin just three years prior! And that version, I really liked; it effectively wove a bunch of disparate elements we'd seen over the years into a coherent whole.
This version just retells some stuff we've seen before in ways I found less effective and less interesting. In particular, I found this version of how T'Chaka died at the hands of Ulysses Klaw not as well done and emotional as the Rise of the Black Panther version, and this version of how T'Challa met and fell in love with Storm boringly simple compared to the version in Eric Jerome Dickey's Storm miniseries. And devoting a whole issue to T'Challa's battle against his uncle to regain the throne (a battle which is purely ceremonial and which his uncle wants him to win, though admittedly his uncle doesn't know it's T'Challa in disguise) seemed overly drawn out and pointless; when I got to the end of that issue, I was very surprised, because so little had happened surely twenty pages hadn't gone by! I also really did not like that it wasn't T'Challa who invited the Fantastic Four to Wakanda in this telling; I think it really undermines the character.
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| I guess it's a meet cute? from Legends: Black Panther #2 (art by Setor Fiadzigbey & Fran Galán) |
The one thing I did like here was the focus on T'Challa's adoptive brother, Hunter, who was a major character during Priest's run on the title. He's a character we haven't seen much of since, and it's nice to see him folded into the character's origins retroactively. (I don't remember much of Hunter in Rise.) Unfortunately, this thread kind of fizzles out because Hunter plays little role in the final issue.
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| I feel like the last few Black Panther stories I've read have totally failed to mention the "heart-shaped herbs" that were so central to the character early on. Does he have them here? If so, how does he gain access? from Legends: Black Panther #3 (art by Fran Galán) |
So, if you're looking for a modern, accessible origin for the Black Panther, I think you're much better off sticking to the only slightly older Rise of the Black Panther version. This one has little to add.
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