Black Panther: The Most Dangerous Man Alive! by David Liss, Shawn Martinbrough, et al.

Black Panther: The Man without Fear! continued directly into another series, Black Panther: The Most Dangerous Man Alive!, furthering the adventures of T'Challa substituting for Daredevil in Hell's Kitchen. This series even continued the numbering, though its very first issue was numbered #523.1. (I think these "point one" issues are supposed to be jumping-on points for new readers, but I can't imagine something more alienating to a casual comics buyer than seeing a decimal in an issue number!) The series lasted just six issues; after this, Black Panther would lie fallow for four years.*

David Liss continues on as writer, and the idea of T'Challa as a sort of substitute Daredevil also continues, with him coming up against the Kingpin, who has taken over the ninja clan the Hand. But Most Dangerous Man Alive brings in more elements of Black Panther than Man without Fear did; it turns out the Kingpin is trying to seize the assets of the Bank of Wakanda, and eventually, T'Challa summons his sister Shuri to help stop him.

from Black Panther: The Most Dangerous Man Alive! #525

I was pretty into it at first. The first story in #523.1 is a nice one-and-done showing off the series at its best. The second story, in #524, is part of the Spider Island crossover, so Black Panther has six arms for some reason, but you can pretty much ignore this and enjoy a great action story about T'Challa teaming up with a petty criminal to rescue a kidnapped girl.

But though I liked the Kingpin of Wakanda story that runs through the rest of the title at first, I quickly grew tired of it. It's a neat idea for Kingpin to be threatening T'Challa where it really hits, but you start to realize it's contrived. Why would the Kingpin just happen to make this move shortly after T'Challa moves into his neighborhood? Why do four members of the Board of Directors of the Bank of Wakanda happen to live in New York City within striking distance of the Kingpin? It turns out there's not really four issues of story, either; I felt like this one went in circles. How many times can T'Challa one-up Typhoid Mary and Lady Bullseye? The guest appearances of Luke Cage and the Falcon seemed kind of pointless. And though it was good to bring in Wakanda more, I found myself missing some of the elements of this series, like T'Challa's diner and recurring characters other than Sofija.

from Black Panther: The Most Dangerous Man Alive! #529

Probably the art is partially responsible, too. #523.1 and 524 are by Jefte Palo and Francesco Francavilla, respectively, carrying over from the previous run. Jefte Palo is good, and Francesco Francavilla is great, of course; that the somewhat goofy premise of a spider-armed T'Challa works at all is surely down to how well Francavilla draws it. But the rest of the issues are mostly by Shawn Martinbrough and Michael Avon Oeming, neither of whom, in my opinion, really have the right style for this series, especially Oeming, who is a bit more cartoony. (Francavilla does provide some great covers throughout the run, though.)

I also found the very ending of the series disappointing; I spoke in my write-up of Man without Fear about how I found the initial set-up of the series contrived, but once you get over that, it's a good read. Unfortunately, the end of the series brings that back into view. Guess what T'Challa learned from this experience... that Wakanda is where he belongs! No dip.

Black Panther: The Most Dangerous Man Alive! originally appeared in issues numbered #523.1 and 524 to 529 (Nov. 2011–Apr. 2012). The series was written by David Liss; illustrated by Jefte Palo (#523.1, 529), Francesco Francavilla (#524), Shawn Martinbrough (#525-26, 529), and Michael Avon Oeming (#527-28); colored by Jean-Francois Beaulieu (#523.1, 529), Felix Serrano (#525-29), and Jesus Aburto (#529); lettered by Joe Caramagna; and edited by Bill Rosemann.

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* These two series are both included in the reckoning of Black Panther volume 1's "legacy numbering"... but given their numbering is based on Daredevil volume 1's, are they also included in its legacy numbering? Inquiring minds need to know!

Black Panther: The Man without Fear! by David Liss, Francesco Francavilla, et al.

So after the events of Black Panther volume 5 and Doomwar saw Shuri enshrined as the new Black Panther, Marvel did something weird with T'Challa. I don't know anything about the behind-the-scenes of this era, so I don't know how this decision was arrived at, but he became the new main character... of Daredevil!? After Daredevil: The Man without Fear! #512, came Black Panther: The Man without Fear! #513, T'Challa inheriting the numbering and setting of Matt Murdock's comic. This would last for around eighteen issues, the title changing again after #523 to Black Panther: The Most Dangerous Man Alive!

from Black Panther: The Man without Fear! #518

Going in, I was skeptical. Very skeptical. I love mid-tier comics characters, but if you read a lot of mid-tier comics characters, it quickly becomes clear that publishers are always jerking them around trying to figure out what works. Now, this is part of what makes me love them; DC will put, say, Green Arrow or Power Girl through some weird permutations over the years, and that itself is a fascinating story. But it can also be very frustrating when a character you enjoy gets jerked into an unproductive or even, frankly, stupid new status quo.

The beginning of issue #513 did little to allay my misgivings, as it works very quickly to establish why T'Challa would take over for Matt Murdock as the protector of Hell's Kitchen, giving up his nation, his technology, and his marriage to do so... and I did not buy it. Not at all. T'Challa, even at his lowest moment, is a very confident man. I don't buy for a minute that he needs to "find himself"... nor do I buy that if he did need to find himself, that he would do so by giving up everything that makes him who he is. He knew what he was doing when he destroyed Wakanda's vibranium; he would not brood over his decision and retreat from his country.

from Black Panther: The Man without Fear! #515

But getting through this improbable decision quickly turns out to be the right call on writer David Liss's part, because that just lets him get on with doing what it is he wants to do, which is tell a violent, street-level crime story. I don't know why T'Challa has been put in one, but accepting that he is in one, Liss and artist Franco Francavilla do a fantastic job with it. It's very much a story of its era, about damaged men doing bad things, like The Sopranos (which ended in 2007) or Breaking Bad (which began in 2008). It's a bit tropey in that way, but it's a satisfying example of the tropes, and the moral certainty of T'Challa himself keeps things working well, not swinging too far in glorifying toxic masculinity, as his dedication to ordinary people is what saves Hell's Kitchen. There are good twists and turns here, especially in the opening arc about T'Challa ingratiating himself into the community (he owns a diner) and coming up against an Eastern European crime family and a serial killer and a victim of experiments to create superpowers.

from Black Panther: The Man without Fear! #523

Certainly, Liss is aided by the excellent art of Francesco Francavilla, one of those cases where the artist assigned to a comic complements what it's trying to do completely perfectly; even if the scripts wouldn't work at all, I think this art would sell them! The art is character driven and moody, but also the action is clear. I know of Francavilla's work (most famously, he drew the zombie comic Afterlife with Archie, and he also had an acclaimed run on Detective Comics), but I'd never actually seen it outside of previews and reviews before, and it truly is excellent stuff. He does his own coloring here, and the colors are beautiful, too. The fill-ins are by Jefte Palo, whose work I enjoyed on the Secret Invasion story arc during Black Panther volume 4, and does a solid job here, aided immeasurably by one of my favorite colorists, Jean-Francois Beaulieu (cf., Doomwar, Marvel's Oz comics).

After the opening six-issue arc, we get a two-issue story about Kraven the Hunter pursuing T'Challa, who obtains unwanted help from his wife, Storm. This is solid, though the scientist antagonist makes a hard villain turn I didn't totally buy. Finally, there's a three-issue Fear Itself tie-in; I don't really know what Fear Itself was, to be honest, but you don't have to. Liss's take on it is that a mystical force stokes anti-immigrant sentiment in Hell's Kitchen, forcing T'Challa to battle a former Fantastic Four villain called the Hate-Monger and a knock-off of himself called the American Panther. Like too much popular culture from the early 2010s, it's depressingly prescient of our current moment, but it's very well done.

So do I think T'Challa needed to be the vehicle for gritty urban vigilante stories? Well, to be honest, I'm still not convinced. These stories seem to have little to do with what makes Black Panther work as a character or a premise. But if it had to be done, it's hard to imagine that it could have been done better than this, and first half of the first issue aside, I enjoyed nearly every panel of this run.

Black Panther: The Man without Fear! originally appeared in issues numbered from #513 to 523 (Feb.-Nov. 2011). The series was written by David Liss, illustrated by Francesco Francavilla (#513-15, 517-18, 521-23) and Jefte Palo (#516, 519-20), colored by Jean-Francois Beaulieu (#516, 519-20), lettered by Joe Caramagna, and edited by Bill Rosemann.

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