Captain America / Black Panther: Flags of Our Fathers by Reginald Hudlin, Denys Cowan, Klaus Janson, et al.

Once again, I went into a Black Panther miniseries with low expectations, and once again, I was pleasantly surprised. Captain America / Black Panther is a "flashback" story set during World War II, showing how Captain America and the Howling Commandos came to Wakanda to stop the Nazis from stealing vibranium, meeting the then-current Black Panther. This was something we originally learned about in a brief flashback story during Christopher Priest's run, here expanded to four issues. Though I think in that story, the Black Panther was T'Challa's father T'Chaka, whereas here it's T'Challa's grandfather... whose real name I'm pretty sure we never actually get now that I think about it. The Marvel web site tells me his name is Azzuri, which sounds vaguely familiar, but I don't remember in which previous story we learned that.

from Captain America / Black Panther #2

Anyway, this might be branded as a Captain America / Black Panther story, but I actually felt like neither man was the protagonist. Black Panther, as my comments above indicate, is a largely mysterious presence here. More of a heroic ally than a hero, he doesn't make any big decisions or choices, just assists the the other characters in doing what needs to be done. Captain America's role is pretty straightforward heroism, punching Nazis, etc. I did wonder if there was space to do more with him confronting racism, but there are a couple nice touches there, as Black Panther asks him to imagine what race will look like in the country the Captain goes back to after the war.

No, the real protagonist is one of the Howling Commandos, Gabe Jones. Gabe is a black man in an otherwise white unit almost a decade before the American armed forces were integrated in real life. Gabe narrates the series, and finds his loyalties tested—does he owe his allegiance to the nation that discriminates against him because of his race, or to the country where people who look like him can live in utopia? Hudlin gives us a number of interesting sequences where he weighs up the ways different people react to him, from Steve Rogers to his fellow commandos to Black Panther to the Nazis. His decisions are the most significant ones of the story, and I really enjoyed what writer Reginald Hudlin did with him, giving a real heart and emotional core to what otherwise might have been a generic superhero punch-up.

from Captain America / Black Panther #1

Denys Cowan pencils; he's done a number of Black Panther stories, and I've enjoyed his work on them, especially the 1988 miniseries, as well as elsewhere in DC series like All-Star Comics and Convergence: Detective Comics. He does great here as well, with good character focus and decent action.

I thought this would probably be generic punch-up, and based on Hudlin's other writing (which tends to neither be hit nor miss, if that makes sense), I wasn't expecting much. But this is certainly the best Black Panther comic I've read from him, with solid superheroics and using the framework of black utopianism to tell a story with surprising depth.

Flags of Our Fathers originally appeared in issues #1-4 of Captain America / Blank Panther (June-Sept. 2010). The story was written by Reginald Hudlin; penciled by Denys Cowan; inked by Klaus Janson (#1-2), Tom Palmer (#3-4), and Sandu Florea (#4); colored by Pete Pantazis; lettered by Joe Sabino; and edited by Axel Alonso.

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Black Panther: Panther's Prey by Don McGregor, Sandy Plunkett, Gene Colan, Dwayne Turner, Denys Cowan, Don Hillsman II, et al.

Black Panther Epic Collection: Panther's Prey

Collection published: 2021
Contents originally published: 1989-94
Read: August 2023

Writers: Don McGregor with Sandy Plunkett, Richard Bensam, Walter Simonson, Roy Thomas, Don Hillsman II & Dave DeVries

Pencilers: Gene Colan & Dwayne Turner with Sandy Plunkett, Ron Lim, Denys Cowan, Dave Hoover & Don Hillsman II
Inkers: Tom Palmer & Dwayne Turner with Scott Hampton, Jim Sanders III, Walter Simonson, Charles Barnett III & Don Hillsman II
Colorists: Glynis Oliver, Mike Rockwitz, Steve Mattson & Brad Vancata with Gregory Wright, Sandy Plunkett, Jim Sanders III, Noelle Giddings, Frank Lopez & Marianne Lightle

Letterers: Joe Rosen, Tim Harkins & Michael Higgins with Jade Moede, Gaspar Saladino, Jack Morelli, Clem Robins, Todd Klein, Bill Oakley & Rick Parker

After Don McGregor's Black Panther run from Jungle Action was cancelled back in 1976, he actually got invited back two more times: he did a story called Panther's Quest published in Marvel Comics Presents in 1989 and a four-issue prestige miniseries called Panther's Prey in 1991. This "Epic Collection" collects both of them, along with five short Black Panther tales by other creators from the same era.

Panther's Quest sends the Black Panther into South Africa in order to find his mother, missing since childhood. Sure, we did apartheid in a thinly fictionalized version of South Africa in the immediate previous Black Panther storyline, but why not do it again in the real place? This story ran twenty-five biweekly installments of (usually) eight pages... and it is interminable. Like, eight pages will go by and all that's happened is Black Panther has punched a guy. One thing I liked about McGregor's Panther's Rage was how it really made you feel the difficulty of what the Black Panther did, but this goes too far with it, because everything is immensely difficult, everything is enormously slowed down, it never feels like we're getting anywhere, being crushed under the weight of McGregor's enormously wordy style. Being set in South Africa means we again lose the worldbuilding that made Panther's Rage so interesting, too. It has it moments, including some nice side characters in South Africa, but ultimately, a tedious slog with little to say.

Thinking, thinking, always thinking.
from Marvel Comics Presents vol. 1 #33 (script by Don McGregor, art by Gene Colan & Tom Palmer)

Panther's Prey almost has the opposite problem: this is made up of four forty-page installments and is all over the place. Wakanda is modernizing, connecting with the outside world more—this is nicely demonstrated by the appearance of a food court selling pizza. But with the benefits of connecting to the outside world also come the downsides, and someone is smuggling crack into Wakanda and vibranium out... using an army of cyborg pterodactyls, of course! The story follows this main storyline, but also T'Challa's mother acclimating to life in Wakanda, what Monica Lynne's been up to in the U.S. since we last saw her in Jungle Action (McGregor ignores her later appearances), the guy organizing the drug smuggling operation, and updates to various members of Black Panther's Wakandan supporting cast. There's a lot of nice moments here but overall not much actually seems to happen despite the fact the story runs over one hundred and fifty pages. Black Panther doesn't even meet the villain until about ten pages from the end, and beats him by luck in about six seconds.

And in the end, crack is still a problem in Wakanda! Way to cheer me up, McGregor.
from Black Panther: Panther's Prey #4 (script by Don McGregor, art by Dwayne Turner)

The other stories here are nice to have for completism's sake, but not very memorable.

I did appreciate the reappearance of Monica's family from Jungle Action when T'Challa asks for her hand in marriage.
from Black Panther: Panther's Prey #4 (script by Don McGregor, art by Dwayne Turner)

What's interesting to me reading Black Panther chronologically is to see the development of the character I know from the movies. His mother, Raimonda, debuted in this volume, but she's not the imperious ruler of screen, but a South African woman romanced by T'Challa's father who returned to her homeland after her husband died. Many elements of the mythos have yet to appear at all. There's also still no sense of cohesion: McGregor doesn't really acknowledge that anyone used the character other than him since 1976. (Can't imagine why the "Black Musketeers" don't come up in discussions of T'Challa's family!)

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Black Panther: A Hero No More! by Peter B. Gillis, Denys Cowan, Sam DeLaRosa, et al.

from The Invincible Iron Man Annual vol. 1 #5

After the cancellation of Black Panther vol. 1, Black Panther popped up here and there across the Marvel universe. One of those places was "War and Remembrance!", an issue of Iron Man where Iron Man/Tony Stark comes to Wakanda to set up some kind of tech deal, but at the same time who should return but... Killmonger! Keen to begin his takeover all over again, he defeats T'Challa and takes over the country, but of course we soon learn he killed only a convenient Life Model Decoy. Then at the end we learn that Iron Man foe the Mandarin was somehow responsible for Killmonger's resurrection.

It's nice to see McGregor's run back in play after it was ignored during Kirby's, but this story is just fine. Like, it is not bad but I am not sure it has much going for it either. It is much more a Black Panther story than an Iron Man one, though, so I can see why it was included in one of the Black Panther collections I was able to access on Hoopla.

Black Panther finally got his own title again in 1988, nine years after the cancellation of Black Panther vol. 1. (In my post title here, I've called it "A Hero No More!" after a blurb on the cover of issue #1, but it has no official title as far as I can tell.) This was a four-issue miniseries, bringing in real social issues: a rebellion against apartheid is brewing in the fictional country of Azania, and many Azanians think their neighbors in Wakanda should aid them—and many Wakandans agree. But T'Challa does not, which leads to a challenge to his right to rule Wakanda, and then he is attacked by a group of white supremacist superheroes from Azania... and the panther-god himself!

from Black Panther vol. 2 #4

It's a bit all over the place, and some of it works and some of it does not. I like the art of Denys Cowan and Sam DeLaRosa, though I don't really get the wisdom of giving Black Panther cat eyes in and out of costume. They do a great job with the fight scenes, particularly the showdown with the panther-god, and it's neat to see T'Challa tested in such a way.

On the other hand, seeing his right to rule challenged is not so interesting; so far, we've had Killmonger's attempted takeover in Jungle Action, T'Challa's half-brother's military coup in Black Panther vol. 1, Killmonger's seeming assassination in "War and Remembrance!", and now this. That's four time across five runs on the character! It's a natural enough well to go to when your protagonist is the ruler of a country, but if everyone goes to that well, it makes that ruler seem a pretty ineffective one.

from Black Panther vol. 2 #2

The Supremacists are a bit dopey. Which, I guess is the point, they are white supremacists, but I think the story wants me to take them seriously as opponents for the Black Panther. On the other hand, embroiling T'Challa in real-seeming politics worked well in Jungle Action, and it's decent-enough ground here, and the ending worked pretty well, as real change comes to Azania.

Again, the politics of Wakanda here don't benefit from the fact that nothing seems to carry over from previous runs on the character: no one from McGregor or Kirby appears here as far as I can tell.

"War and Remembrance!" originally appeared in issue #5 of The Invincible Iron Man Annual vol. 1 (Nov. 1982). The story was scripted and co-plotted by Peter Gillis, co-plotted by Ralph Macchio, pencilled by Jerry Bingham, inked by Dan Green, lettered by Diana Albers, colored by Beth Firmin, and edited by Mark Gruenwald. It was reprinted in Marvel-Verse: Black Panther (2020), which was edited by Jennifer Grünwald.

Black Panther vol. 2 originally appeared in four issues (July-Oct. 1988). The story was written by Peter B. Gillis, pencilled by Denys Cowan, inked by Sam DeLaRosa, lettered by Rick Parker, colored by Bob Sharen (#1-3) and "Max" Scheele (#4), and edited by Mark Gruenwald. 

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