Black Panther: Wakanda by Evan Narcisse et al.

Wakanda

Collection published: 2023
Contents originally published: 2022-23
Read: November 2025

Writers: Stephanie Williams, Evan Narcisse, Adam Serwer, Ho Che Anderson, John Ridley, Brandon Thomas

Pencillers: Paco Medina, Ibraim Roberson, Sean Hill, Julian Shaw, José Luís, Natacha Bustos
Inkers: Walden Wong & Elisabetta D'Amico, Ibraim Roberson, Le Beau with Keith Champagne, Julian Shaw, José Luís, Natacha Bustos

Color Artists: Bryan Valenza, Andrew Dalhouse, Jordie Bellaire

Letterer: Joe Sabino

During John Ridley's run on Black Panther, Marvel also published Wakanda, a five-issue miniseries of stories focusing on various non-T'Challa Wakandan characters; they seem to mostly be set between volumes two and three, while T'Challa is in exile.

The first is a Shuri-focused story (creatively titled "Shuri"), where she battles Spider-Man foe Rhino, who's been smuggled into Wakanda to take advantage of T'Challa's absence. The story itself is fine; I always like a bit of Shuri, and writer Stephanie Williams does a good job with her relationship with her mother. I also liked the vibrant, expressive art of Paco Medina (who I recollect from a good Young Avengers Presents story).

The second story focuses on M'Baku, the former rebel who is now the regent of the Intergalactic Empire of Wakanda. I really enjoyed the previous M'Baku-focused story from co-writer Evan Narcisse, so I was pretty disappointed in this tale, which clearly suffers from trying to cram way too much into a single issue. Too much dialogue, too many characters, too much backstory, too many turns in the plot. The art struggles to get it all in. That said, Narcisse is always up to something interesting, and I really hope someday he gets to cook with a space-based Wakanda ongoing, because I think he could do some strong stuff with M'Baku and company.

Why does he think a whole country is going to be vulnerable because one guy is missing?
from Wakanda #1 (script by Stephanie Williams, art by Paco Medina and Walden Wong & Elisabetta D'Amico)

The worst story in the book is certainly the Killmonger-focused one, the only one to be set outside the timeframe of Ridley's ongoing; it covers a trial when Killmonger was a young member of Ulysses Klaw's criminal organization, where a bunch of recruits were made to climb a mountain together and also secretly kill each other off. Even in the realm of supervillainy, I'm not convinced this is a good way to create a secret organization, I don't think the story is very consistent with other depictions of Killmonger's youth (most recently the miniseries named after him, though admittedly, I thought that miniseries wasn't very good either), and the story has way too many characters who are hard to tell apart.

Was all of this backstory in Tosin's previous spotlight story? I don't remember it.
from Wakanda #4 (script by John Ridley, art by Julian Shaw)

There's then two stories, one about Tosin the angry young Wakandan from Ridley's run, and one about Okoye, the one remaining member of the Dora Milaje. These are both fine but not up to much; I didn't care for the art in the Tosin one, and while I appreciate the attempt to flesh out him and his world, it didn't really resonate with what we have already seen of him.

Like, who are these guys?
from Wakanda #3 (script by Evan Narcisse, art by Natacha Bustos)

Lastly, the end of the book collects a bunch of back-ups that originally ran in each issue, about the history of the Black Panthers. These are probably more interesting if you're more au fait with the continuity of the wider Marvel universe than I am. I did note that Jack Kirby's run has been retconned as happening to T'Challa's father, T'Chaka, when he was Black Panther. Boo! Why can't we have whimsy? I did really like Natacha Bustos's art, though.

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King in Black: Black Panther / The Last Annihilation: Wakanda by Germán Peralta et al.

Between Ta-Nehisi Coates's run on Black Panther (which I just finished) and John Ridley's (which I will tackle next), there were two Black Panther–related one-shots tying into larger Marvel Comics events. In each case, I picked up the collection of the event from Hoopla, but I only read the Black Panther story in each book, plus the Hulkling and Wiccan one, since I do know those characters from Young Avengers (boy has their status quo changed a lot!), but none of the other stories in each book.

I guess this kind of scene is obligatory.
from King in Black: Black Panther #1

King in Black seems to about a bunch of Venoms attacking the universe or something. I guess they all work for a god of some kind? It didn't really matter to me; what you need to know is that Wakanda is under assault.

The story is written by Geoffrey Thorne (who got his start as a Star Trek writer, and surely his Trek fandom is the reason he knows the word "cathexis") and illustrated by Germán Peralta, but just as Jason Aaron was for Black Panther's Secret Invasion tie-in, Thorne is in full Christopher Priest mode here: T'Challa has a plan, and is ten steps ahead of everyone, including his own allies. It's not quite as good as Aaron's or Priest's take on this approach, but then, Thorne only has one issue for his canvas, so things just can't be as complicated. Peralta is a solid artist, capturing the characters and world of Wakanda well. This is a perfectly fine story on the whole—I doubt it will wow anyone, but I also think it works on its own and is enjoyable enough.

I've even less understanding of what The Last Annihilation is about, except that it seems to be about space and probably the Guardians of the Galaxy. Its Black Panther tie-in was also illustrated by Peralata; the scripting is by Evan Narcisse, who previously wrote one of the better Black Panther stories of the "Coates era," Rise of the Black Panther. One of the interesting storytelling consequences of the Intergalactic Empire of Wakanda arc is that there's now a way for Black Panther to be involved in space-based Marvel crossover events; indeed, more of Wakanda is in space than is not!

And the enormous space empire was never mentioned again...
from The Last Annihilation: Wakanda #1

I found Coates's Intergalactic Empire storyline raised lots of interesting ideas but did little of interest with them. It would be glib to say that Narcisse finds more to do with the concepts in this single issue than Coates did in twenty-five... but this is surely one of the better stories to be told using the premise. Narcisse focuses the story on M'Baku, one of T'Challa's former comrades in the resistance, who now finds himself working for the very empire he swore to destroy. How can you build trust in an institution previously used as a tool of oppression? How can you trust it yourself? It's a great concept, and Narcisse does great by it, with some effective character-based writing and, again, strong art by Peralta. My guess is that future Black Panther stories will move away from the "Intergalactic Empire" setting (indeed, the last page of this story sets up how that could come to pass), but if they did not, they could do a lot worse than to follow the template set by this issue.

"Cathexis" originally appeared in issue #1 of King in Black: Black Panther (Apr. 2021). The story was written by Geoffrey Thorne, illustrated by Germán Peralta, colored by Jesus Aburtov, lettered by Joe Sabino, and edited by Wil Moss. It was collected in King in Black: Avengers (2021), which was edited by Jennifer Grünwald.

The Last Annihilation: Wakanda originally appeared in one issue (Nov. 2021). The story was written by Evan Narcisse, illustrated by Germán Peralta, colored by Jesus Aburtov, lettered by Cory Petit, and edited by Wil Moss. It was collected in The Last Annihilation (2022), which was edited by Daniel Kirchhoffer.

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Rise of the Black Panther by Evan Narcisse, Javier Pina, et al.

The "Coates era" of Black Panther comics has seen a lot of a releases so far: twenty-five issues of the main series, plus three six-issue miniseries and assorted other stories. And, as I have chronicled here in detail, most of it has done little for me. I found Ta-Nehisi Coates's main series overly long and dull; I have found most of the miniseries fairly pointless.

from Rise of the Black Panther #2

So it was nice to find myself enjoying Rise of the Black Panther. This was an origin retelling for T'Challa, somewhat surprisingly the first one of them we've ever gotten since the character debuted way back in the day. Coates is credited as "consultant"; I am not sure what that means, nor why he should get first billing on the covers of a series he did not actually write. (Based on reading his Black Panther work so far, he's the one who needs a consultant on how to write comics!) The series is scripted by a new-to-me author, Evan Narcisse, and largely illustrated by Javier Pina, who did some good work for DC on Manhunter and Birds of Prey in the late 2000s and early 2010s. Of particular note are the beautiful colors of Stéphane Paitreau.

Narcisse does what a good retroactive origin story does in my opinion, which is take a lot of existing disparate threads and weave them all together into something coherent—something that works on its own even if you haven't read the stories that are being referenced. Over the years, we've learned a lot about T'Challa's youth, and Narcisse unites it all: we see T'Challa's birth mother (for the first time, I think), we see how his adoptive mother Ramonda (from McGregor's run) came into his life, we get bits of backstory from Captain America / Black Panther, we have Shuri (from Hudlin's run) woven into the texture of T'Challa's youth. Various comics have other the years given us a lot of different pieces of T'Challa's family; here we get to see T'Challa's Uncle S'Yan (from Hudlin's run) incorporated alongside T'Challa's half-brother Jakarra—a character from Kirby's run I had forgotten about and would have guessed most writers had too!

from Rise of the Black Panther #1

Perhaps because it had a lot of ground to cover, there's a lot more going on in these six issues than has been standard in the overly decompressed comics of this era. If the series has a downside, it's that the first issue is the very best one, leaving the later parts of the series feeling a little disappointing. Not that they're bad, but there's just not as much going on as in the first. The first mostly focuses on T'Challa's father, T'Chaka, and his relationship with the legacy of his father, as well as the son who sees him die. The issue is narrated by T'Challa's mothers; using a first-person narrator isn't something any of the series's later issues do, but it adds a lot of depth to what's going on, and I wish Narcisse had used this device more later on; imagine S'Yan or Shuri as the narrator of T'Challa's life, I think it could have been very effective.

But that shouldn't be taken as a strike against this comic. Unlike some other material of the "Coates era," I found that this series maintained a strong character focus. This is the story of how T'Challa chose in involve both himself and Wakanda in the outside world, and Narcisse effectively follows that thread through T'Challa's interactions with Namor, with S.H.I.E.L.D., with Killmonger. Plus, Javier Pina is a strong artist, with clear action and good character work; I found he blended fairly well with Paul Renaud, who also draws a couple issues. And, like I said above, Paitreau does some beautiful coloring here that really adds to the atmosphere and coherence of the story.

from Rise of the Black Panther #3

Overall, this works really well as an introduction to T'Challa and his world, as well as a standalone Black Panther comic. I'd imagine Marvel made it to make sure there was an origin on the shelves at the time the film came out, but I suspect it's likely to be an evergreen one. Solid work from a good creative team, and I'd particularly be interested in seeing more from Narcisse in the future.

Rise of the Black Panther originally appeared in six issues (Mar.-Aug. 2018). The story was written by Evan Narcisse, with consultant Ta-Nehisi Coates; illustrated by Paul Renaud (#1, 3), Javier Pina (#2, 4-6), and Edgar Salazar & Keith Champagne (#5); colored by Stéphane Paitreau (#1-6), with Morry Hollowell (#6); lettered by Joe Sabino; and edited by Wil Moss.

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