Black Panther: Panther's Prey Omnibus |
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Collection published: 2026 Contents originally published: 1977-96 Read: April 2026 |
I recently finished my reading of all of Marvel's Black Panther comics that have been released for free on either comiXology or Hoopla... but also recently, Marvel has put out the Panther's Prey Omnibus, a mammoth 1,236-page collection containing every Black Panther–related comic from 1977 to 1996. Mostly it's taken up by the Jack Kirby run, the Gillis/Cowan/de la Rosa miniseries, and Don McGregor's Panther's Quest and Panther's Prey. Sprinkled in among these stories, though, are a number of guest appearances and one-offs that have not previously been collected. Or, at least, that I haven't read. (With only two exceptions, the new-to-me stories all come from the 1978-80 timeframe.) In this post I'll be writing up and reviewing just those new-to-me stories from the Panther's Prey Omnibus.
"Conjure Night!"/ "Voodoo and Valor!", from Marvel Two-in-One #40-41 (June-July 1978)
plot by Roger Slifer, dialogue by Tom DeFalco and David Kraft, art by Ron Wilson & Pablo Marcos, letters by Irv. W & Annette K. and Joe Rosen, colors by Phil Rachelson and F. Mouly
These two issues come from Marvel Two-in-One, which I think was a series where in each issue, the Thing teamed up with a different superhero. In the first issue collected here, the Thing teams up with Black Panther (duh), while in the second, Brother Voodoo, but it concludes the story begun in the previous issue and still has a decent-sized role for T'Challa. They were released during Kirby's run (between #9 and 10); SuperMegaMonkey's Marvel Comics Chronology places them after Kirby's run came to an end in issue #13, before the last two issues by other writers.
I actually liked the glimpses of the bits of drama we got of the Thing's life; the other highlight of the story was actually getting to see T'Challa as inner-city teacher (an idea coined for The Avengers, I think, which was quietly dropped later on... because really, it makes no sense). The actual story here is pretty nonsensical; a lot of the drama revolves around a list of prominent black citizens of New York City... a list that no one can find a copy of even though it was published in the newspaper! Then there's a bit where the Thing lands an airplane with one hand while holding one of its wings on with the other! There are a number of creators whose other work I have enjoyed involved in this (The Omega Men's Roger Slifer, Justice League Europe's Pablo Marcos), but none of them are doing their best work. Or even their mediocre work.
"The Razor's Edge!" / "The Killing of Windeagle!" / "Journey through the Past" / "The Ending, in Anger!" / "Battle Royal!" / "Like a Proud Black Panther..." / "The Left Hand of Silence!" / "Cry-- Vengeance!", from Marvel Team-Up vol. 1 #87 (Nov. 1979), Marvel Premiere #51-53 (Dec. 1979–Apr. 1980), The Defenders vol. 1 #84-86 (June-Aug. 1980), and Marvel Team-Up vol. 1 #100 (Dec. 1980)
written by Steven Grant, Ed Hannigan, and Chris Claremont (with John Byrne); penciled by Gene Colan, Jerry Bingham, Don Perlin, and John Byrne; inked by Frank Springer, Gene Day, Alan Gordon, Tex Blaisdell, Jim Mooney, Pablo Marcos, and Bob McLeod; lettered by Robins, Diana Albers, M. Higgins, and A. Kawecki; colored by G. Wein, Bob Sharen, G. Roussos. and Robbie C.
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| from Marvel Team-Up vol. 1 #87 (script by Steven Grant, art by Gene Colan & Frank Springer) |
The three issues of Marvel Premiere continue straight on from the cancelled Black Panther ongoing, with the same creative team of Ed Hannigan and Jerry Bingham. These issues are a bit of an oddity. So, Don McGregor's original run on Black Panther in Jungle Action was abruptly cancelled mid-story in 1976; in 1977, it was replaced by Jack Kirby's ongoing, which completely ignored everything McGregor had been doing. When Kirby left Marvel and Hannigan and Bingham took over in 1979, they began a story to explain what had happened to all the story threads and characters abandoned when McGregor was fired... but then their book was cancelled too, so the issues ended up published in Marvel Premiere instead. All of that is to say, this is a wrapup to a cancelled story that was itself cancelled! And it finished in 1980, over three years after the story it was designed to wrap up! Intellectually, I admire that Marvel actually bothered... but in practice it's a terrible story and they probably shouldn't have bothered. Memory loss is a hacky explanation for it all, and there must have been a better way to handle this. Did Monica and her boyfriend (who I think all later writers just forgot about) really sit around for years before trying to figure out why T'Challa abandoned them? It admittedly has been a long time since I read the original Don McGregor run, but the explanations given here surely do not line up with it in any way, shape, or form. I feel like there's no real conclusion here anyway; just a bunch of fights and then people are like, "Oh the story is over now."
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| from The Defenders vol. 1 #86 (script by Ed Hannigan, art by Don Perlin & Pablo Marcos) |
Issue #100 of Marvel Team-Up is the story that established a preexisting relationship between T'Challa and Storm. I hadn't realized that had happened all the way back in 1980 in a story by Chris Claremont and John Byrne; I don't think it made its way into an actual Black Panther comic until much later, I want to say not until Reginald Hudlin's run in 2006. It's a short ten-pager about an enemy from Storm and T'Challa's youth popping back up in the present; the backstory is fine, the present-day stuff is kind of silly. But this small story had a profound impact on the future of both characters.
"Panther's Pest, Part 231 of 8!" / "Of Kings...and Bright, Shiny Things...", from What the--?! #9 (Oct. 1990) and Over the Edge #6 (Apr. 1996)
written by Don McGregor and Ralph Macchio, penciled by Mike Harris and Robert Brown, inked by Tom Palmer and Mike Witherby, lettered by Joe Rosen and J. Babcock, colored by Marsha McGregor and Glynis Oliver
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| from What the--?! #9 (script by Don McGregor, art by Mike Harris & Tom Palmer) |
The other story is a Daredevil team-up from 1996; I thought this might be a humor comic too at first thanks to the ridiculous art, but no, that's just how they thought comics should look in 1996. I don't know why people keep getting Ralph Macchio to write Black Panther stories because they're almost always bad. In this one, Black Panther attends an extradition hearing for Ulysses Klaw that's attacked by Killmonger; Foggy Nelson is representing T'Challa, so Daredevil is close to hand when the attack begins. Guess what: the introduced-just-moments-ago best buddy of T'Challa turns out to be traitor. Kid has like one line of dialogue before this "twist"; I feel like Macchio wasn't even trying. The art often fails to communicate basic essential information.
The moral of this story is probably that none of these issues were probably really meant to be (re)read on their own like I did. As seasoners to the omnibus, things meant to show you you're getting your money's worth because they haven't been collected before whereas most of the other stuff here has been, they probably work just fine. But as a main feature, they're very much lacking.
