Black Panther: Doomwar by Jonathan Maberry, Scot Eaton, Robert Campanella, Andy Lanning, et al.

Doomwar is a six-part miniseries (with a double-length first issue) published in 2010; even though it was not branded as belonging to a particular Marvel series, it is clearly a Black Panther story. Despite having guest characters from across the Marvel universe (e.g., the Fantastic Four, the X-Men, War Machine, even Deadpool), the story picks right up from the end of Black Panther volume 5 by the same writer, and the protagonists are definitely T'Challa and Shuri as they struggle to defend Wakanda from an invasion by Doctor Doom.

from Doomwar #5

As a result, I didn't expect to enjoy it very much, having not really enjoyed Jonathan Maberry's "Prelude to Doomwar"... but by the time I was partway through issue #2, I realized I was pretty into this! I had been afraid this would be a big generic Marvel event, but as I said, it's very much a Black Panther story about the characters of T'Challa and Shuri, and about the politics of Wakanda. It would fit right into, for example, Christopher Priest's run without a lot of tweaking. Though I still feel like Shuri isn't a very strong character, mostly just being an angry young woman, I felt Maberry had a good handle on T'Challa here, showing how dedicated he was to his country even in trying circumstances. And while I felt like the populist uprising in vol. 5 was kind of contrived, Maberry does a good job with its consequences here. 

On top of all this, I kind of groaned when Deadpool showed up (especially when they put him on the cover of issue #4, but he didn't appear until the very end, presumably so they could also put him on the cover of #5), but Maberry makes good use of him, and he doesn't derail the book like I was afraid he might.

from Doomwar #4

The story was aided by two other things. One is definitely the artwork; Scot Eaton (mostly inked here by Andy Lanning & Robert Campanella) is the best penciler assigned to Black Panther since Jefte Palo's Secret Invasion story in volume 4, with clear storytelling and good character work. (I think he was doing Ioan Gruffud for Mister Fantastic and Denzel Washington for T'Challa. Of course I approve of the former.) And John-Francois Beaulieu, who I really liked on the Marvel Oz comics, does a great job as the colorist. Bad coloring can muddy the storytelling, but I felt that even with dark colors, everything popped and was visually clear—even though he obviously uses a very different palette here than he did in Oz!

The other is Doom himself. I haven't read many Fantastic Four comics, so I don't have much of a handle on the character, but I really liked Maberry's take on him here, especially when we find out how Doom was able to overcome T'Challa's locks on the Wakandan vibranium vault. It plays out exactly how I expected... but was nevertheless perfectly done. A great depiction of a great villain.

from Doomwar #4

I found the ending both interesting and frustrating. The characters can kill Doom, but don't, so that they're "better" than him. While I believe that, say, Reed Richards would have this philosophy, it doesn't make any sense for T'Challa and Shuri, and surely it only happens this way because Doomwar is part of a wider Marvel universe, and can't be the story that kills off a key character. On top of this, T'Challa makes a very interesting choice: he destroys all Wakandan vibranium rather than let Doom make off with some of it, preserving Wakandan values but perhaps at the cost of Wakandan security. But this happens at the very end of the story, so we get no implications of his choice. This isn't so much an issue for Doomwar itself (though I think the way that the country's rebuilding gets a single panel is) but one that I am afraid future Black Panther stories will not really engage with. I guess we'll see!

Doomwar originally appeared in six issues (Apr.-Sept. 2010). The story was written by Jonathan Maberry; penciled by Scot Eaton; inked by Andy Lanning (#1-5), Robert Campanella (#1-6), Jaime Mendoza (#6), and David Meikis (#6); colored by John-Francois Beaulieu; lettered by Cory Petit (#1-5) and Joe Caramagna (#6); and edited by Axel Alonso. (Note that issue #2 is called "Part 1" and #6 "Part 5" on their title pages.)

ACCESS AN INDEX OF ALL POSTS IN THIS SERIES HERE

"Unfettered by the yoke of colonization, the African warrior nation of WAKANDA flourished and became a high-tech, resource-rich, ecologically-sound paradise—one that makes the rest of the world seem primitive in comparison. Ruling over this kingdom are the BLACK PANTHER and his queen, STORM."

Previously, I reviewed the first nine issues of Black Panther vol. 4 in two separate posts here and here. The series ran up to issue #41 (plus one annual), all of which except the last three (a Secret Invasion tie-in) were written by Reginald Hudlin. There are a number of different artists, but Francis Portela, Scot Eaton, and Klaus Janson contribute the most.

from Black Panther vol. 4 #28
(script by Reginald Hudlin, art by Francis Portela)

I always like to title my blog posts about ongoings with whatever description of the premise is given in the comic itself (I don't know if there is a technical name for these things; I'm sure there is). As the one I picked for this post highlights, the big change in this comic is the marriage of Black Panther to Storm of the X-Men. Beginning with issue #10, T'Challa starts looking for a wife; in #18, he and Ororo are married. The rest of the run largely concerns how things are impacted by their marriage, though more the world at large than Wakanda itself. They go on a "world tour" honeymoon, they poke their noses in the American superheroes' "Civil War," they serve together on the Fantastic Four while Reed and Sue are on vacation.

Unfortunately, to me, the marriage was never totally successful. Hudlin tries his best, but the relationship is largely depicted as a preexisting one, which we the readers have never seen before. (Around the same time, a Storm miniseries was published that layers in some of that backstory, but I haven't read that, though I intend to.) If it had just been a marriage of political convenience, I think I would have bought it, but the series tries to tell us it is both that and a passionate, genuine romance, and I just never could believe it.

from Black Panther vol. 4 #31
(script by Reginald Hudlin, art by Francis Portela)

I also think the comic spends too much of its time being a generic superhero comic, not playing to the strengths of the Black Panther premise. The overly long story arc about T'Challa and Storm being on the Fantastic Four is just a Fantastic Four comic with some different leads; I'm sure this was a fun thing over in the actual Fantastic Four, but fighting Skrulls and revisiting long-lost plot FF plot points from the 1960s is not why I'm reading Black Panther, you know? I also found the Civil War crossover particularly tedious, jumpy, and incomprehensible.

Hudlin tries at time to make it work, such as giving up Skrull versions of Martin Luther King, Jr. and Malcolm X, or trying to focus on Wakandan politics during Civil War, but it never did much for me. Too often, the unique selling point of this comic—one that Hudlin really emphasized during its opening story arc—was neglected, which was Wakanda. Little of the action takes place there, unlike in Don McGregor's run, but in Christopher Priest's run, even parts of it set outside Wakanda never let you forget you were reading about a king doing statecraft.

from Black Panther vol. 4 #22 (script by Reginald Hudlin,
art by Manuel Garcia and Jay Leisten & Sean Parsons)

Occasionally, Hudlin does do a good job merging social commentary on the African diaspora experience into superheroics, following in the footsteps of Don McGregor's Ku Klux Klan story arc; I particularly enjoyed the post-Katrina New Orleans story arc; I really liked Hudlin's take on Luke Cage, too. 

Notably, this is the run where Shuri is introduced... in the films she's an intrinsic part of the Black Panther mythos, so I have been mildly surprised to realize how late she came to it. But Hudlin does very little with her here, also to my surprise. She would be easy to forget if this was all you ever read of her; after being set up for significance in the opening arc, she plays very little role until late in the run. I think she plays a bigger role in Black Panther vol. 5, so we'll see.

from Black Panther vol. 4 #14
(script by Reginald Hudlin, art by Scot Eaton & Klaus Janson)

I was a bit apprehensive about the final story arc, seeing as it was a crossover and by a different writer, Jason Aaron. But it had great art by Jefte Palo and even greater coloring by my fave, Lee Loughridge. It seems to me that Aaron does a Priest pastiche here, not a Hudlin one, largely depicting T'Challa from the outside as Wakanda fights off a Skrull invasion. The viewpoint characters are all Skrulls... and you actually end up feeling bad for them as they are yet another attempt to invade Wakanda that ends in failure. Well done, great stuff.

ACCESS AN INDEX OF ALL POSTS IN THIS SERIES HERE