Black Panther and the Agents of Wakanda by Jim Zub, Lan Medina, Craig Yeung, et al.

This eight-issue miniseries came out in parallel to The Intergalactic Empire of Wakanda, Book 3, but if you've only been following T'Challa's adventures in his main title, it reads very oddly. Far from being lost in space, Black Panther is apparently the chairman of the Avengers!? According to this series, not only that, but he's assembled a special strike force to support the Avengers in times of particular crisis, called the "Agents of Wakanda" and led by the leader of the Dora Milaje, Okoye.

from Black Panther and the Agents of Wakanda #1

I didn't really buy any of this. Why would T'Challa be the chair of the Avengers, particularly at this point in time? If he did think the Avengers needed extra back-up, why would he call the group "Agents of Wakanda"? Surely a group called that would be backing up Wakanda's interests, not the Avengers'? Based on the title, I expected something more like The Crew. How come Okoye is leading this group? Doesn't she have a whole other group of elite warriors to spend her time leading?

If you can get past all this, what's here is fine, sometimes even good. The eight issues are made up of four two-issue stories; each one puts a set of different Agents of Wakanda into the spotlight, which are a mix of prominent Marvel characters (e.g., Mockingbird, the Wasp) and ones I had never heard of (e.g., Fat Cobra). I do like goofy, obscure superhero characters, and writer Jim Zub really leans into that with the rotating line-up here. Of the four stories here, my favorites were the first, with its emphasis on Fat Cobra, a sumo wrestler who can eat his way out of trouble, and the last, which has a big focus on Fin Fang Foom. The goofy stuff on the moon in the second one was also good. 

from Black Panther and the Agents of Wakanda #8

The only one I didn't really like was, predictably, the Deadpool one. Any amount of Deadpool is too much.

So I don't really get why this comic had to be made (its best moments have pretty much nothing to do with the Black Panther or his milieu), but if it did, it was decent enough. I enjoyed it enough that when I got to the end, I was interested to see its threads would be continued in a comic called Empyre: Invasion of Wakanda... but disappointed to discover the comic never actually came out! 

Black Panther and the Agents of Wakanda originally appeared in eight issues (Nov. 2019–Sept. 2020). The stories were written Jim Zub; penciled by Lan Medina (#1-4, 7-8) and Scot Eaton (#5-6); inked by Lan Medina (#1), Craig Yeung (#2-4, 7-8), and Sean Parsons (#5-6); colored by Marcio Menyz (#1-8) and Erik Arciniega (#4-5), with Federico Blee (#3); lettered by Joe Sabino; and edited by Wil Moss.

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Storm by Eric Jerome Dickey et al.

Storm

Collection published: 2007
Contents originally published: 2006
Acquired: September 2024
Read: October 2024

Writer: Eric Jerome Dickey

Pencilers: David Yardin & Lan Medina

Inkers: Jay Leisten with Sean Parsons

Colorist: Matt Milla
Letterer: Randy Gentile

One of the big components of Reginald Hudlin's Black Panther run was the relationship and eventual marriage between Black Panther and Storm—or, I guess, T'Challa and Ororo. But that wasn't just something that unfolded in the series, it was also something we were told predated it. Specifically, there were a number of references to the 2006 miniseries Storm, which expanded on Ororo's youth, especially her relationship with T'Challa. So probably it would have been helpful to read this before Hudlin's Black Panther, but I didn't know it existed until later, and ended up reading it afterward.

I'm not much of an X-Men person, so I know very little about Storm as a character. This focuses on a period where she's a street thief in Africa, her parents having been killed in a civil war. A group of hunters recognizes her weather-controlling powers, and tries to kidnap her at the same time a young T'Challa, travelling the world, finds himself captivated by her. I have no sense of how much of this would have been preexisting canon and how much of it was added by writer Eric Jerome Dickey.

In any case, it's a comic where all one can say, and I'm sorry, is that it's basically fine. There is, unfortunately in my opinion, a lot of emphasis on Ororo's relationship with T'Challa, who was her first lover. While I get that this is an important part of anyone's life, it seemed to me that I wasn't getting a lot of insight into her personality, her wants, her needs, other than her need for romantic companionship. She seems largely defined by other people's choices—and, to be fair, many people actually are—but I had little sense of how she reacted and built herself in response to these other people.

I was relieved to realize Ororo's hair looks terrible on purpose, because this is a wig. Shame about the eyebrows, though; I think some artists just can't make them work.
from Storm vol. 2 #1 (art by David Yardin & Jay Leisten)

The art is fine; I wouldn't give it an award but there's nothing wrong with it, though I sometimes lost track of all the various hunter characters. The issues are on the longer side, a little more than the usual 20-22 pages, and I feel like they could have been cut down to the standard length without really losing anything important, to be honest.

Check your privilege, T'Challa.
from Storm vol. 2 #4 (art by Lan Medina with David Yardin & Jay Leisten)

Most frustratingly in terms of continuity, the book ends with T'Challa and Ororo still together! How did they end up separated again? The Marvel Chronology Project informs me that chronologically, Storm is followed by flashbacks from Black Panther vol. 3 #26 and Black Panther vol. 4 #14, but I don't remember the details of these despite having read them! (Maybe I should go back?) I guess Storm doesn't have to provide the complete story, but it does have what feels like an odd stopping point, all things considered.

Okay, but what happens to T'Challa?
from Storm vol. 2 #6 (art by David Yardin & Lan Medina and Jay Leisten with Sean Parsons)

Anyway, I'm glad I read it in the end, and it's too bad I didn't read it between issues #9 and 10 of Black Panther vol. 4, which would be my recommendation. But though perhaps this is a consequence of the context in which I read it, it feels more important to T'Challa than Ororo, and I think that does the character and the series a disservice.

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Review: Legion of Super-Heroes: Hostile World by Paul Levitz, Francis Portela, Walter Simonson, et al.

Comic trade paperback, n.pag.
Published 2012 (contents: 2011-12) 
Acquired August 2015
Read May 2016

Legion of Super-Heroes, Volume 1: Hostile World

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Writer: Paul Levitz
Co-Plotter: Walter Simonson

Artist: Francis Portela
Penciller: Walter Simonson
Inkers: Dan Green, Sean Parsons
Colorist: Javier Mena
Letterers: Pat Brosseau, Travis Lanham

This is the first proper volume of the "deboot" Legion I've read-- by "proper," I mean stories that don't cross the Legion over with present-day DC characters, like in Superman and the Legion or Legion of 3 Worlds. It's confusing. It's dull. It's terrible. Levitz throws tons of characters at you, but gives you no reason to care about any of them. I've been reading the Legion for years now, and I don't give a shit about these people. How on Earth is a new reader supposed to? The extent to which the deboot Legion deviates from the core premise of the Legion is staggeringly misguided. Like, it's supposed to br about teenagers in the future, yet in this version they're all adults. What's going on? Who thought this was a good idea? I don't care for Francis Portela's stiff and posed artwork, but not even an issue drawn by Walt Simonson can get me involved. Is the deboot Legion a lost cause from its very inception?

Next Week: We warp back around to the beginning... or pretty close to it, anyway, with Legion of Super-Heroes Archives, Volume 3!