Black Panther: Newly Reprinted Stories from the Panther's Prey Omnibus

Black Panther: Panther's Prey Omnibus

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.

from Marvel Team-Up vol. 1 #87
(script by Steven Grant, art by Gene Colan & Frank Springer)

The next story is a Spider-Man team-up from Marvel Team-Up; the omnibus places this after Black Panther #14-15, but as SuperMegaMonkey points out, it must actually precede those two issues. since Marvel Premiere #51-53 continues straight on from Black Panther #15. It is pretty dire. I don't know what's up with writers who invent lame villains who even the characters in the story call out for being lame. Why cut your own story off at the knees like that?

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."

from The Defenders vol. 1 #86
(script by Ed Hannigan, art by Don Perlin & Pablo Marcos)

The other issues here are more team-ups: a three-issue arc of The Defenders featuring Black Panther and a one-issue story of T'Challa meeting Storm of the X-Men. The Defenders arc is by Ed Hannigan again; it has some good ideas but I feel like Hannigan's writing jerks around from idea to idea and the choices the characters make range from arbitrary to stupid. I found these a struggle.

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

from What the--?! #9
(script by Don McGregor, art by Mike Harris & Tom Palmer)

The first of these stories is a ten-page humor comic satirizing Panther's Quest... written by Don McGregor, writer of Panther's Quest! Though not every joke landed, and I didn't really care for the art, I appreciated McGregor's ability to laugh at himself. If you've ever read a Don McGregor Black Panther comic, there are some good jokes here.

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. 

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Ultimate Black Panther: Gods and Kings / Darkness and Light by Bryan Hill, Stefano Caselli, and Carlos Nieto

Ultimate Black Panther: Gods and Kings

Collection published: 2025
Contents originally published: 2024-25
Read: January 2026

Writer: Bryan Hill

Artists: Stefano Caselli & Carlos Nieto

Color Artist: David Curiel

Letterer: Cory Petit & Joe Caramagna

As I said in my review of its first volume, I thought Ultimate Black Panther started with a lot of potential that it ultimately squandered. The real-time gimmick of the series works against it; what initially seems to be a complex setup turns out to just be, like, four people. There was a lot of dithering because the pacing of the series means T'Challa can take action once a month at most... but he doesn't even seem to do that!

Ultimate Black Panther: Darkness and Light

Collection published: 2025
Contents originally published: 2025
Read: January 2026

Volumes 2 and 3 did nothing to dispel this impression. Even when there is action, it seems pointless and goes nowhere. T'Challa will be like, "Now, I'm doing something!!" and in the next issue will be back to sitting around reacting to the machinations of others. The interpersonal dynamics are boring, largely the characters saying the same stuff to each other again and again. Are the mysterious cultists manipulating T'Challa? Yes of course so why is it taking him months upon months to do something about it.

One of the big mysteries of the series is "what is the agenda of vibranium?"... and I can't think of a mystery I care less about. Is a rock alive? Quite frankly this series has done nothing that would make that question seem like an interesting one. Like, can a rock have an agenda? If it did, why would it be relevant to Wakanda? I barely care about Wakanda in this series, so why should I care if a rock is going to do something to it? 

By the end of volume 3, I was completely bored. I think this series has been cancelled, though, so volume 4 will be the last, and I guess I'm willing to give it a read when it turns up on Hoopla.

---

It was September 2020 when comiXology had a sale where they reduced all their Black Panther comics to $0.00, and I scooped them all up. It was December 2022 when I began reading them. It was October 2025 when I finally read the last of the comics I got from that sale, but I was able to carry on for another year-plus thanks to additional ones I borrowed from Hoopla. But with these two volumes of Ultimate Black Panther, I am finally done. There are no more free Black Panther comics available to me; I've read nearly every story about him from 1966 to 2025. Sixty years of comics in four years.

I always enjoy doing things like this. You couldn't do it with Batman, it would take too long. But Black Panther is at that sweet spot: nearly continuous publication, so you get to see the character evolve over the years, but not an overwhelming amount of content, popular enough to come back whenever he's cancelled, but unpopular enough to need continual reinvention to stay relevant. In this case, it's been particularly interesting to see a character originally invented as a supporting one shift into being a lead himself, and to see his milieu evolve into a coherent setting.

What were the best ones? Well, clearly Christopher Priest's run. The character has never been more powerful or more interesting; the jokes have never been funnier; no one else ever quite figured out how to write a comic about a king not a superhero. Other than that, I highly recommend Don McGregor's first run, The Man without Fear! by David Liss and Francesco Francavilla, and Rise of the Black Panther by Evan Narcisse and Javier Pina. (Highly disrecommended: anything by Ta-Nehisi Coates, everything by Nnedi Okorafor that's not Shuri, and Killmonger by Bryan Hill and Juan Ferreyra.)

I do see that on Hoopla there's now the Panther's Prey Omnibus, which it looks like contains some stuff I haven't read, so I imagine I'll make my way back to Wakanda eventually... but not yet! 

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Black Panther: Blood Hunt by Cheryl Lynn Eaton and Farid Karami / Webs of Wakanda by Cody Ziglar and Daniele Di Nicuolo

We're far from the heights of ten years ago, when there were multiple Black Panther series at once. Now there's not even one. (Well, kind of; we do have Ultimate Black Panther, but that's not set in the main Marvel continuity.) Now, fans of the regular T'Challa have to settle for dribs and drabs: miniseries tying into crossover events, guest appearances in other titles. I read two such appearances in between collections of Ultimate Black Panther.

from Black Panther: Blood Hunt #1

The first is Black Panther: Blood Hunt. I guess the idea here is that lots of Marvel characters have become vampires? Specifically, I believe T'Challa has been turned into one by Blade.

I like the idea of a story about T'Challa holding back his own vampirism; I think that very much plays to the strengths of the character, as someone who values his mind. What would it be like to lose control over that mind to your inner animal? The parts of the miniseries that deal with this are the best... unfortunately they're largely confined to the first issue. After that, the series descends into tedious theobabble; it's all about which Wakandan god did what in the distant past and it's all like, Why should I care? I never figured it out, and at three issues, this story is still too long, and deviates too far from the interest of its core premise.

The other is a three-issue story from Miles Morales: Spider-Man. This is actually a sequel to Blood Hunt: having acquired a vampiric infection himself, Miles has traveled to Wakanda to seek the help of T'Challa in curing it. I was surprised at how much this was a direct continuation of Eve Ewing's short-lived Black Panther: Reign at Dusk ongoing; I had expected that series to be forgotten the moment it was over. But T'Challa is still in the environment where Ewing left him, and we even get appearances from that series's supporting cast. I didn't think Ewing's series totally succeeded in what it tried to do, but I liked the cast and the world it built up, and I was glad to see them here. No idea if future Black Panther writers will care about them, but I'm glad they lived a little bit longer.

from Miles Morales: Spider-Man vol. 2 #27

Outside of that, this is solid, charming teen-focused superhero comics. Miles is relatable, awkward but well-meaning; his supporting cast, who we cut back to occasionally in the U.S. (Miles's friends are covering for his absence with a shapeshifter), is funny and engaging in their own travails. Daniele Di Nucolo's art is cute and expressive and exactly what this title needs. The mystical stuff is kept subordinate to Miles's own emotional journey, it's never an end in itself. Enjoyable stuff that made me want to read more of writer Cody Ziglar's run, and I'm grateful that Black Panther introduced me to it.

Black Panther: Blood Hunt originally appeared in three issues (July-Sept. 2024). The story was written by Cheryl Lynn Eaton, illustrated by Farid Karami, colored by Andrew Dalhouse, lettered by Joe Sabino, and edited by Wil Moss. It was collected in Blood Hunt: Marvel Universe (2024), which was edited by Daniel Kirchhoffer.

Webs of Wakanda originally appeared in issues #27-29 of Miles Morales: Spider-Man vol. 2 (Feb.-Mar. 2025). The story was written by Cody Ziglar, illustrated by Daniele Di Nicuolo, colored by Bryan Valenza, lettered by Cory Petit, and edited by Tom Groneman. It was collected in Miles Morales: Spider-Man: Webs of Wakanda (2025), which was edited by Daniel Kirchhoffer.

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Ultimate Black Panther: Peace and War by Bryan Hill, Stefano Caselli, and Carlos Nieto

Ultimate Black Panther: Peace and War

Collection published: 2024
Contents originally published: 2024
Read: December 2025

Writer: Bryan Hill

Artists: Stefano Caselli & Carlos Nieto

Color Artist: David Curiel

Letterer: Cory Petit

Since the end of Eve L. Ewing's Black Panther run, there has been no ongoing Black Panther series... sort of. Though the "616 universe" Black Panther lies fallow, there is an ongoing set in Marvel's alternate continuity, the "Ultimate universe." I don't know much about the broader continuity of the Ultimate universe, so I can only judge the comic on its own merits, as a reboot of the Black Panther concept. We're back to the beginning here, with Wakanda in splendid isolation from the rest of the world, a Black utopia cut off from the rest of Africa. At the start of the series, T'Challa is already king of Wakanda, though his father T'Chaka is still alive, having stepped down. But pressures are conspiring to bring T'Challa and Wakanda into the outside world; two mysterious godlike figures are taking over Africa, and they are not going to leave Wakanda alone.

I thought this started strongly, with well-defined characters in interesting configurations. T'Challa is actually married to Okoye, former head of the Dora Milaje; I felt like there was sexual tension between Shuri and Okoye; Killmonger is romantically involved with Storm and T'Challa is sympathetic to his arguments. Wakanda is being rocked by terrorism, and the new king does not know who to trust.

Unfortunately, what is the status quo at the end of the second issue is pretty much still the status quo at the end of the sixth, the last one collected here. It seems to me that T'Challa mostly sits around and thinks a lot about what he should do; more than once I turned a page on my Fire tablet and was surprised to discover I had finished an issue, thinking there was no way that twenty pages could have gone by. I don't mind comics without nonstop action; in fact, I wish more superhero comics writers would spend time on character and dialogue and mystery. But the attempts at such here by writer Bryan Hill (Killmonger: By Any Means) go in circles without interest. 

T'Chaka always gotta die, I guess.
from Ultimate Black Panther #1
(art by Stefano Caselli)

Partially I think the issue here is that (if I am correct) the series is being told in real time, with a month passing between each issue. But that means not much of significance can happen between issues, so T'Challa can't do much between them... but then he doesn't seem to do much in issues, either, and thus he ultimately spends six months dithering. Potentially interesting conceit but poorly implemented. Such an approach requires a lot of done-in-one issues, I think, more plots shaped around individual issues. This is very much a "written-for-the-trade" plot. Well, except that even by the end of the trade little has happened. Written for the omnibus?

I enjoyed the art of Stefano Caselli, who draws the first four issues. It was much better than his work on Civil War: Young Avengers & Runaways... but then that was twenty years ago! I found the work of new-to-me Carlos Nieto on the last two inferior; an artist for a series with this much dialogue needs to have a better command of facial expressions, and some of the compositions were confusing. (When Storm and Killmonger make out in issue #6, I at first thought it was Storm and Shuri!)

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Black Panther: Reign at Dusk by Eve L. Ewing, Chris Allen, Mack Chater, Craig Yeung, et al.

Black Panther: Reign at Dusk, Vol. 1

Collection published: 2024
Contents originally published: 2023
Read: December 2025

Writer: Eve L. Ewing

Pencilers: Chris Allen, Mack Chater & Matt Horak
Inkers: Chris Allen, Craig Yeung, Mack Chater, Matt Horak & Oren Junior

Color Artists: Jesus Aburtov & Andrew Dalhouse

Letterer: Joe Sabino

After the conclusion of John Ridley's run, there was a ten-issue Black Panther series written by Eve L. Ewing—to date, the last series titled just "Black Panther." It ran only ten issues and is collected as two trade paperbacks subtitled "Reign at Dusk," but I'm guessing it was originally intended as an ongoing and was curtailed by poor sales. The premise of the series is that following his exile from Wakanda, T'Challa still wants to serve as the nation's protector, and so he sets himself up in Birnin T'Chaka ("Biti"), a city where he has spent little time, far from the capital of Wakanda. In Wakanda, everyone's basic needs are met, but that doesn't stop some people from wanting more, so there is still crime and corruption for the Black Panther to root out. By day, T'Challa dons a holographic disguise to work as a manual laborer at a catering business; by night, he tries to root out the corrupt crime families in the city and tussles with an attractive female thief. (There is very definitely a bit of Batman influence here.)

I thought this had some potential but never totally succeeded. I think at least part of the problem is that Ewing doesn't use her limited canvas very efficiently, as though she thought this series was going to last longer than it did—but because she didn't use it very effectively, it didn't last long enough for her to do much of interest. There's largely one big storyline here, about the crime families fighting each other but also there are disappearances happening, which ultimately turn out to be the doing of a spirit from the early days of Wakanda. Ewing introduces a lot of characters to be an expanded cast for T'Challa's new status quo, but I felt like most of them ended up contributing little of interest, either to the plot or to the characterization of T'Challa, even when I liked them. (In particular, I liked N'Yobi, the well-meaning lawyer.) I feel like what the series would have benefited from is more stories; instead of telling one big one, I wish it had been a series of done-in-ones, putting T'Challa up against situations with clear beginnings, middles, and ends. More and more varied stories would have done both T'Challa and his cast some good. At the end, we're told T'Challa found himself by living amongst his people, but we haven't had enough interactions to make that work... nor do we really get what T'Challa has "lost" about himself that he got back! (I've seen some complaints online that we've gotten subplots like this before, and thus this is repetitive... but the last time was David Liss's run, which almost fifteen years ago. If it doesn't work here, that's on its own merits, not because some other writer hit similar beats a long time ago.)

Black Panther: Reign at Dusk, Vol. 2

Collection published: 2024
Contents originally published: 2024
Read: December 2025

In particular, I didn't find the ongoing plot very interesting. The stakes of the crime family dispute are kind of murky, and then the whole thing gets subsumed in an attack by an evil cloud, which is just not and never can be interesting. There are some awkward contrivances, too, such as when T'Challa is trying to figure out a way to get into one of the crime families' weddings, and totally coincidentally, the catering business he works for is offered a job at the wedding that exact day!

This is a shame, because there's a lot of interesting stuff here. Like I said, I like a lot of the characters: I liked N'Yobi in particular, but a lot of the others have potential, like the female thief (a clear Catwoman analogue) or T'Challa's boss at the catering business. I like the setting of Birnin T'Chaka; I think this is the first time in the long history of Black Panther stories that we've actually spent a protracted period of time among the regular people of Wakanda. I appreciated that we got outside of the capital without going into one of the atypical "mute zones" we've seen in other titles. I liked the aesthetic of Biti, which is technologically advanced but different from what we've seen in other Wakanda stories.

On the other hand, I felt like the art let the story down. The aesthetic of Biti is cluttered, which requires good coloring to keep the art clear; some details need to draw the eye, some need to clearly be background detail. But a lot of the time, the imagery here is just one big muddle. Occasionally the storytelling is confusing, hard to track on a panel-to-panel basis. There were even some real amateur hour mistakes, such as a panel in the wedding issue where figures in the foreground are drawn smaller than figures that are obviously further away!

I do feel Ewing was dealt a bad hand, coming off the back of Ridley's run... but I also feel like the basic premise here was a solid one. I wish she and her artistic collaborators had been able to make it work better, because it had real potential.

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Black Panther: All This and the World, Too by John Ridley and Germán Peralta

Black Panther: All This and the World, Too

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

Writer: John Ridley

Artist: Germán Peralta

Color Artists: Ceci De La Cruz, Sebastian Cheng & Jesus Aburtov

Letterer: Joe Sabino

While I enjoyed the set-up of volume 1 of John Ridley's Black Panther a lot, I found what was done with that set-up in volume 2 pretty awful, to be honest. The third and final volume is better than volume 2, thankfully... but as it's a direct continuation, it's hard to move past how heavy-handed some of the plot turns in volume 2 were, as the story of volume 3 directly depends on them.

This volume opens with Black Panther operating as chairman of the Avengers, still no longer welcome in Wakanda. The world's Internet infrastructure is taken over, and when T'Challa goes to investigate, it turns out that it's one of his own people who's done it, the very friend whose death kicked the whole thing off in volume 1. His enemy has the power to neutralize the Avengers, so T'Challa must take him down on his own with his own allies.

It's fine. Some of the twists are good, some are heavy-handed; some moments feel earned, some do not. I think overall, Ridley's run had the core of a good idea, an interrogation of the extend to which T'Challa was willing to go to protect Wakanda, but it wasn't done in a good way, because far too many characters judge T'Challa by a weird standard of ethics. One of the best parts of Priest's run (with which Ridley's is very obviously in dialogue) was how it treated Black Panther a king, not a superhero—what would a superpowered king do in a world of superpowers? how would he act to protect his nation and its interests? Ridley's run wonders if there might be ways in which T'Challa thus might go too far... but it doesn't do this interestingly, because everyone judges T'Challa for his choices right away without considering the rationale or consequences of them. To say what T'Challa does is bad because it's not what other superheroes do is a really boring way to criticize T'Challa. At his best, T'Challa was a square peg in a round hole, but instead of exploring how that lack of fit plays out, Ridley's run just asserts he ought to have been a round peg all along. Why do I need to read a fifteen-issue run devoted to telling me the character I'm reading is bad? It's cynical and uninteresting, and I'm worried this all leaves the character in a bad place for future stories as well.

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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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Black Panther: Range Wars by John Ridley, Stefano Landini, and Germán Peralta

Black Panther: Range Wars

Collection published: 2022
Contents originally published: 2022
Read: November 2025

Writer: John Ridley

Artists: Stefano Landini & Germán Peralta

Color Artists: Matt Milla & Jesus Aburtov

Letterer: Joe Sabino

I really enjoyed volume 1 of John Ridley's Black Panther run, finding it a return to form after Ta-Nehisi Coates's. It was interesting, from a character, action, and thematic perspective, surely the best work on the title since Christopher Priest.

So I was very much surprised by how much I thoroughly disliked this. The first few issues here wrap up the "Long Shadow" arc, and I found them dumb. I get that people might be mad at T'Challa having a secret plan of shadow agents... but I found the reactions here entirely disproportionate. The agents didn't even do anything. Can you get mad at the legitimate ruler of a country for having spies? Because that's literally all he did, yet everyone suddenly acts like T'Challa has committed the ultimate transgression. Yet he very much did "worse" things throughout Priest's run! And suddenly he's being deposed, being hunted by Wakandan police. Does it even make any sense? T'Challa is a popular ruler, you can't just politically turn on a guy like that. I didn't buy any of this at all, it made no sense. Clearly Ridley has a long game he's playing, and he's trying to get all the pieces into position for it, but the hand of the author is too obvious. To make all this work, you need to buy what Ridley is selling, and I did not.

A metaphor, you say? Surely not.
from Black Panther vol. 9 #10 (art by Germán Peralta)

The rest of the book contains another story that actually reads much more like an Avengers story in its features, even if I would say it's a Black Panther story in terms of its project. No longer king of Wakanda, a depressed T'Challa is focusing on his duties as chairman of the Avengers when Earth comes under attack by the "Colonialist," an entity from another dimension. This is science fiction in the classic tradition of H. G. Wells's The War of the Worlds: what if the aliens did to the Earth (i.e., specifically white people) what white people have been going around doing to other people? The idea is fun enough, there's a couple good jokes, but I didn't find the actual story did as much with it as you might hope for; there's not really any interrogation on the part of the white characters as to what this says about them. I did like the "Buffalo Soldier" character a lot, though.

I was also glad to see Germán Peralta graduate from one-shot/back-up artist to the series main artist. He's good at action and emotional expressiveness; clear composition and good storytelling.

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Black Panther: Into the Heartlands by Roseanne A. Brown, Dika Araújo, Natacha Bustos, Claudia Aguirre, et al.

Into the Heartlands: A Black Panther Graphic Novel

Published: 2022
Read: November 2025

Written by Roseanne A. Brown
Illustrated by Dika Araújo, Natacha Bustos & Claudia Aguirre
Layouts by Geoffo
Colors by Cris Peter
Letters by Arianna Maher

This YA graphic novel takes us back to the childhood of T'Challa and Shuri, after the death of their father T'Chaka, before T'Challa ascended to the throne himself. The two children fight and argue, and both seem somewhat ill-prepared for their future responsibilities; T'Challa is a bit pompous, and disdains his younger sister, while Shuri would rather be doing science and thinks she's smarter than anyone else.

Only at a Wakanda ceremony both are ill-prepared for something goes horribly wrong, and people—including their mother, Ramonda—are infected with a mysterious virus. Could the work of T'Challa's birth mother, herself a successful scientist, lead them to a cure in the mysterious heartlands of Wakanda?

The result is a decent book about the two siblings going on a quest together along with a talking jerboa with a mysterious past. Like the flashback story in the recent Long Shadow collection, this leans more into the African storytelling traditions more than many Black Panther stories, and I very much enjoyed that aspect of it. The art is pretty typical for a YA superhero comics, sort of anime influenced, but I particularly enjoyed the vibrant coloring of Cris Peter.

I was a little disappointed in how the character of T'Challa himself was handled. I feel like the story turns much more on Shuri's decisions than his, and would have liked to have seen him project the commanding presence he's more commonly depicted as having.

(Lots of people on the Internet, including the Hoopla catalog, call this book "Shuri and T'Challa: Into the Heartlands," but the "Shuri and T'Challa" part of the title appears nowhere on or in the actual book as far as I can tell.) 

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Black Panther: The Long Shadow by John Ridley, Juann Cabal, et al.

Black Panther: The Long Shadow

Collection published: 2022
Contents originally published: 2022
Read: November 2025

Writers: John Ridley & Juni Ba

Artists: Juann Cabal with Ibrahim Moustafa & Stefano Landini, Juni Ba & Germán Peralta

Color Artists: Federico Blee, Matt Milla, Chris O'Halloran & Jesus Aburtov

Letterer: Joe Sabino

After the long, meandering, dull narratives of Ta-Nehisi Coates's run, this volume felt like a return to form for Black Panther. Coates never figured out how to integrate story, character, themes, and action; in his work, you had long boring scenes of dialogue alternating with long boring scenes of action. I don't think I've ever previously read a comic written by John Ridley, but he clearly knows how to write a comic book, and how to do so in a highly effective way, to boot.

The basic premise here is that T'Challa had sleeper agents in other countries, living seemingly normal lives, but ready to be activated if the need came up—known only to him. Except, all of a sudden, they are being killed off... so he must spring into action to defend them, while making sure no one knows of yet another long-laid plan founded on a lack of trust. Ridley's characterization of T'Challa definitely owes a lot to Christopher Priest's; this is the master plate spinner, except this time the plates are crashing down.

The story isn't quite complete here; League of Comic Geeks tells me The Long Shadow ran eight issues, and this volume weirdly collects just five. So one doesn't know how it will all play out. But I liked almost everything here: the sense that for once T'Challa is on the back foot is well done, the action is strong (Juann Cabal is probably the best regular Black Panther artist in a long while), and the character interactions are sharp and interesting. If Ridley's subsequent volumes maintain this level of quality, this will be an all-time great Black Panther run.

We get some fun Shuri stuff, too.
from Black Panther vol. 8 #2 (script by John Ridley, art by Juann Cabal)

Issue #3 was a special double-length issue, celebrating Black Panther's 200th issue; it came with two bonus stories. (Weirdly, the collection sticks them in the middle by publication order, interrupting the ongoing story; it would surely have made much more sense to put them at the end!) One, "The Wakandan" by John Ridley and Germán Peralta gives a backstory for a new character, Tosin, an angsty resident of Wakanda's "mute zones" with vibranium superpowers. Meh. The other is a tale of T'Challa being eaten by the panther god to go on a mystical quest; I really enjoyed the unique writing and art of Juni Ba.

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Ms. Marvel Team-Up by Eve L. Ewing, Clint McElroy, Joey Vazquez, Ig Guara, et al.

Ms. Marvel Team-Up

Collection published: 2019
Contents originally published: 2019
Acquired and read: September 2025

Writers: Eve L. Ewing & Clint McElroy

Artists: Joey Vazquez with Moy R. & Ig Guara

Colorist: Felipe Sobreiro

Letterer: Clayton Cowles

I have diligently subscribed to Ms. Marvel in single-issue format via my local comic book store since Kamala Khan's debut in 2014. Once she stopped appearing in series named after her, my comic book guy has continued to stick related series featuring her into my pull box, forcing me to read X-Men comics. I was thus surprised to recently realize that Kamala co-starred in a six-issue miniseries way back in 2019, which he did not pull for me, and which I had failed to notice, so I tracked down a trade paperback collection of it.

This is a team-up title, consisting of two three-issue stories. The first, by Eve L. Ewing and Joey Vazquez, teams her up with Spider-Man. Specifically, there's a flipbook-style first issue that tells the same story from both Kamala's and Peter's perspectives, culminating in a body-swap; the second issue is body-swap shenanigans; and then the third resolves everything. Other than a backup story in Ms. Marvel vol. 4 #38, I think this is my first time encountering the writing of Eve Ewing, though I know she wrote some Black Panther comics I will get to soon. The story is a bit contrived, but I suppose that's part of the whole bodyswap genre; without that, there's no story and no fun. I liked her work here. Joey Vazquez would later illustrate a few issues of The Magnificent Ms. Marvel, and he does a good job here; I think Ms. Marvel requires someone with a strong command of faces, and he has that.

A good blockchain joke and a good period joke. What more do you need?
from Marvel Team-Up vol. 4 #2 (script by Eve L. Ewing, art by Joey Vazquez)

The second story, by Clint McElroy and Ig Guara, teams Kamala up with her idol, Captain Marvel. Despite some good art from the ever-reliable Ig Guara, you couldn't pay me to care about the Kree, and unfortunately too much of this story is about the Kree and Carol Danvers's relationship with them; Kamala contributes little to the story other than to serve as a voice of dissent for Carol. To be honest, I felt like Kamala changed her positions at random, alternating between enthusiasm and skepticism based on what the plot required. Pretty tedious... but the first story was a good addition to the Ms. Marvel canon, and justified picking up the book. I'm sorry my comic book guy missed it!

Black Panther Legends by Tochi Onyebuchi, Setor Fiadzigbey, Fran Galán, Enid Balám, Ramón F. Bachs, et al.

Legends: Black Panther

Collection published: 2022
Contents originally published: 2021-22
Read: October 2025

Writer: Tochi Onyebuchi

Pencilers: Setor Fiadzigbey, Fran Galán, Enid Balám & Ramón F. Bachs
Inkers: Setor Fiadzigbey, Fran Galán, Roberto Poggi, Oren Junior & Ramón F. Bachs

Color Artists: Paris Alleyne & Ian Herring

Letterer: Joe Sabino

Legends: Black Panther (this is clearly what the cover and title page call it, but everyone calls this book Black Panther Legends for some reason) was a four-issue miniseries telling key moments from the history of the Black Panther. We get the death of T'Challa's father at the hands of Klaw, T'Challa meeting Storm for the first time, T'Challa facing down his uncle to acquire the throne, and the first visit of the Fantastic Four to Wakanda.

To be honest, I don't really get the point of this. I think when you're retelling an origin story, you need to be able to add something new or different; this is aimed at a younger audience, judging by the art style, but is still supposed to be the mainstream Marvel Universe versions of the characters (according to the League of Comic Geeks website, anyway), not an alternate continuity (like the YA-aimed Marvel Action stories are). But in that case, we'd just gotten a new version of the Black Panther's origin just three years prior! And that version, I really liked; it effectively wove a bunch of disparate elements we'd seen over the years into a coherent whole.

This version just retells some stuff we've seen before in ways I found less effective and less interesting. In particular, I found this version of how T'Chaka died at the hands of Ulysses Klaw not as well done and emotional as the Rise of the Black Panther version, and this version of how T'Challa met and fell in love with Storm boringly simple compared to the version in Eric Jerome Dickey's Storm miniseries. And devoting a whole issue to T'Challa's battle against his uncle to regain the throne (a battle which is purely ceremonial and which his uncle wants him to win, though admittedly his uncle doesn't know it's T'Challa in disguise) seemed overly drawn out and pointless; when I got to the end of that issue, I was very surprised, because so little had happened surely twenty pages hadn't gone by! I also really did not like that it wasn't T'Challa who invited the Fantastic Four to Wakanda in this telling; I think it really undermines the character.

I guess it's a meet cute?
from Legends: Black Panther #2 (art by Setor Fiadzigbey & Fran Galán)

The one thing I did like here was the focus on T'Challa's adoptive brother, Hunter, who was a major character during Priest's run on the title. He's a character we haven't seen much of since, and it's nice to see him folded into the character's origins retroactively. (I don't remember much of Hunter in Rise.) Unfortunately, this thread kind of fizzles out because Hunter plays little role in the final issue.

I feel like the last few Black Panther stories I've read have totally failed to mention the "heart-shaped herbs" that were so central to the character early on. Does he have them here? If so, how does he gain access?
from Legends: Black Panther #3 (art by Fran Galán)

So, if you're looking for a modern, accessible origin for the Black Panther, I think you're much better off sticking to the only slightly older Rise of the Black Panther version. This one has little to add. 

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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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