Black Panther: Panther's Rage

It's been a few years now since Black Panther became a hugely popular movie, but his roots go much further back. Marvel has put out many compilations of their most important characters, including Black Panther. I read Black Panther: Panther's Rage, which contains his first appearance as well as his the first several issues of his own book.

Black Panther, of course, was the first black superhero, created by Stan Lee and Jack Kirby (whether or not his name came before the organization founded by black activists is still debated). He debuted in Fantastic Four #52, in July 1966, firmly in the Silver Age of comic books. Though it was a progressive idea, the writing is still a bit condescending--as the Fantastic Four ride in an aircraft given by the King of Wakanda to this quartet of heroes, The Thing can't help but make snide remarks, such as "How does some refugee from a Tarzan movie lay his hands on this kind of gizmo?"

In that issue T'Challa, the ruler of Wakanda, tries to defeat the Fantastic Four to prove his ability. So he's sort of the villain, as the Four end up defeating him, or at least not being beaten by him. In the follow-up issue, they help him defeat Ulysses Klaw, who is one of Black Panther's main adversaries.

The Black Panther then became an Avenger, leaving his homeland. He did not have his own book until 1973, the Bronze Age, with Jungle Action, which ironically had been a home for Tarzan-like adventures with white heroes. When Black Panther took it over, however, it was set in Africa with an almost entirely black set of characters. T'Challa has returned to Wakanda, and in the first dozen or so books deals with Erik Killmonger, who has an army that threatens to destroy the country.

These stories were written by Don McGregor, who was white, but one of the key artists was Billy Graham, who was black. These books were not as condescending in portraying African life. T'Challa was a flawed hero--he could be arrogant and stubborn, and often jumped into situations where he was outmatched. He brings with him to Wakanda an American girlfriend, Monica Lynne, who is treated suspiciously by the Wakandans (and in one story arc is framed for murder).

There are still the touches that enlivened the other Marvel Comics titles. The villains that pop up are colorful, with an African touch. There is Baron Macabre, King Cadaver (who has a head like a Brussels sprout), Salamander, Malice, and Lord Karnaj. The one white villain is Venomm (not to be confused with Venom, who would turn up in Spider-Man comics), who has had his face etched away by acid and commands snakes.

The climax of his story arc happens when Killmonger leads an armada of dinosaurs against the city. He is defeated, of course, but we don't see him die. As a Marvel Comics writer once told me, "no one stays dead except Uncle Ben."

A second story arc sees T'Challa back in the United States, in the Georgia home town of Lynne. In an extraordinary series of books he does battle with the Ku Klux Klan. This was in the mid-seventies, but I couldn't help but feel the reverberations of today, sadly. The Klan manages to tie him to a burning cross, and he sustains severe burns (in the tradition of heroes of myth, Black Panther is gets the shit beaten out of him regularly, but always manages to bounce back). He even gets clocked in the head by an old lady wielding a can of cat food. Perhaps he earned that, going to a supermarket in the Deep South while wearing his Black Panther outfit. In a particularly poignant issue, Lynne tells the story of an ancestor who was lynched, but she re-imagines the story with Black Panther there to save the day. If only.

McGregor was clearly a man who had literary aspirations, as some of his opening words drip with purple prose: "The setting sun drips blood onto the river of grace and wisdom, each splattering in brilliant reflection from the mirror surface of the water,  escorting night-tide over the jungle growth that flourishes about the river's banks." This, just before Black Panther is attacked by a crocodile. Or, "The Black Panther stands in the crimson Wakandan dusk..,waiting! His sense are alert, probing into the shadows. He has known the ebony mural of tension...many times since his father died!" Consider some of these great issue titles: "Malice By Crimson Moonlight," "Blood Stains on Virgin Snow," "There Are Serpents Living In Paradise," "Thorns In The Flesh, Thorns In The Mind," or "A Cross Burning Darkly Blackening The Night!" If the makers of the next Black Panther film are looking for a subtitle, let them look no further. In fact, having Chadwick Boseman beat the shit out of white supremacists would be very cathartic.

The '70s, the Bronze Age, is when I first discovered superhero comics and thus I am partial to that era. Black Panther is still being published, written by esteemed black intellectual Ta-Nehisi Coates. I read a few issues and found them difficult to follow.

Comic books, at least in those days, and from Marvel, sought to put up a mirror to society, and while they were ostensibly for children they could be very adult. I found this collection to be eye-opening and quite a bit ahead of its time.