Via The New York Times, Marvel Comics have announced writer John Ridley (12 Years A Slave) and artist Juann Cabal (“Guardians of the Galaxy”) will be relaunching the “Black Panther” series in August. The new issue #1 will follow Ta-Nehisi Coates’s series, which is set to conclude its five-year run with “Black Panther” (Vol. 7) #25 on May 26.
Described by Ridley as a “hybrid espionage-superhero thriller,” the new series will begin with T’Challa receiving an urgent message from a Wakandan operative who is in danger. He also stated it will be, “at its core,” a love story, “and I don’t mean just romantic love, although there’s some of that as well. It’s love between friends.” He implied the operative is a close childhood friend, stating the comic will explore “the ways that we [friends] ran together and how our lives changed over time.”
While most of Ridley’s superhero output has been for DC Comics (where he created the Tim Fox incarnation of Batman for ‘Future State’ with Nick Derington) as well as their animated series, he has penned stories for Marvel too, namely in the recent the anthology titles “Wolverine: Black, White & Blood,” and “Marvel’s Voices: Legacy.” (He was also set to be showrunner on a TV series for ABC, which never materialized.) He said of T’Challa, “First of all, Black Panther is just a great character in and of himself. But being a young Black kid growing up, every time you saw a hero that looked like you, even if their background didn’t reflect my lived experience, it was just something that made you feel closer to the wish fulfillment that is intrinsic in graphic novel writing.”
The new “Black Panther” #1 will be released digitally, and in comic book stores sometime in August. For more from Ridley, head to the link.
