There’s a talented team of comics creators with deep African roots at the helm of “Black Panther Legends” #1. The effect is wondrous. (Warning: may contain minor spoilers.)
Cover by Setor FiadzigbeyWritten by Tochi Onyebuchi
Illustrated by Setor Fiadzigbey
Colored by Paris Alleyne
Lettered by VC’s Joe SabinoT’Challa and Hunter are brothers growing up in the idyllic royal palace of Wakanda. Theirs goes beyond the usual sibling rivalry, though – Hunter, although older, is adopted, and T’Challa is the true heir to the throne. Both brothers wrestle with fairness and the future, readying themselves for responsibility, when tragedy strikes and takes the choice from them. This new series, ideal for young fans and loyal readers alike, will explore the moments that make T’Challa who he is, from his adventurous upbringing to his walkabout as a teen where he meets the enchanting Ororo Munroe before she becomes the legendary Storm, to when he first invites the Fantastic Four into Wakanda! Son, Brother, Warrior, King – as each chapter unfolds, new pieces of T’Challa’s character will be revealed and the Black Panther will emerge.
First off, full disclosure: I have known illustrator Setor Fiadzigbey for about five years and worked with him on a previous project. That said, the release of “Black Panther Legends” #1 is an event that’s too momentous for me to quietly ignore.
Though there’s only one issue so far, Marvel’s “Black Panther Legends” is already a breakthrough event. The book’s script is written by first generation Nigerian American Tochi Onyebuchi, illustrated by self-taught Ghanaian artist Setor Fiadzigbey, and colored by Toronto-based Eisner Award winner Paris Alleyne. It’s a highly Afro-centric group of creators telling a story that takes place on the African continent – an exceedingly rare phenomenon in mainstream publishing. It seems like at least once a year someone writes an article that heralds “unknown” comics creators from the African continent. Meanwhile, readers and the creators themselves shrug and think to themselves, yeah, we already know that and go back to doing great work.
Within the first three pages “Black Panther Legends” #1, the creative time makes it abundantly clear that this will be a fresh, wholly new take. We not only get to experience a young, pre-Black Panther T’Challa, we see him in a Wakanda that is visually unlike any of it’s predecessors. This is not the same flashy, highly polished, Hollywood Wakanda we saw on the big screen. This is a Wakanda that feels increasingly encroached upon by forces beyond it’s control, precariously maintaining it’s isolated equilibrium.
Fiadzigbey’s inks have a raw, often angular power. It’s a technique that gives even the most straightforward expository scenes great energy, complemented beautifully by Alleyne’s lush color palette. There’s a subtle tension in the book’s warm and cool colors that quietly helps raise the stakes. The royal family is often bathed in desaturated purples and violets. In contrast to this, the savannah, Wakanda’s skyline and the dusty streets of Johannesburg, South Africa, are awash in hazy yellows. Insinuating itself into all of this is the black, steel gray and metallic blue of the white skinned U.N. delegation.
Elsewhere, in the action sequences, many of the characters have a slightly blurry quality, as though their movements are too fast to be captured in a single frame. Motion lines explode from the center of various panels, as if the scene’s energy is radiating outward, rippling out into the wider world, affecting things well beyond the central characters and their immediate environment.
Wakanda’s isolationism and responsibility to people beyond its own borders has long been a theme – and subject of debate – in Black Panther narratives. Here, Onyebuchi simultaneously sends T’Challa and his family into “the outside world” and has outsiders pierce Wakanda’s self-made bubble. T’Chaka justifies each of these actions by posing a rhetorical question: “Hunter was a baby when I adopted him almost fifteen years ago after the death of his parents at our northern border. Is he not ‘the outside world?’” The precedent has already been set, T’Chaka argues, at this point there’s no going back. The solution is to make the best of it and be more prepared for what’s coming.
Continued belowBy including T’Challa’s white adopted brother, Hunter, in this iteration of T’Challa’s Black Panther origin story, Onyebuchi confronts institutional racism head on. When T’Chaka, his wife Ramonda, and their two sons arrive at the airport in South Africa, they are met by a pair of signs. One reads “Europeans Only,” while the other sign proclaims, “Non-Europeans Only.”
In their home country, T’Chaka and his family are royalty. In Apartheid South Africa, they aren’t valued for who they are, they’re defined by what they’re not. White skinned Hunter enters through one gate, while the rest of his family is ushered through a separate gate. It’s a brief, but powerful scene, eerily reminiscent of families being separated at the U.S. border. For young T’Challa, it’s a seminal moment. “If a law is unjust,” he later says, “it’s our duty to break that law into pieces.”
T’Challa the boy is starting to become T’Challa the man right before our eyes.
Back in Wakanda, the form that racism takes may be a bit more subtle, but it’s far more exploitative. The infamous Ulysses Klaue happens to be a member of the U.N. delegation and we all know what he’s after. “What we are proposing is a partnership,” Klaue says, suggesting that Vibranium mining will strengthen Wakanda’s relationship with the outside world, “but you want to keep the precious resource that’s sitting right under your feet.” Yes. How ridiculous. Why would a sovereign nation want to maintain control of its own resources? “The history of this continent has been a sad one,” T’Chaka counters. “Our fellow Africans in the Congo in South Africa in Liberia, all of them have suffered for what lies beneath their feet.”
Importantly, T’Chaka doesn’t reference Wakanda’s fictional neighbors like Mohannda, Niganda and Zwartheid. Onyebuchi doesn’t want or need to fictionalize African suffering at the hands of its colonial masters. Rather, the writer has T’Chaka indict real word injustices and inequity, the effects of which still linger to this day.
Onyebuchi first made his mark with a trio of YA science fiction novels, including NOMMO award winner, “Beasts Made of Night.” His ability to write for younger readers on a sophisticated, yet accessible level that doesn’t speak down to them is truly a gift. The amount of backstory, explosive action and social commentary he weaves into this debut issue is nothing short of remarkable. According to Marvel, this and future Marvel Legends series are geared toward teen and pre-teen readers. “Black Panther Legends” #1 may be an outlier, but this is a meaty story that is sure to connect with readers of all ages.
Final Verdict: 9.5 “Black Panther Legends” #1 does an outstanding job of reframing Wakanda – and the world – of T’Challa’s youth, setting up the series for the reimagined Hero’s Journey to come.
