Ta-Nehisi Coates’ run on Black Panther has been the most anticipated comics event in at least a decade. Coates is known far beyond the tiny world of comicdom; he’s a bona fide literary celebrity, of the sort that writes comics only very rarely. I’m hard-pressed to think of a writer of equal stature who has come up outside comics and entered the field. Neil Gaiman, who started in comics and left when he got big enough, is the counter-example that proves the rule.
On top of that, Coates is a black writer, entering comics at a time when there have been increasing calls for more representation of POC and women in both Marvel’s film properties and the comics themselves. By putting Coates and Brian Stelfreeze on Black Panther, Marvel is directly addressing its own often monochromatic history.
Black Panther, then, promises to be a new kind of flagship Marvel title—different in quality, different in publicity, different in importance, different in its thoughtfulness about, and approach to, issues of race. It’s an exciting promise—and issues were leaping off the rack like hotcakes at my own little comics shop on Chicago’s South Side.
So—many hopes. Were any of them met?
The answer to that is: no. Black Panther #1 is, unfortunately, not a good comic.
It’s not a terrible comic, either; I’ve read plenty worse. It’s simply a mediocre Marvel comic in the usual mediocre Marvel comic ways.
The main weakness, as ever, is continuity porn. The issue starts with a page of exposition detailing several previous preposterous storylines: there was some stupid plot by Dr. Doom; there was some other stupid plot by Thanos. But even that exposition dump isn’t sufficient; much of the rest of the comic paddles around haplessly in convoluted, tedious backstory. We learn about Black Panther’s female bodyguards, there are flashback dream sequences, there’s Black Panther moping around and brooding. There are some brief glimpses of potentially interesting characters, including two lesbian bodyguards who stage a jail break. But there isn’t enough development to make them, or anyone, engaging.
The hope is that after the first issue we’ll get up to speed. But this is a new introduction to the character for a, by comics standards, gigantic new readership. The failure to recognize the need for a streamlined story, and the inability to provide one, is ominous. You’ve got the biggest comic event in years; comics reboot every 15 months anyway. Why not just forget Thanos and Doom and whatever and let Coates, and all those new comics readers he’s attracted, start from scratch? This isn’t rocket science; it’s basic common sense. The fact that nobody involved in the project realized that this was the way to go doesn’t fill one with confidence.
There are other unsettling signs as well. Coates’ nonfiction style is heavy, but it’s a heaviness of thought and consideration; you can feel his mind moving deliberately, and that gives the moments of fire more power. That weight doesn’t translate particularly well to the comic book world, though. The story feels portentous and burdened with its own seriousness. The dialogue in particular reads as if the characters are writing essays in a parody of Coates’ style. “Does he even care, Aneka? Did he ever care?” Dora asks. “Does it even matter? Has it ever mattered?” Aneka replies. Do people really talk like that? Have they ever talked like that? Could someone make them stop talking like that?
Brian Stelfreeze’s art is…okay. There are certainly lots of worse mainstream artists, but there’s nothing especially distinctive about his style or composition. Action sequences are stiff, and often visually confusing. Again, this is all pretty standard for mainstream superhero comics, which impose both tight deadline pressure and fairly strict limits on artist style. It’s professional. It’s just not anything more than that.
From his other writing, and from the ending letters page column here, it’s clear that Coates is a Marvel comics fan. It shouldn’t really be a surprise, then, that he’s delivered a bog standard Marvel comic, complete with unfocused storytelling, impenetrable continuity, and art that is there. The comic is notable for having a main cast that is entirely black, and for its inclusion of a respectfully treated lesbian couple as primary protagonists. But that’s about the only thing that distinguishes Black Panther from many of its peer titles, at this point. It certainly doesn’t have the distinctive vision of G. Willow Wilson’s YA Ms. Marvel, with its deft, witty characterization, and its exploration of such unusual superhero themes as ethnic assimilation and nonviolence. Nor does it feel as focused and individual as Christopher Priest’s Black Panther run did, from the very beginning.
Maybe Coates and Stelfreeze will find their stride as the series goes on. But there’s an uncomfortable feeling here that they’ve made just exactly the uninspired comic that they, and Marvel, wanted to.
LOL I knew you were gonna come after this
And this is why I held off, knowing that I could always get the trade if the relaunch was any good.
Kamala Khan’s story really is the ideal way to launch a book after an event: the continuity nuts know what that mist is, and what Kamala’s origin is, but new readers and Kamala herself don’t have to know this until she finally meets with Medusa in the second trade. I.e., it’s organic rather than info dumped.
Yes, Ms. Marvel was very gracefully done.
Lots of people saying they love BP online… Seems a bit overdetermined though. He’s got a lot of (justified) goodwill, obviously, and people want it to succeed, which is certainly reasonable. Maybe it’ll get better…
“The comic is notable for having a main cast that is entirely black, and for its inclusion of a respectfully treated lesbian couple as primary protagonists.”
This kind of progressivism is pretty much the only good thing you could say about Don McGregor’s work, too.
Judging from your piece, the idea here was not to put together a good Black Panther comic. Rather, the goal was to use Ta-Nehisi Coates to bring new people into the Marvel cult.
“the goal was to use Ta-Nehisi Coates to bring new people into the Marvel cult”
Not sure about this? I doubt it’ll actually capture and hold a lot of new readers. I think for TNC it was a chance to be part of his fandom. For Marvel it was a big publicity opportunity. It doesn’t really seem like they have much of a master plan beyond that.
This review is more or less on the same page as me.
It’s a #1. Couldn’t wait until at least the first arc was at least finished?
The assumption is that people will adore Marvel comics if they would only read them. It’s a different version of the Clark Kent/Lois Lane BS that Kurtzman mocked in “Superduperman.” She’ll love me if she only knew who I really am. The truth: No, you’re still a creep. And superhero comics still suck.
Usually, when a superhero comics series is going to be good, the first issue is good. In my experience.
Also, there are bucketfulls of ecstatic reviews online already at this point. Are you running around to the comments sections on those and telling them they should really wait, maybe it will suck?
I say in the piece it could get better. But the fact that it could get better doesn’t change the fact that this much anticipated first issue, with a chance to entice many new readers, is not any good.
A good superhero series? You’re kidding, right?…
Hah; yes, well, I don’t think anyone expected you to like it Domingos…
Fair enough, especially regarding your point about new readers. This is the first and only review I’ve seen for it, however I do think any review of a #1 in a new ongoing is a little premature.
How did I get a copy of this in my pull file? (Picked up 5 weeks of comics today, there was a copy in there, I don’t remember ordering it.)
I found some potential in it – the premise of Wakanda on the verge of a potentially democratic revolution is certainly interesting to me – but I also think Coates may be a little too inspired by the Bendis/Hickman style of decompression. In the lead up to this, whenever he was asked on Twitter about who he was reading to bone up on writing comics he would mention comics writers (like the above) that are not to my taste at all.
But what do I know, if I wrote comics I’d be trying to capture the feel of comics by Louise Simonson and Roger Stern.
One writer who’s similar, in terms of literary credibility (and as a fellow MacArthur winner), might be Jonathan Lethem, who did a revival of Omega the Unknown in 2007-8. Of course, Lethem had a great artist in Farel Dalrymple and no continuity to contend with. Omega is also a comic that doesn’t need to fit into the larger cosmology, since nobody was making a 600 kazillion dollar movie about the character.
Also, based solely on the image here, the art looks horrible. What the hell is going on with his abs?
The Lethem Omega was much better than Coates’ Panther in just about every way in the writing department. But I think it’s generally acknowledged that the most beautiful part of the comic was the comic within a comic by Gary Panter.
Yeah, I think the cover is worse than the interior art. That’s a crappy picture.
It’s also hyper-masculine in a way that the comic actually seems to be trying to avoid. It’s not just that the rendering of the abs is weird; it’s that the only thing happening on the cover is abs. Abness is all it has to say; “hi, I’m Black Panther, and I’m extremely male. Male male male. Comic about men!”
Which again seems like crappy advertising/marketing. Coates obviously wants the comic to not feel like a clubhouse, but then the cover seems like it’s stuck in the 90s.
Ah well…
Actually…ribs. Aren’t the abs more lowerer.