Black Panther by Christopher Priest: The Complete Collection, Vol. 1 by Christopher J. Priest

My rating: 4 of 5 stars


This book collects the first seventeen issues of Christopher Priest's epic run on Black Panther and introduces such key concepts as Everett Ross as well as T'Challa's female bodyguards the Dora Milaje.

The book does a great job showing the strength of T'Challa as a character, establishing him as a key, master strategist, and absolute force to be reckoned with. At the same time, Ross' narration makes for fun and humorous reading, even if his disjointed narrative can be hard to follow.

The first twelve issues are the Marvel Knights run and form a single arc centered around an evil that killed a child in America to get T'Challa out of Wakanda to put a madman in his place. The story features loads of political intrigue, a showdown with Mephisto, as well as battles with the Lizard and Kraven the Hunter, and a re-evaluation of T'Challa's relationship with his friends in the Avengers.

The second half of the book is a much more loose freewilling narrative with Ross taking over Wakanda temporarily while T'Challa has to save an airplane from Hydroman in midair and then have an epic team up with Marvel's street level heroes as well as meeting the Hulk and a new bodyguard.

The book is generally good but has it flaws. The number of artists who worked with Priest is astounding and the styles very widely. There are a few elements that don't make sense as well as a few characters such as T'Challa's giant friend Zuri who are introduced but never quiet developed. Ross' cartoonish antics occassional entertain but occassionally annoy.

Still, overall this is a fun book that manages to be entertaing by getting readers to laugh at the story but take the hero far more seriously than they had before.



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