Super Sunday Special: Black Panther Epic Collection "Panther's Rage"

Black Panther Epic Collection #1

By Don McGregor, Rick Buckler, Billy Graham

This review is a bit different because it won't cover an individual story but an entire book from the Epic Collection line. Most of the stories included in this book are too interconnected to make sense in individual reviews, and there are just too many of them to review them all. For the same reasons, I won't go in a detailed synopsis. The book is #1 of the Black Panther Epic Collection series, collecting Fantastic Four #52-53 (1966) and Jungle Action #6-24 (1973-1976).

Broadly speaking, this volume covers three storylines. First, there are two Fantastic Four issues by Lee and Kirby, introducing the Black Panther and telling his origin story; then there is the main dish giving the volume its title: a massive 12-part Panther's Rage saga, by McGregor, Buckler and Graham; and finally a shorter arc pitting the Panther against the Ku Klux Klan, again by the same team. I have already reviewed the first Fantastic Four story, and I'll eventually get to the second too, so we can skip them for now. 

Entirely set in Wakanda, the Panther's Rage saga tells of the war between the Panther and wannabe usurper Erik Killmonger, with his group of mutates and army of soldiers. Against this backdrop, McGregor develops a number of character-driven stories, broadly discussing racism, inclusion, technology, tradition, peace and religion. Enemies aside, the four main characters are the Panther, his American girlfriend Monica, his second in command W'Kabi and his trusted advisor Taku, each dealing with their own personal demons and subplots. The Panther struggles with self-doubt, especially over his decision to modernize Wakanda; W'Kabi angrily rues the loss of the old ways and can't patch up his failing marriage; poetic and pacifist Taku has to deal with the consequences of a war he doesn't really see the need for; and Monica finds herself a foreigner in a foreign land, hated and despised by most both as a person and as the symbol of the Panther's newfound attachment for the Western world. In the background, there are war, tragedy and a long long epic journey through Wakanda as the Panther chases Killmonger to put a stop to his plans.

The first half of the saga has the Panther reacting to a series of attacks by Killmonger's lieutenants, most of which have been mutated and empowered in one way or another. This serves as an excuse to introduce most characters of the Wakandan court and define their personalities, while also presenting other minor players whose importance is chiefly symbolic and representative of the themes discussed in the story. Considering him too corrupted by the Western culture, many people in Wakanda have lost faith in the Black Panther and distrust his technology and his American girlfriend, to the point of framing her for murder. The second half of the saga is for the most part a long journey through Wakanda, with the Panther first chasing Killmonger and then trying to return home after suffering a bad defeat. During these chapters, all the other themes take a step back and are reduced to the occasional odd page here and there, with the focus resting almost solely on T'Challa and his adventures. Visually, it's a great journey, going from snowy mountains to dinosaurs-infested swamps, wastelands and forests. Narratively, it relies heavily on very wordy captions and monologues, and after a while it simply stretches out too much, leaving the reader waiting for the Panther to get back home, which he eventually does. From that point, it's only a couple of chapters before the saga finally ends.

If it sounds like an epic, it's because that's what it was planned to be, but unfortunately the best way to understand Panther's Rage is the analogy with a very good friend who just ends up overstaying his welcome, so much so that by the end you can't wait for him to be gone despite still being fond of him. Except for a few characters and situations that develop nicely and eventually come to full circle, almost everything else becomes progressively heavier as the saga continues, to the point of dragging on. For example, for the most part, the impact that the rapid scientific rise of Wakanda has had on its inhabitants is flashed out pretty well, especially during the scenes depicting the old widow Karota and her reaction to something as commonplace as an injection, but at times it becomes overplayed and eventually repetitive. This doesn't matter too much in the first half of the story, when there is enough going on to keep the reader entertained, but becomes nearly unbearable in the second half, when there is so much overly descriptive text and so little happening that one is tempted to skip over it and move on.

This is a consequence of a not very successful shift from standard hero vs villain to adventure journey in terms of structure. While Killmonger himself is pretty simple and one-dimensional, his lieutenants are all new and visually interesting, so that simply introducing them one by one in the first several chapters offered enough action and diversion to balance out the parts dealing with more serious themes and topics. In the second half, said lieutenants are replaced by various beasts and dinosaurs, certainly appropriate given the jungle settings, but nowhere near as engrossing. To make matters worse, with no other voice than his own, the Panther's soliloquies become increasingly philosophical and the narration follows suit, to the point of introducing a bizarre jungle imp of some kind just to give T'Challa someone to try to talk with.

When the Panther finally returns home, it looks like the saga has nothing else to say and ends with a climatic but also very short and not entirely satisfying battle lasting just 18 pages, followed by a pretty useless epilogue which doesn't add anything of consequence. We are then catapulted to the third storyline, a passionate but disjointed arc where T'Challa abruptly returns to America and finds himself fighting the Ku Klux Klan. Interestingly, the Klan is called Clan with a "C" on the covers, suggesting an attempt to circumvent censorship.

Now dealing with a fresh cast of characters, new themes to discuss and a murder mystery to solve, this arc begins with lots of potential, and reaches its most chilling point when a Klan spokesman addresses the crowd with rhetorics that are certainly still quite popular today. Unfortunately, once again the story quickly becomes mired in an overly complicated plot which eventually fails to deliver as the book is cancelled and the plot left unresolved.

From a superheroic point of view, the one thing that seems to work the least in both storylines is the Black Panther himself. Ever since he originally replaced him with the Avengers, T'Challa has often been compared to Captain America in terms of skills and powers, but McGregor seems more interested in highlighting his ability to receive punishment than his fighting prowess. Over the course of the book, the Panther is punched, stabbed, bitten, torn, cut, burned, impaled, strangled and shot at. Over and over again we are described his injuries, his struggles to keep going, as he proves to possess amazing survival skills and will to live. Sadly, he is nowhere near as impressive when it comes to fight: Killmonger, who never comes across as especially powerful, defeats him three times out of three, and even a group of Klan members are enough to subdue and incapacitate him. Compare this to Captain America defeating dozens of Nazi fanatics with little effort and it's clear this wasn't the direction McGregor wanted to take him. It could be argued that Steve and T'Challa are two different characters who shouldn't be compared, but neither should the Panther appear so much weaker than the Captain given their similar skillset. The same story goes for the Panther's well-documented intelligence and strategy skills, two traits he never really shows throughout the book, and it also seems improbable that American citizens and policemen wouldn't recognize an Avenger the way it happens during the Klan storyline. This is all an attempt to humanize T'Challa, taking the focus away from the "hero" and into the "man", but also belittles him in the bigger scheme of things.

By now it probably sounds like I haven't enjoyed this book at all, when it's actually quite the opposite. From an historical point of view, there is much to like about both storylines, as they deal with important themes and ideas without ever becoming clichéd. Despite having been written in the mid-'70s, not only do they star an almost entirely black cast both in terms of heroes and villains, but are also brave enough to tackle a then-contemporary issue like the KKK, stretching the limits as the Black Panther has always done during its editorial life. The art is also quite good throughout, despite becoming a little confusing and disjointed towards the end of Panther's Rage, where panel composition doesn't always make it too easy to follow the correct sequence of events and understand how we got from one point to another. Of the two main artists, Buckler has a more classic style, whereas Graham is more innovative but seems to suffer from having too many different inkers and produces his best work only once he starts inking himself.

Final Verdict: A book dealing with several interesting themes, but best suited for fans of the Black Panther than for general superhero readers. 3,5/5