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hypops's review
4.0
Black Panther has always been dogged by his character’s roots in colonial fantasy. But he’s also remarkable in that, despite the racist tropes, T’Challa can’t easily be categorized or pinned down the way that many other superheroes can be. I think that’s what has made the character so interesting for so long. Even from the time of his first solo comic, he’s always somehow been much more than a collection of old racist stereotypes.
Undeniably, the character is premised on outdated colonial tropes of “savage nobility” and of the “dark” and “lost worlds” of the African continent. But at the same time, the storylines and conflicts in writer Don McGregor’s defining run place T’Challa in direct confrontation with these contradictions, and in McGregor’s version, it’s done with surprising subtlety. For example, one of the narrative arcs follows the relationship between a pacifist jailor and the cartoonish villain in his custody. Their conversations and relationship go places I couldn’t have predicted and that buck convention. This is true across the board in these first two story arcs.
Stylistically, the narration moves easily between introspection, ethical philosophy, epic, lyric, action, and adventure. The comic has an impressive stylistic range (visually and verbally) that only grows once artist Billy Graham comes on board. Yes, it’s a book bound to the ugly racial stereotypes of colonial fantasy, and it doesn’t ever directly undo or challenge those stereotypes; instead, it exaggerates them and reshapes them until they’re interestingly strange and unfamiliar. This is a classic that can still surprise.
Undeniably, the character is premised on outdated colonial tropes of “savage nobility” and of the “dark” and “lost worlds” of the African continent. But at the same time, the storylines and conflicts in writer Don McGregor’s defining run place T’Challa in direct confrontation with these contradictions, and in McGregor’s version, it’s done with surprising subtlety. For example, one of the narrative arcs follows the relationship between a pacifist jailor and the cartoonish villain in his custody. Their conversations and relationship go places I couldn’t have predicted and that buck convention. This is true across the board in these first two story arcs.
Stylistically, the narration moves easily between introspection, ethical philosophy, epic, lyric, action, and adventure. The comic has an impressive stylistic range (visually and verbally) that only grows once artist Billy Graham comes on board. Yes, it’s a book bound to the ugly racial stereotypes of colonial fantasy, and it doesn’t ever directly undo or challenge those stereotypes; instead, it exaggerates them and reshapes them until they’re interestingly strange and unfamiliar. This is a classic that can still surprise.
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