A review by dozmuttz
Black Panther Epic Collection Vol. 1: Panther's Rage by Don McGregor

3.0

Uhhhh wow. This was a really tough read man. First off we do start off pretty great with the introduction into the Black Panther. Issues 52-53 of Fantastic Four were so fun and greatly drawn by Jack The King. It introduced us to such an important character in comics and Stan and Jack didn’t make him what most other black heroes were. A poor, gangbaing, jive talking person. No they made T’challa a leader with great intelligence and power. Loved those two issues. Now what I didn’t like was the jungle action issues. Don McGregor clearly wanted to write novels for a living opposed to comic books. Maybe he did before or after but he treated this run as though it was a novel. Now I’m not opposed to actually reading in my comic books lol but the Don in my opinion just didn’t make the story flow with his writing. Like I mentioned, there was a lot of narrating that didn’t need to be had. The dialogue was fine, but there was more of Don narrating the book than there was dialogue. At least it felt like it. Don would describe a scene as if we couldn’t already see it in the artwork. Most times it even seemed like he just took what he wrote in the script for Billy to Draw and put it on the damn page too. Now for the actual plots in this Epic Collection, not too bad. We get introduced to Killermonger which is a pretty badass dude but definitely had WAY more potential. I liked the idea of him fighting his way towards him but it felt short handed at the end. Killermonger almost gave me Bane vibe. Obviously coming before Bane. And I wish they would have taken that route with him. The Klan story was alright but at that point I was just tired of reading lol so I zoomed through it. Billy Graham is the true hero in all this. His artwork is amazing. I think some of his work was ahead of it’s time and just brilliantly drawn. To me he has the best looking Black Panther and adds beautiful detail to his characters. He also knows how to draw some beautiful women. MVP goes to him may he Rest In Peace. I hope Jack The King does better than Don The Dull.