Volume 38: Black Panther: Who is the Black Panther?

Black Panther: Who is the Black Panther?

Author: Reginald Hudlin  |   Illustrator: John Romita Jr

"Emotional? I'm happy. All my enemies in one place."

The Panther's superpower seems to be that he serves as the religious, political and military head of a warrior clan but is unable to see the inherent conflict of interests that's present in his situation. Reg Hudlin, filmmaker turned comic book writer, fills the story with ridiculous schoolyard ideals and real world prejudices cranked to maximum level. What should've been a poignant subtext is instead a sledgehammer that forces the reader to either agree or disagree with what appears to be a skewed and discriminatory point of view.

The one-dimensional stereotypes are taken to ill-conceived extremes, so will be offensive to people sensitive to that kind of thing. I'm generally not, but I dislike bigots. We're constantly reminded that everyone who isn't black or Wakandan (the Panther's place of origin) is a selfish villain. Hudlin's selective misanthropy gets directed at his fellow Americans (for wanting to exploit natural resources), the British (for their slave trade), the Russians (for simply being Russian), and the French (for not dying needlessly in WWII). Some of those are justifiable. Some DEFINITELY aren't.

I'm aware that I maybe misunderstood Hudlin's intention, but if that's the case then there's the flip side of the argument: he wasn't being an ass, but by making almost everyone racist he was being unclear and damaging his cause, so either way the end result is the same.

I got the impression that he thought he was creating some kind of laudable political statement that was also high art designed to facilitate a colonial and/or post-colonial reading, but his primary concern swamped the narrative needlessly, creating something unbalanced and unreliable. I had to ask myself repeatedly, 'Is this just political commentary, or is there a large dollop of misdirected satire included?' I believe it was intended as both, but in my experience satire ceases to be just that when the speaker succumbs to the same thing that they're supposed to be satirising.

The Wakandans consider themselves morally superior to other nations, but will happily indulge in some murderous revenge when the opportunity arises. Oh, and they have a cure for cancer but withhold it from the rest of the world for judgemental reasons; it's okay if the children die, because they aren't our children. Someone ought to introduce them to the 'teach by example' method.

Art is by John Romita Jr, so I don't even need to go into any depth there. We should all know by now how good he is at his job.

The book collects together Black Panther (Vol IV) #1-6.

Verdict: