Black Panther

Black Panther Book Club, Week 2 of 4: Black Panther by Christopher Priest issues #13-24

February 13, 2018 by krisis

It’s our second of four sessions of Black Panther Book Club to read some of the stories that seem to be the biggest influences on Marvel’s Black Panther film, out next week.

In this installment, we follow the Black Panther through some rote Avengers adventures and then watch as he code-shifts to hang out with his fellow 1970s black Marvel heroes (and Iron Fist). Then we meet Erik Killmonger, back from the dead again and ready to usurp T’Challa’s reign.

Want to keep up with the reading assignments all this month? Here’s our full schedule for the month – visit the Guide to Black Panther to learn how to collect these issues.

Tuesday, February 6: Fantastic Four (1961) issues #52-53 and Black Panther (1998) issues #1-12
Tuesday, February 13: Black Panther (1998) issues #13-24
Tuesday, February 20: Black Panther (1998) issues #25-35
Tuesday, February 27: Black Panther (2016) issues #1-12

The Pull List: Justice League, Mech Cadet Yu, Batman, Giant Days, X-Men Red, & more!

February 9, 2018 by krisis

My pull list just keeps getting bigger and better! This week, The Pull List is twenty-six issues long with seven new number ones, four issues with Batman, and an average rating of 3.17.

What did I pull this week? Well, I’m still not caught up on my Superman, but I’ve got a pretty big cross-section of DC and Marvel on my list, plus a handful of smaller publisher titles!

Aftershock Comics
- Monstro Mechanica (2017) #3
Boom! Studios
- Giant Days (2015) #35
- Mech Cadet Yu (2017) #6
Dark Horse
- Incognegro – Renaissance (2018) #1
DC Comics
- Batman (2016) #40
- Exit Stage Left: The Snagglepuss Chronicles (2018)#2
- Justice League (2016) #38
- Milk Wars: Mother Panic / Batman Special (2018)
- Swamp Thing Winter Special (2018) #1
- Young Monsters In Love (2018) #1
Image Comics
- Paper Girls (2015) #20
- Twisted Romance (2018) #1
- VS (2018) #1
- Witchblade (2017) #3
Marvel Comics
- Avengers (2017) #679
- Black Bolt (2017) #10
- Black Panther – Sound And Fury (2018) #1
- Hawkeye (2017) #15
- Iceman (2017) #10
- Infinity Countdown (2018) – Adam Warlock One-Shot
- Rise of the Black Panther (2018) #2
- Rogue & Gambit (2018) #2
- Runaways (2017) #6
- Spider-Man (2016) #237
- X-Men: Gold (2017) #21
- X-Men: Red (2018) #1

Marvel/DC Issue of the Week: Justice League (2016) #38, DC Comics

Justice League is finally back to being amongst DC’s most exciting books every month with Christopher Priest at the helm for the first time since Darkseid War in the latter part of New 52 in 2015.

Marco Santucci’s pencils on this are brilliant right out of the gate! Flash’s one-man reenactment of Sandra Bullock in Gravity is riveting and an absolutely amazing blend of real science and comics magic. It plays out over a League realizing just how reliant they’ve become on technology, both to back them up and to tell them what to do and where to be.

What makes the story unusual is that Batman is the physical representation of that weakness – not Cyborg. As a brilliant tactician who is just a regular man, Batman uses technology to enhance his detective skills and the breadth of his knowledge. Yet, that can easily be used as his own Kryptonite when there’s a situation he cannot strategize his way out of.

Just as Flash keeps emphasizing “I’m only a scientist, not an engineer” as he tries to arrest his free float through space, Cyborg is an engineer first and a tactician second. He’s not Batman. He “doesn’t want to be the boss.”

What happens when Cyborg has to take charge of the League in a way that’s greater than just Boom Tubing them from place to place? Can he fake being a leader with engineering in the same way Flash fakes being an engineer with science?

I don’t know, but I am transfixed by this Christopher Priest arc!

Small Publisher Issue of the Week: Mech Cadet Yu (2017) #6, Boom! Studios

With the way this book has been going, it’s going to be really hard for anything to excite me more in a week that it’s on the stands.

If you haven’t seen my breathless catch-up on this Greg Pak/Takeshi Miyazawa series in this week’s Back Issue Review, here’s the skinny: years ago a giant semi-organic robot crashed to Earth and bonded with a pilot, and ever since then four mechs descend into our atmosphere each year.

To find the four pilots that will bond, the US maintains a Hogwarts-esque Mech Academy to train the best and the brightest. We need them, because a race giant Kaiju monsters named Shargs are constantly creeping into our orbit and can only be repelled by the mechs.

We’re in the middle of the second arc of this book now after it was extended past a mini-series, presumably for just being unbelievably excellent (and also selling a few copies). I cannot tell you the last time I got this nervous about characters in a comic book being in peril.

This series continues to perfectly toe the line between Pacific Rim and Harry Potter, and I just want there to be 20x as much of it so I can keep reading more! [Read more…] about The Pull List: Justice League, Mech Cadet Yu, Batman, Giant Days, X-Men Red, & more!

Black Panther Book Club, Week 1 of 4: Black Panther by Christopher Priest issues #1-12

February 6, 2018 by krisis

Tonight is the first of four sessions of Black Panther Book Club to celebrate the release of Marvel’s Black Panther film later this month.

We’ll spend three weeks tackling the first half of the Christopher Priest run that massively influences the movie, then switch gears to read Ta’Nehisi’s Coates’ modern run on the character.

In today’s installment, we meet the Dora Milaje for the first time, learn why T’Challa is on American soil, and see his sovereign rule nearly usurped back in Wakanda!

Want to keep up with the reading assignments all this month? Here’s our full schedule for the month – visit the Guide to Black Panther to learn how to collect these issues.

Tuesday, February 6: Fantastic Four (1961) issues #52-53 and Black Panther (1998) issues #1-12
Tuesday, February 13: Black Panther (1998) issues #13-24
Tuesday, February 20: Black Panther (1998) issues #25-35
Tuesday, February 27: Black Panther (2016) issues #1-12

Black Panther by Christopher Priest, Vol. 1 – The #41 Most-Wanted Marvel Omnibus of 2017

May 23, 2017 by krisis

For a character about to be starring in his own Marvel Cinematic Universe film, Black Panther has relatively few long-running series, and even fewer enduring classic stories.

Christopher Priest’s 60-plus issue run beginning in 1998 is both. It’s a fun, funny, challenging read that makes the most of the comic medium and T’Challa’s status as super hero and sovereign.

Black Panther by Christopher Priest, Vol. 1 is the #41 Most-Wanted Marvel Omnibus of 2017 on Tigereyes’s Secret Ballot. Visit the Marvel Masterworks Message Board to view the original posting of results by Tigereyes. To collect these issues (and more), visit the Guide to Black Panther.

Past Ranking: This volume has slid seven spots from #34 in 2016.

Probable Contents: Black Panther (1998) #1-35 & Deadpool (1997) #44

Creators: Written by Christopher Priest.

Priest launched with Joe Quesada co-writing #1-4 with art from Mark Texeira. After that, Priest was joined by an army of pencilers – with over half of the issues by Sal Velluto and others including Vince Evans (#5), Joe Jusko (#6-8), Amanda Conner (#8), Mike Manley (#9-10), Mark “Doc” Bright (#11-12 & 24), Kyle Hotz (#18), Norm Keith Breyfogle (#30), & Jim Calafiore (#34-35)

Can you read it right now? Yes, in just two books – Black Panther by Christopher Priest: The Complete Collection Volume 1 and Volume 2. For more details (and the following volumes), see the Guide to Black Panther. Plus, it’s available in-full on Marvel Unlimited.

The Details:

The 80s and 90s diminished Black Panther from a leading man and Avenger to a minor character practically in exile aside from a pair of mini-series and a run of quarter-issue stories in Marvel Comics Presents.

That’s part of why Christopher Priest’s 62-issue run on 1998’s Black Panther is such a revelation – Panther simply hadn’t been seen or used at length in nearly two decades. Also, Priest marked the first time a black author scripted T’Challa (though he had long been associated with black artists, from Billy Graham on his original run to Denys Cowan and Dwayne Turner pencilling him in those 1988 and 1991 mini-series, respectively).

It’s also very good comics. [Read more…] about Black Panther by Christopher Priest, Vol. 1 – The #41 Most-Wanted Marvel Omnibus of 2017

Marvel series still awaiting an omnibus from the Masterworks Era (1961 – 1980)

May 5, 2017 by krisis

This is the final post in our series time-traveling backwards through Marvel’s era of comic books to see what books would make fantastic omnibuses, and this is a big one – it’s what I’m calling “The Masterworks Era.”

After this post, you should have more than enough ammo to fill out your 2017 Most Wanted Marvel Omnibus Secret Ballot, which is due by Sunday at midnight! I’ve suggested over a hundred possible votes!

What exactly is “The Masterworks Era,” aside from something I just made up? It refers to the period of comcis that Marvel has covered with their deluxe, standard-size hardcover Marvel Masterworks reprint line. The Silver Age portion of the line begins with Fantastic Four #1 in 1961.

The end is a little fuzzier. The Silver Age is understood to end in 1970-71, but with a handful of exceptions Marvel has already pushed past that point with every line of Masterworks collections. In fact, their newest two Masterworks lines are The Spectacular Spider-Man (1976), Spider-Woman (1978), and The Savage She-Hulk (1980)!

Yes, that’s right – Masterworks now cover comics that began in the 1980s! That’s like when the oldies station of my youth started playing Madonna songs. Plus, the farthest outlier, Uncanny X-Men, has reached all the way up to issue #188 in 1984.

When it comes to classic Omnibuses, until this year Marvel followed a specific formula almost every time – one omnibus contained three Masterworks volumes. We’re now seeing them deviate from that formula with Amazing Spider-Man, Daredevil, and Thor, all of which contained more than the customary three volumes.

To figure out what comics are due for potential omnibuses to feature in this post, I had to first figure out both what has been covered by Masterworks volumes and what has been skipped! That’s not really a part of this discussion, but if you’re interested, I’ve shown my work.

A list of titles that are eligible for Masterworks treatment

Marvel Spotlight (1971), an anthology series which branches to:
- Red Wolf (1972) – This has never been reprinted in color, but does not have enough material for an omnibus.
- Werewolf by Night (1972) – This has been reprinted in Omnibus, but could still be Masterworked
- Ghost Rider (1973) – This has never been reprinted in color and is listed below!
- Son of Satan (1975) – This received a TPB collection in 2016 and is too short to be an omnibus on its own.
- Spider-Woman (1978) – This has begun to be Masterworked and could be an omnibus, but we need more MMW volumes first.
- Moon Knight (1980)– Collected in color in Epic collections and could be an omnibus; it is listed below
- Plus, the Deathlok MMW line, Warriors Three stories in the Thor MMW line, and a Fury story in the Nick Fury MMW line
The Cat (1972) – Collected in the Women of Marvel Omnibus
Chamber of Chills (1972) – A horror anthology; this has never been reprinted fully in color.
Marvel Premiere (1972), an anthology series featuring:
- Warlock (1972) – This has been fully Masterworked and could be an omnibus; it is listed below
- Doctor Strange (1974) – This has begun to be Masterworked and could be an omnibus; it is listed below
- Iron Fist (1975) – This has been fully Masterworked and could be an omnibus; it is listed below
- Doctor Who – This is licensed material.
- And shorter runs and one shots of Hercules, Satana, Legion of Monsters (Ghost Rider, Man-Thing, Morbius, Werewolf by Night), Liberty Legion, Woodgod, Monark Starstalker (before Star Wars!), Solomon Kane, 3-D Man, Weirdworld, Torpedo, Seeker 3000, Tigra, Paladin, Jack of Hearts, Man-Wolf, Ant-Man (Scott Lang), Falcon, Alice Cooper, Black Panther, Caleb Hammer, Wonder Man, Dominic Fortune, and Star-Lord
Night Nurse (1972), collected in the Women of Marvel Omnibus
Shanna, the She-Devil (1972), collected in the Women of Marvel Omnibus
Supernatural Thrillers (1972), a horror anthology; this has never been reprinted fully in color.
Tomb of Dracula (1972) and Dracula Lives (1973) – This has been reprinted in Omnibus, but could still be Masterworked
Frankenstein (1973) – Collected in color in TPB and is too brief for an omnibus
Vampire Tales (1973) – An anthology series featuring Blade and Morbius. This has been collected in TPB and could be Masterworked, but it’s too short to be an omnibus without including other material.
Haunt of Horror (1974), which included Satana stories
Master of Kung Fu (1974) and The Deadly Hands of Kung Fu (1974) – Collected in Omnibus but not Masterworked.
Man-Thing (1974 / 1979) – Collected in both an omnibus and a Complete Collection line, but not Masterworked.
The Invaders (1975) – Collected in a pair of Complete Collections, and previously in Classics; could still be Omnibused – listed below.
Marvel Chillers (1975), an anthology series featuring:
- Modred the Mystic, not collected
- Tigra, not collected
Marvel Presents (1975), an anthology series featuring:
- Bloodstone, not collected
- Guardians of the Galaxy, which has been collected in omnibus and could conceivably hit Masterworks
Super-Villain Team-Up (1975) – Collected in a single Complete Collection; too short for omnibus, but could appear in a Namor omnibus line.
Captain Britain (1976) – Collected entirely in a pair of OHCs; could still be Masterworked, but an omnibus would be redundant since there’s nothing left to add.
The Eternals (1976) – Collected in one of Marvel’s early omnibuses; could still be Masterworked
Howard the Duck (1976 / 1979) – Collected in both an omnibus and a Complete Collection line; could still be Masterworked
Nova (1976) – Collected completely in a paperback Classic line, but not omnibus or Masterworks – so it’s covered below!
Omega the Unknown (1976) – Too short to be an omnibus; has been collected in TPB, but could be Masterworked
What If? (1977) – Collected in a paperback Classics line, but not in omnibus – so it’s covered below!
Devil Dinosaur (1978) – Previously collected in omnibus, and recently in paperback; could be Masterworked!
Machine Man (1978) – Collected in a single TPB in 2016 and has previously appeared on the survey; however, without the rights to reprint 2001: A Space Odyssey material Marvel likely can’t expand this to an omnibus.
Amazing Adventures (1979), an anthology series which branches to:
- Inhumans content in their MMW line; could be omnibused
- Beast content in the X-Men MMW line; could be omnibused
- Killraven, which has not been reprinted in color and could be omnibused
Marvel Spotlight (1979), an anthology series which branches to:
- the final volume of the Captain Marvel MMW line
- A handful of Dragon-Lord stories, uncollected
- Star-Lord, collected variously with Guardians of the Galaxy (including in Omnibus)
- Captain Universe, as a spin-off from Micronauts, collected in Captain Universe: Power Unimaginable; not enough material for ominbus

This list omits Western titles like Tex Dawson, Gunslinger (1973), Gun-Slinger (1973), and Gunhawks (1972) and licensed material Marvel can’t Masterwork, including Conan, Doc Savage, Godzilla, The Human Fly, John Carter, Kull, Micronauts, Planet of the Apes, Red Sonja (in her own title and in Marvel Feature (1975), Shogun Warriors, Star Trek, Tarzan, 2001: A Space Odyssey, and The Wizard of Oz (based on the film).

How am I defining “due” here? It’s any superhero universe series that the Masterworks line has skipped entirely or any Masterworks line with three or more un-omnibused volumes.

Any comic with a Masterworks line that’s in-progress with only one or two volumes is not included: Ka-Zar, Luke Cage, Marvel Team-Up, Marvel Two-in-One, Not Brand Echh Vol. 1, Rarities Vol. 1, Rawhide Kid, She-Hulk, Spectacular Spider-Man, Spider-Woman.

I also didn’t include the one-and-done Masterworks volumes Champions and Deathlok as potential omnibuses, since the omnibus would be the same as the Masterworks!

Are you ready to travel back in time from 1980 to the beginning of Marvel’s Silver Age in 1961? Here we go! [Read more…] about Marvel series still awaiting an omnibus from the Masterworks Era (1961 – 1980)