Here’s another recommended article talking about the early years of Black Panther in comics. I’ve not read those stories, something I’m going to remedy in a few minutes, but the article looking back at how the character formed in the early years is well worth reading.
The early appearances of Black Panther he had a lot of what made him great, but like a lot of other ideas in the initial few years of comics creation, the details were kind of left open. It took later writers to really flesh out what was only hinted at before. Sometimes unintentionally hinted at. Like I’ve read that Magento was just intended to be a villain and only later converted into the two halves of how to fight for equality. The MLK versus Malcolm X. It seems obvious with hindsight but they were so busy creating new things every month they didn’t have time to dwell. It was off to create next months dozen comics.
Black Panther’s struggle between being the leader his country wants and the hero the world needs makes for a great story. The movie looks like it’ll capture a lot of that dynamic. Can’t wait to go see it.
Also, I love this picture of Don McGregor posing as Black Panther. I think he’s posing, maybe he just always looked that awesome.
