Black Panther: Wakanda Forever - official trailer. Warning: potential spoilers!

Thanks to Charlie Horse 47 and Killdumpster for their sponsorship of this post, via the magic of Patreon. 

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Just the other day, I stunned mankind by posting the trailer for the Thor movie that's currently thrilling the cinemas of the world.

However, in the wake of all that, it was pointed out to me that there's another Marvel trailer on the loose.

And that's for Wakanda Forever, the Black Panther movie that, for obvious reasons, is going to have to get by without its titular character.

Can it pull that off?

Judging by the trailer, it looks like it can, with Angela Bassett, in particular, happy to give it some welly.

I must confess I've still not seen the first Black Panther movie yet and, so, can pass no judgment upon either its style or its quality but this one looks like it's going to be highly dramatic and its trailer's noticeably devoid of the flippancy that defined the Thor one.

I'm assuming, from it, that Wakanda and Atlantis are going to find themselves at war with each other. I also assume that'll be down to the Machiavellian machinations of some villain or other.

Either way, it's good to see the Sub-Mariner finally turning up in the Marvel Cinematic Universe, complete with green swimming trunks. And for him to have his trident with him - even if it seems to only have one prong.

Does that make it a unident?

Frankly, I have no idea.

The Black Panther movie trailer.

By the chilling mists of Serpent Valley! Is there no end to how many super-hero movies we can take?

Seemingly not - because, hot on the heels of eighty five billion and one other comic book adaptations, we've now been blessed with a teaser trailer for Marvel's Black Panther.

Well, the last Marvel trailer I saw was the one for Thor: Ragnarok. Given that the Panther is noticeably more Earthbound than the thunder god, can this possibly hope to live up to that for thrills, chills and spills?

Here's were we find out...



Well, that was all every nice, wasn't it? It all looked suitably photogenic in the way you'd expect it to. Otherwise, it's hard to have an opinion really. As far as I can see, all we really learn from it is that the Black Panther is in it and Wakanda is in it. Call me psychic but I sort of took those two things for granted.

But what else is in it?

Is Killmonger in it?

Is Baron Macabre in it?

Is Monica Lynne in it?

Is that bloke who's in the chair, talking about Wakanda, Klaw before his transformation?

I have no idea.

All that apart, my main impression from watching the teaser is of a strange and annoying visual gloom. It has to depict the most underlit sequence of events I've seen since Aliens v Predator 2, a film that was so dark that we had to take their word for it that there were actually even any aliens and predators in it. I trust the entire movie won't be shot in such gloom and that the scenes where they remembered to turn the lights on simply failed to make it into the trailer.

Still, if the trailer doesn't really tell us anything, there's nothing in it that sets the alarm bells ringing. For instance, there's no sign of Jack Kirby's Black Musketeers or of King Solomon's Frog.

Then again, there's no sign of Hatch-22 or whatever he was called, who I would love to see show up in a Marvel movie.

But, good grief. I'm so stupid that I've only just realised that, "Hatch-22," is a pun on, "Catch-22."

Then again, it took me forty years to realise, "The Cod War," was a pun on, "The Cold War." How different the past seems when you suddenly realise these things.

Jungle Action #6 - Panther's Rage.

Inspired by the Black Panther's appearance in the trailer for Captain America's Civil War movie, which has just been unleashed upon the world, I thought I'd do a review of the first instalment of Panther's Rage, the saga that filled the pages of Jungle Action for almost a year in the 1970s.

The series made a huge impact on me when I first read it reprinted in Marvel UK's Planet of the Apes and it was probably my favourite ever comic book storyline when I was a youth.

Unfortunately, my attempt at doing a normal review of it was a total disaster. So, instead, I thought I'd try a different tack and break it all down to its bare essentials.

So, here goes.

Plot:
The Panther returns to Wakanda after a lengthy absence, super-heroing in America with the Avengers.

Upon returning, he finds that many of his subjects resent him for his absence and now doubt that he's capable of leading his country any more.

To make matters worse, civil war's broken out in his kingdom's extremities and a ruthless giant of a man called Erik Killmonger is out to overthrow him.

What's good about this issue:
Rich Buckler draws it like he's capable of drawing it, instead of drawing it like he's Jack Kirby with a broken arm, which means it looks great.

There's plenty of conflict between the characters.

Don McGregor gives us his determination to make comics more grown-up but, for now, avoids the over-verbosity that can drag his writing down when it goes into overdrive.

Nothing's black and white. The Panther may be the tale's hero but there's no doubt he's ignored his responsibilities to his country and his people and is at least partially to blame for what's happening.

Erik Killmonger's a genuinely menacing villain and clearly physically too much for our hero to handle.

The Black Panther gets to fight a leopard.

What's bad about it:
The Panther's American girlfriend Monica Lynne is spectacularly annoying and insists on calling T'Challa, "Ta-Charlie," which is the sort of thing you could imagine the Thing calling him. In fact, the Thing probably did call him that at some point. It makes me wonder if, next issue, she'll start to declare, "It's clobbering time!" at every opportunity.

W'Kabi, T'Challa's head of security, has clearly taken belly-aching lessons from Killraven's Hawk and spends the entire issue griping to the Panther about how he's let his country down and that he's probably not fit to rule it anymore. He really is the biggest wet blanket you've ever met and, as far as I can remember, he manages to keep his world-class complaining going all the way through the series. How he manages to keep his job is anyone's guess. The Panther must have the patience of a saint.

Tayete and Kazibe, Killmonger's two henchmen, quickly become portrayed as hapless and almost endearing comic-relief characters, even though they're ruthless killers. It's a shift in tone that feels somewhat uncomfortable, bearing in mind that we first encounter them torturing an old man to death.

The tale's too short. It's only thirteen pages. The thing's over almost as soon as it's started. Fortunately, that failing's resolved in later issues, with the strip expanding to completely fill the book.

The verdict:
Overall, it's a strong introductory episode. It looks good, it has a great moodiness to it, quickly gets us up to speed as to what's happening, introduces the major players and conflicts and features more of McGregor's strengths than his weaknesses. There's really little to hint at the strangeness and the ambition of what's to come but there's enough in it to make you know it's not going to be a typical super-hero strip. I can understand why I loved it as a youth, even though I can see its flaws as an adult.

This week, I have mostly been reading...

"Steve!" I hear you cry. "What have you been reading lately and when are you going to review it?"

Well, I've been reading quite a lot lately - and I'm going to be reviewing almost none of it.

This isn't because a strange new wave of apathy has swept across my living room. It's because most of the comics I've read lately, I don't have anything to say about that I've not said about other issues in their respective series.

For instance, much as I love Charlton's Midnight Tales, I can't think of anything to say about issues #5 and #12 that I didn't say in my reviews of issues #8 and #9.

Therefore, in the absence of fresh new opinions, I'm going to give you a quick round-up of what I've been looking at.

It's the second part of the Red Rajah saga, as the girl Defenders take on the boy Defenders and make a better job of it than the boys ever did.

Don McGregor's Panther's Rage kicks off with T'Challa returning to Wakanda, only to find everyone's a bit fed-up of him.

Jack Kirby's short-lived take on the Avenger gives us men turning into monsters, as the Avenger gains a new sidekick and strikes a blow for racial equality in the pulp era.

It's like a cross between The Man Who Fell To Earth and Whistle Down The Wind, as Warlock arrives on Counter-Earth and promptly gains a bunch of disciples.

Gil Kane's art's fabby but Roy Thomas lays on the religious allegory so hard it's like being run over by a copy of the Bible.

It's more winningly quirky pleasantness from easily my favourite Charlton series, as Professor Coffin and Arachne have a Hellbound diversion.

And they're back again.

Reading The Shadow was the first time I ever liked Frank Robbins' artwork.

Here, the scarf-tastic super-doer finds himself mixed up in showbiz shenanigans.

With Frank Robbins still in charge, the Shadow's up against a smuggling operation at Niagara.

It's the Shadow vs the Avenger in the battle to see whose comic's going to be cancelled first. While the strip's still here, there's plenty of lovely E R Cruz artwork to savour.

More E R Cruz on the inside and a classic cover by Mike Kaluta on the outside, as the Shadow finds himself up against a town full of Satanists.

Or does he?

One of my Kung Fu faves, as Shang-Chi finds himself up against his best friend Midnight, from the era when Jim Starlin was still on the art and proving there was more to his repertoire than being Cosmic.

Jack Kirby's Black Panther #1.

If you've been keeping your ear to the internet, you may know, from other sources, that I recently had a dream in which Jack Kirby rewrote the Galactus Trilogy in the style of his 1970s' Marvel comics.

In it, the Silver Surfer became Shiny Waverider, a jive-talking brother from the 'hood, the Watcher became Chrome-Dome McGinty and Galactus became Mr Greedy.

I suspect this dream was prompted by memories of the first time I read issue #1 of Jack Kirby's Black Panther.

After having diligently and enthusiastically read all those issues of Don McGregor's Panther's Rage, it was a bit of a shock - not to mention a total let-down - to find my favourite Wakandan suddenly in the middle of an action-packed yarn about a time-portal in the shape of a frog

To be honest, at the time I felt appalled and even betrayed by developments. How could Marvel do this to me? How?

But that was then, and perspectives can change. So, how will my adult mind react to re-reading that tale for the first time since then?

What happens is this. The Panther and Mr Little (who's little) pay a visit to a man, only to find he's been murdered by a knight in shining armour. Refreshingly, the dead man isn't called Mr Dead.

After a brief fight, the Panther and Little depart with a statuette of a frog the dead man had been holding when they'd found him.

It turns out it once belonged to King Solomon and is in fact a time machine, sought by sinister forces who'll stop at nothing to get it.

By the end of the issue, Little has been killed and the Panther captured by Princess Zanda who wants the frog for herself.

That's when someone very strange indeed shows up...

To be honest, in terms of writing, the thing still seems terrible; crudely plotted and full of weirdly inappropriate and clumsy dialogue.

Characters are never developed in any way. We get to learn almost nothing about Mr Little and how the Panther came to be with him.

The murderous knight is left to simply run off into the outside world, with no attempt made to stop him, and the feeling you get is that Kirby could have removed the Panther from the tale and replaced him with Captain America, Kamandi or Ikaris from The Eternals and it would have made barely any difference to how he'd told it. Kirby in this era seemed to have no grasp of the idea of catering a story to suit the persona and powers of the central character, meaning it's basically a string of action-oriented images with no feeling of being an actual story.

On the art front, it's fine. I know I'm in a minority here but, as a kid, I always preferred Kirby's art in the Bronze Age to his work in the Silver Age and, while I appreciate his 1960s stuff a lot more now than I did then, I still like his Bronze Age stuff too.

The truth is that, by the 1970s, Kirby's imagination had simply gone too free-range for a non-super-powered character like the Panther or Captain America, meaning there's a terrible sense of the ill-judged and out-of-place about his writing for them.

I do though like the climax's enigmatic visitor having the ominous words, "Hatch 22," on his forehead. Of just what unknown menace does that phrase hint?

Fantastic Four Annual #5. "I will not 'av Psycho-Men in my Jungle!"

So it's 1975 and I'm on a coach headed for that Las Vegas of the north; Blackpool. Before the journey's over, I'll be reading Barry Smith's first ever Avengers story while Don Estelle and Windsor Davies "sing" Whispering Grass on the coach radio. It probably doesn't reflect well on me that such a song can be the highlight of a coach trip but I don't care. The phrase "Guilty Pleasure" is unknown to me, as I refuse to feel guilt.

But, before that moment arrives, I'm reading this week's Mighty World of Marvel and, within it, the Fantastic Four's first encounter with a deadly new peril known only as Psycho-Man.

Psycho-Man is good. Psycho-Man can control the emotions of mere humans and thus have total power over them. Psycho-Man's smaller than the smallest germ and can only be seen because he's inside a human-sized robot he controls with the power of his will.

But there's something wrong. While Psycho-Man's head has a teeny tiny man inside it, inside my head there's a tiny voice that says this story isn't as good as I'm used to from the Fantastic Four. I don't know why - I'm only eleven, I have few critical resources - but it feels like a 100 watt bulb's been suddenly replaced with a 40 watt bulb.

A zillion years later, I read the tale again, as an adult, in Essential Fantastic Four Vol 4  and it has exactly the same effect. To my adult self, it's like virtually every Fantastic Four tale printed in the three years preceding this tale was a classic and virtually everything in the three years following it was no better than mediocre. The feeling's so stark I can practically point to the exact panel in this story when the Fantastic Four's Silver Age golden age ended.

At the risk of being daring, I'll say it's either panel three of page four, or panel one of page nine. The first instance is where a trio of totally unnecessary lackeys are introduced for Psycho-Man to boss around - including one who's dressed as a cowboy(!). In the latter, it's where the story suddenly goes off at a tangent to introduce the Black Panther's first ever encounter with the Inhumans. In both cases, you're left in no doubt that Jack Kirby's now being left entirely to his own devices by Stan Lee when it comes to plotting the strip, and we find the tale being driven along by what seems to be a random flinging together of ideas and action, rather than coherence and planning.

A large part of the problem is that, although it's advertised as a Fantastic Four tale, they're barely in it. This is the issue where we learn that Sue Richards is pregnant. As a result, she and Mr Fantastic are in no mood to go adventuring. Instead, with two of the FF out of commission, we suddenly get the story veering off to Wakanda as the Black Panther and the Inhumans have a fight before teaming up to take on Psycho-Man who, by total coincidence has set up base under an island off the coast of that kingdom (even though we were told three pages earlier that his base is in the Caribbean). Kirby's lack of interest in characterisation's thrust in our faces in this segment as the Panther and the Inhumans team up, despite neither party making any attempt to introduce themself to the other.

Once inside the villain's lair, the heroes are confronted by Psycho-Man's irrelevant lackeys and defeat them. Now, from nowhere, the Human Torch, the Thing and Triton suddenly arrive without explanation, and our veritable army of heroes find themselves confronted by Psycho-Man's creations drawn from their worst nightmares.

With that fight going nowhere, Gorgon shows up from wherever it is he's been and, handily, it turns out his foot-stamping power's the only thing that's effective against Psycho-Man's handiwork, before the Panther, who's been forgot about, launches himself at the villain to stop him. Suddenly, and without warning, from being arguably the greatest American comic book of the 1960s, the strip's lurched into a valley of mediocrity and redundancy it'll rarely escape until after Jack Kirby leaves. So, for some of us, the tale of Psycho-Man represents a minor watershed in comic book history.

Still, not everything was negative about that coach trip. I loved and still love the Barry Smith Avengers yarn and, to my eternal surprise, I still love Don Estelle and Windsor Davies' version of Whispering Grass. The Fantastic Four may have changed on that fatal day but it seems some things will always remain the same.

Jungle-Action #15. The Black Panther gets the point.

If Johnny Rotten was right and he was the Anti-Christ, it strikes me that Don McGregor is the Anti-Kirby. Here, Jungle Action #15, he gives us the exact same concepts as Kirby would but approaches them from exactly the opposite direction.

Just as Kirby would've done, he gives us the Black Panther using a pterodactyl as a kind of airborne surfboard. Just like Kirby, he gives us, in King Cadaver, a man shrunken by radiation but gaining a giant head. And , of course, we get the issue's villain of the piece, who Kirby would no doubt have labelled Cactus Man.

Cactus Man; you can just see him stalking the pages of the Kirby Panther comic, with his powers of a cactus. But, whereas with Kirby, it would all have been an escapist romp with no emotional consequences for its protagonist, here, every page, every panel, is a feat of endurance for the characters (and occasionally the reader). This isn't Cactus Man, this is K'Ruel, and the whole tale lives up to that sobriquet as T'Challa is shot at with napalm, penetrated by a thousand spikes, left tied-up out in the sun, attacked by a pterodactyl and dropped from the sky towards a jungle of thorns. He's not the only one suffering. In the interludes, we get to visit the supporting cast, all of whom are having a tough time of it.

The days when Wakanda's main worry was a man who can't spell the word "claw" are long gone. Under McGregor's stewardship, the forces of revolution have risen against our hero. Because it's Don McGregor, the Panther isn't totally right and the bad guys aren't totally wrong. In fact, some could argue the Panther is completely wrong.

He's been wrong to spend all his time in America, having adventures with the Avengers, and neglecting his own kingdom. He's been wrong in failing to have ever asked his people if they actually want the brave new Wakanda he's created around them. Because it's Don McGregor, we know this because he tells us, using lots and lots and lots of words. Possibly the worst part of the story for this is where the Panther's American squeeze Monica Lynne visits some of the locals and promptly goes off on a long speech about plates that really makes no sense. Even McGregor seems to acknowledge this as the old woman Karota totally fails to understand the point she's trying to make.

It'd be interesting to see a Don McGregor synopsis. I'm used to hearing Stan Lee talk of the "Marvel Method" and how he'd often give an artist only a rough outline - or even just a sentence - and then leave him to get on with it, and how this became the standard practice for all writers at Marvel. But that can't be how McGregor did it, can it? The way Billy Graham's visual story-telling works in this tale's so similar to how Craig Russell's worked in Killraven that I assume McGregor must have given his artist something altogether more detailed to chew on. Graham's work seems darker, more visceral, than Russell's, with none of the light touches Russell would throw in, but the use of flashbacks, the pacing and the interludes is remarkably similar.

On re-reading, I think I prefer this to the Killraven story I reviewed a bit back. It has all the same flaws as that but, somehow, the moral ambiguities of a rebellion against a super-hero king who spends most of his time in another country and has made no attempt to listen to his people, seems to lend itself better to McGregor's style. It's still not perfect. Too many words, too little structure, too many cut-aways to other scenes that add nothing to the story. But, as with Killraven, it's wrong to dismiss it out of hand - even if you're not sure you're ever going to be able to make the effort that it'd take to read it again.