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Review Date: 02/15/2009
Here in Bongo Congo, our
Good King Leonardo is very excited regarding our review
below of Issue #1 of the new Black Panther comic line.
The King hasn't stopped reminding us all week that
he and the Panther family are royal cousins! But first,
a review of one of the standards of the Marvel comic universe:
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Captain
America #46
Publisher: Marvel Comics
Ed Brubaker: Writer
Steve Epting: Artist
Frank D'Armata: Colors |
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The latest issue of Captain
America is the first story in a three-issue story arc
entitled "Old Friends And Enemies." I was drawn
(no comic-related pun intended) to read the comic
in light of the past year's well-publicized death
of Steve Rodgers, a.k.a. Captain America.
For those uninitiated readers, Marvel at this stage
of the game has Cap's old sidekick, James "Bucky"
Barnes, putting on the famed cowl and picking-up the
shield to carry-on the famed Captain America legacy.
Issue #46 begins with a first-page narrative that provides
a backstory explanation that during World War
II, Cap and Bucky rescued 12-year-old Chinese supergenius
Zhang Chin, who as an adult scientist today has recovered
the remains of the original Human Torch and is secretly
racing to revive him as a slave. The issue alternates
between the present-day, where the new Captain America
is traveling to China with The Submariner to try to
stop the mad experiment, and two flashback periods:
the original 1942 rescue of the boy-scientist by the
heroes, and a 1968 botched assassination attempt on
Zhang Chin by Bucky in his role as the Soviet-controlled
Winter Soldier, which ended in the death of Zhang's
wife. An entertaining sub-plot has The
Black Widow assisting the heroes in obtaining Zhang's
whereabouts through her international espionage contacts.
I was very impressed with Ed Brubaker's plotting of
this story, which seamlessly combines the WW
II-era activities of Captain America, Bucky and
Submariner with their present-day actions. It
seems rare to me, at least, to come across a Marvel
Comic story these days that isn't either squarely
set in the present or alternately set completely back
in the Golden Age. Much credit is due to Brubaker
for skillfully combining both eras into one competent
plot. Presented with Epting and D'Armata's
quality art, and we have one very entertaining
kick-off to this three- issue story arc.
My only criticism is that the issue's cover is very
misleading. While it's a beautiful rendering
by Epting of Captain America and The Submariner battling
each other in the water, it has nothing to do with
the plot of the two working together as teammates
to try and help The Human Torch. But its a minor
point, which doesn't take away from an enthusiastic
thumbs-up for this comic book that features two
of Marvel's classic A-list superhero characters.
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Black
Panther-Dark Reign#1
Publisher: Marvel
Reginald Hudlin: Writer
Ken Lashley: Pencils
Paul Neary: Inks
Paul Mounts: Colors |
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As part of the across-the-company
Dark Reign series, Marvel has released issue #1 of
a new Black Panther comic book series. Black
Panther was originally created by Stan Lee and Jack
Kirby back in the 1960's as T'Challa, ruler of the
fictional African nation of Wakanda, a high-tech land based
on the existence of a rare element known as Vibranium.
The ruler of the land traditionally wears the Black
Panther garb as head-of-state, and has access to a
rare herb that grants him super strength and agility.
The character has a long and storied past in many
Marvel Comic series beginning with the Fantastic Four
in the 1960's. My personal favorite was the
Black Panther's own Kirby-penned title that ran
in the late 1970's, which involved interesting
science fiction and time-travel themes.
As mentioned above, the latest Black Panther comic
takes place in the new Dark Reign Marvel plotline,
in which Harry Osborne is taking control of national
security issues. The first issue storyline alternates
between two sub-plots. In the first, T'Challa's
wife Storm, of the X-Men, witnesses a plane-crash
in Wakanda, in which T'Challa is critically injured.
Its determined that the crash was caused by sabatauge,
leading the royal family to realize that at least
for now, they need to immediately designate a new
Black Panther leader to don the costume and lead the
nation against further possible attack.
The second storyline consists of flashbacks over the
previous day, as T'Challa has tense confrontations
with both The Submariner and Dr. Doom over the Norman
Osborn situation, hinting to the reader
that these conflicts led to the deadly plane crash.
Although its not included by the end of the first
issue, it's clear from the comic book cover as well
as Marvel's advertising campaign that issue #2 will
anoint an unknown female to take T'Challa's place
as the new Black Panther.
As a big Black Panther fan, I was happy to see this
new comic line begin. I found the flashback
sub-plot well-paced and entertaining, but the main
storyline surrounding the crash and leadership crisis
dragged much too slowly. By the end of the issue,
we only know that a new leader needs to be appointed,
with absolutely no reference yet to the main plotpoint
of a new female leader emerging. This extra-large,
$3.99 issue concludes the story after 22 pages, followed
by an extremely-detailed, 10-page historical chronology
of the character, and then a 6-page "preview" of issue
#2. I suspect that Marvel had a deadline
issue here, choosing to publish an incomplete
story combined with filler to keep issue #1's publication
on-schedule.
While this is a high-quality production, we really
are given only about two-third's of a normal issue
storyline, which really isn't fair to the casual reader.
I recommend the comic to Black Panther fans who plan
on commiting to reading the series beyond issue
#1, but warn the casual reader that reading only this
issue leaves you hanging with the feeling that part
of the issue is missing. Here's hoping that
Marvel gives us more complete story segments in the
upcoming issues, which both this fine title and the
readers deserve.
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Contest
Winner Announcement!
Our latest contest was for you to submit your favorite
comic book single issue from the decade of the 1970's
and tell us why the "That 70's Show" issue is so near
and dear to your comic book lovin' heart. The Bongo
Congo panel of judges didn't receive as many entries as
we did for our decade of the 80's contest, but that's
o.k., its harder for the aging fans of the older decades
to figure-out how to use this new-fangled e-mail thing!
Ken at That's Entertainment offered
a fond memory for Avengers #142, an issue entitled "Go
West, Young Gods!" The issue featured Thor, Moondragon
and Immortus time-traveling to 1873 in search of Hawkeye,
giving us a nice mix of Marvel superheroes and western
heroes. Ken says what really grabbed him about this
comic was the incredible, misleading spectacle of a cover
by the esteemed Gil Kane, along with some excellent interior
art from George Perez's early days.
My own personal favorite 70's
comic emerged from Jack Kirby's 1970's resurgence over
at DC Comics, as he single-handedly produced the wide-ranging
Kirby's Fourth World series, starting in Superman's Pal
Jimmy Olson and creating such new comic series as The
Forever People, Kamandi, OMAC, The Sandman and Mister
Miracle. If I had to pick one issue from this wonderful
mix, I would have to put forth Kamandi #2.
While Kamandi issue #1 gave us
Kirby's credible spin on The Planet Of The Apes story
theme, issue #2 really began to provide the reader with
Kirby's wonderful and very unique take on this futuristic,
post-civilization world of sentient animals intent on
recreating our civilization while repeating all of
the same human mistakes that we're known for. Kirby
also established in issue #2 his amazing two-page panaromic
scene on pages 2 and 3 of many of the Kamandi series.
I seem to recall one of the issues in the series giving
us a fantastic recreation of The Charge Of The Light Brigade
featuring sentient, military leopards.
And now onto our contest winner!
Our judges have selected (drumroll, please)...Bret Herholz
with his submittal of Star Wars issue #26. Bret
tells us that the legendary Carmine Infantino gave us
artwork for this one that looked nothing like the Star
Wars characters, with Luke Skywalker actually looking
like a cross between Conan The Barbarian and Kamandi!
This issue had Luke on the cover,
standing over the smoldering remains of R2D2. It
made such a strong impression on Bret when he first read
it back in the second grade at West Main Street School
in Spencer, that he bought two more copies over the years
as it wore out from re-reading, and he now has one fine
issue hanging on his wall, signed by Carmine Infantino
at last year's Boston Comic Con! An excellent choice
of a favorite 1970's comic book with some fine comic memories.
Great choice, Bret, King Leonardo is jealous and decrees
that we hunt-down Mr. Infantino to provide our Lion King
with his own autographed copy!
So there you
have it, good readers. From everyone Here In Bongo
Congo, have a great comic reading
week and be sure to come back next week for new comic
reviews and a new contest announcement.
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