Created by Marvel Comics Legends Stan Lee and Jack Kirby, The Black Panther is considered the first Black superhero in American mainstream comics. Through a textual analysis, this book narrates the history of the character from his first appearance in 1966—the same year, the Black Panther Party was formed in Oakland, California—through Ta-Nehisi Coates’ version in 2015. It tells the story of how Black and white writers envisioned the character between those years, as a Patrice Lumumba to a Sidney Poitier to a Nelson Mandela to a hip-hop cool to a reflective, 21st century king. Along the way, the limitations of white liberalism and the boundless nature of the Black imagination are revealed. Marvel’s Black Panther is the first textual study of a superhero comic book character, examining its writers and the stories they have created over a fifty year period.
Jadual kandungan
FOREWORD
Makani Themba, community activist/strategist……………………………………. i
INTRODUCTION
Black Panther vs. White Panther………………………………………………………….v
CHAPTER ONE
From Patrice Lumumba to Sidney Poitier: Early Fantastic Four and
Avengers Appearances …………………………………………………………………………. 1
CHAPTER TWO
The Jungle Book—Don Mc Gregor Creates His Own Africa…………..17
CHAPTER THREE
The Finished Man—Don Mc Gregor (Almost) Completes His “Panther Novel”
………………………………………………………………………………….33
CHAPTER FOUR
The Return of the Kings—The Amazing and Wacky Adventures of
Jack Kirby’s Panther……………………………………………………………………………41
CHAPTER FIVE
The Client Was a Man of Remarkable Focus—A Panther and a Priest…………………………………………………………………………………………………..55
CHAPTER SIX
The Spy King—How Christopher Priest’s Panther Forever Shook Up the Avengers……………………………………………………………………………………….91
CHAPTER SEVEN
“Bad Mutha”—Reginald Hudlin’s Uncompromised Royal Black
(Super-) Man and the Unbridled Black Imagination………………………105
CHAPTER EIGHT
Side-Swipes—The New York Ghost Cop and the Wakandan Princess
as “Replacement” Panthers ………………………………………………………………123
CHAPTER NINE
The (Black) Man Without Fear—When T’Challa Replaced
Daredevil ………………………………………………………………………………………….135
CHAPTER TEN
Between the World and Him—Ta-Nehisi Coates’s Black Panther….145
CONCLUSION
The Panther In Captain America: Civil War……………………………………159
AFTERWORD
Dr. Gregory Carr, Chair, Africana Studies Department, Howard
University………………………………………………………………………………………….169
ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS………………………………………………………177