Black Panther Epic Collection, v. 1: Panther's Rage

Collects: Fantastic Four #52-3 and Jungle Action #6-24 (1966, 1973-6)

Released: September 2016 (Marvel)

Format: 400 pages / color / $34.99 / ISBN: 9781302901905

What is this?: The Black Panther, ruler of the African nation of Wakanda, deals with Erik Killmonger’s rebellion, then goes to America and fights the Ku Klux Klan

The culprits: Writer Don McGregor and artists Rich Buckler and Billy Graham, with help from Jack Kirby and Gil Kane

The ‘70s Black Panther Epic Collection, v. 1: Panther’s Rage was the Black Panther’s first chance to step into the spotlight alone, and the result is simultaneously ahead of its time and firmly of its time period.

Panther’s Rage is ahead of its time because the Jungle Action run is one long story, in which the Black Panther has to deal with a rebellion in Wakanda led by Erik Killmonger, plus the beginning of another. Such long-form stories were uncommon in the ‘70s, although they weren’t unheard of. Also, having the entire cast be people of color was almost unprecedented in a mainstream comic. On the other hand, writer Don McGregor’s narration is very much like some of his more ambitious ‘70s contemporaries: verbose, contemplative, philosophical, and very, very purple.

Most contemporary readers are likely to be struck by the latter rather than the former. When characters can talk to one another, breaking the monotony of a single voice, McGregor’s insistence on making abstract arguments is bearable, even interesting. But when the Panther is on his own, fighting Killmonger’s lieutenants single-handedly, the page is crowded with narrative boxes, making the book a chore to read. Even dialogue doesn’t always help; by the end, McGregor gives newspaper reporter Kevin Trublood long monologues about America and haranguing lectures about racism that drag on and on without advancing the story or McGregor’s theses.

McGregor gives the reader passages like this:

“Cruelty. It’s a word you understand like the word pain … You give it a vague definition and file it away, hoping you never have to learn what the word really means. He wishes the torture weren’t so mindless, that it had a point, a reason that would justify such inhumanity. But reasons are scarce … more for fiction than life.” — Jungle Action #15 (p. 205)

That’s two panels on a five-panel page, and it’s a good example of the verbiage that crowds the page. It’s not badly written, and we can argue about how original its insights are; it’s definitely dense, though, and I find it overwritten. (And who bolded “vague definition”? Those are the least interesting words in the quote.) McGregor isn’t interested in subtlety, but when he does opt for that route, it can be effective; for instance, the death of a bird trapped in a substance Killmonger uses to capture dinosaurs is among the most moving moments in the book, even though the bird is in only three panels with minimal narration.

With other writers, this sort of narration might be a sign of the writer’s lack of confidence in the artist, but I think McGregor works well with Rich Buckler and Billy Graham. I think McGregor lacks confidence in art in general, though. (And in Black Panther himself: I’ve never seen Black Panther get defeated as often as he does in this book. I mean, a cop pistol whips Panther in a supermarket, for Priest’s sake.) McGregor wants adjectives and adverbs, intensifiers and modifiers, that the art just can’t provide. Plus, no artist can draw an interior monologue with narrative philosophical digressions, and that’s what McGregor ladles onto the page.

McGregor needed someone to edit his work, to rein in his excesses and focus his story onto more interesting areas. But editor Roy Thomas was not that person, and it wasn’t Marvel’s style at the time to put limits on the writers of its fringe titles.
Among Marvel’s ‘70s output, this sort of writing was the norm, with writers like Steve Gerber and Thomas himself contributing ornate prose and socially relevant scripts. At worst, this crop of writers came across as Stan Lee knockoffs who tried to prop up weak superhero stories with grabs at social relevance that didn’t go far enough or were obvious at the time. At best, they become critical darlings, but it isn’t their prose alone that achieves that reputation; some experimentation in character or format was necessary to set the book or writer apart.

Does the long-form storytelling qualify Panther’s Rage as experimental enough to overcome the similarity to other Marvel writing at the time? I don’t think so. The Panther’s Rage storyline lasts from #6 to #18, more than two years of publishing time. (Jungle Action was bimonthly at the time.) Black Panther often loses sight of the overall picture, so the linked stories feel like more of an attempt to line up new adversaries for Panther rather than constructing a coherent story; Panther battles Killmonger’s lieutenants from #8 to #10 and #12 to 16 rather than addressing the leader of the rebellion or the people’s discontent. Nothing links these henchmen — who have names like Venomm, Malice, Baron Macabre, Karnaj, Sombre, and Salamander K’ruel — to the overall struggle. In only three issues does Black Panther seem willing to engage Killmonger’s forces with resources beyond his own brawn and muscle. In the end, McGregor’s run suffers in comparison to Ta-Nahisi Coates and Brian Stelfreeze’s current Black Panther, which covers similar ground with more coherence and focus.

On the other hand, I can’t deny McGregor is writing a story with a Black protagonist and a nearly completely Black supporting cast, both allies and villains. These supporting characters aren’t just hanging around; McGregor does an excellent job juggling their subplots and developing these new characters. Monica Lynne, the Panther’s African-American girlfriend, has to deal with a culture in which people look like her but she is still an outsider. Taku, the Panther’s communication officer, is a kind soul who even befriends Venomm, reforming the captured villain (to an extent). Two of Killmonger’s henchmen, Tayete and Kazibe, are used for comic relief throughout Panther’s Rage; the humor is not in keeping with the book’s tone, but it is a welcome change of pace. (Also: their scenes have a welcome thinning of narrative boxes.) McGregor also gives us a long (and distracting) subplot in which the head of Panther’s palace security, W’Kabi, and his wife drift apart, which makes me suspect McGregor himself was going through a breakup or he was watching someone close go through one.

The issues between the end of the Panther’s Rage story and the book’s cancellation are as mixed as the rest of the book. The Black Panther vs. the Ku Klux Klan is an intriguing idea, and the mystery over who killed Monica’s sister should drive the book forward. But in its final five issues, the mystery goes nowhere, McGregor adds in a non-Klan group to muddy matters, and an inordinate number of pages are used up by the speechifying Trublood and irrelevancies. On the other hand, watching Panther in a small Southern town has promise, and the issue in which Monica mentally inserts Panther into a Reconstruction-era lynching story is an excellent illustration of what it means to have a hero of color.

The art, provided by Buckler (#6-8) and Graham (#10-22, 24), is solid throughout. I prefer Buckler from an aesthetic viewpoint; his layouts are cleaner and larger, easier to follow, and his linework is much easier on the eyes. (Gil Kane does a fill-in on #9, and his work meshes with Buckler’s much better than his successor’s.) However, Buckler’s work does have its flaws. I can’t help but be distracted by how far apart Buckler draws people’s feet in action shots — their groins must be in constant agony, given how widely their legs are spread. More concerningly, he creates a Wakanda that is much more tribal than is shown later at Marvel. The whole of Wakanda is made up of thatched huts, Black Panther’s palace, and a hospital; no one but the Panther and a few supervillains wear pants, with most of other characters having grass fringes around their legs or waists somewhere. I understand the Wakandans are supposed to be isolated, but some of them have probably heard of trousers and wooden houses and would be curious.

Graham doesn’t have much choice but to follow Buckler’s lead on costuming and setting, unfortunately, and when some sci-fi trappings could be integrated into the art, he mostly misses the chance. Also unfortunate is his propensity for denser, more crowded layouts; McGregor’s words need room, and his art constricts their space. Fortunately, he has more of a chance to show the fantastic (mostly unexplored and undeveloped) areas of Wakanda. The frigid peaks and sultry jungles look good, although incorporating a Lost-World area with dinosaurs is a boring choice. Oh, sure: The Wakandans have no idea dinosaurs are living in their backyard. (That was probably McGregor’s decision, but incorporating dinosaurs into a comic is usually blamed on the artist.) Graham often works issue titles or words into the art; sometimes this works (such as on opening splash pages), and sometimes it’s baffling, like when “Epilogue” appears as a cloud in the closing panels in the final issue of Panther’s Rage.

The bonus material is more interesting than usual for a large collection like this. In addition to the standard unfinished art and previous versions of covers and pages already collected in the book, Panther’s Rage also includes five rough pages of the never-finished Jungle Action #25. McGregor supplied pictures of himself (and one of himself and Graham), which adds an unusually humanizing touch to the work. McGregor also provided pictures of the envelopes he stored material related to each issue in; the exterior of each envelope had notes to himself, including themes, ideas for other stories, and possible dialogue. Collection editor Cory Sedlmeier deserves a great deal of credit for compiling this unusually entertaining package.

On the other hand, I would have preferred a reprint of Avengers #62 (reprinted in Jungle Action #5 and featuring Man-Ape), Daredevil #69 (reprinted in Jungle Action #23), or any of Monica Lynne’s previous appearances. Room for one of those could have been made by dropping the standard sketches and a few other things while keeping most of the material I noted above.

Jungle Action was cancelled to make way for the Jack Kirby version of Black Panther, which could not be more different — Kirby’s version of the character was a cheery, enthusiastic king who went on goofy sci-fi adventures. I much prefer McGregor’s version, even when his prose is at its most turgid.

Panther’s Rage is all over the place — as is this longer-than-usual review, I suppose. For readers who have a high tolerance for ‘70s prose-dense comics, I heartily recommend his book. For those who would like to hear the characters and actions speak louder than the narrator, look elsewhere.

Rating: (3 of 5)

Black Panther: A Nation under Our Feet, v. 1

Collects: Black Panther v. 4 #1-4 (2016)

Released: August 2016 (Marvel)

Format: 144 pages / color / $16.99 / ISBN: 9781302900533

What is this?: Wakanda is in turmoil, and Black Panther is having difficulty gaining control of the situation.

The culprits: Writer Ta-Nehisi Coates and artist Brian Stelfreeze

As someone who hasn’t read any Black Panther books since the Christopher Priest run, Black Panther: A Nation under Our Feet, v. 1 left me feeling like I had missed a lot.

When a character (or object or country) has a complicated history, the writer has to make a choice: Should the continuity be ignored or deprecated? Should it be quickly reintroduced in a way that doesn’t interfere with the thread of the story? Or should it be recapped in depth?

That last option hasn’t been in vogue for decades now, and since Black Panther writer Ta-Nehisi Coates is building on the Black Panther’s recent continuity, often using the world-building done by Priest, the second choice is Coates’s only real option. Unfortunately, the continuity I’ve missed is so involved that mentioning the events and moving on leaves me feeling unsatisfied. For instance, how did Black Panther’s long-time nemeses, Erik Killmonger and Man-Ape, die? How and why did Namor flood the landlocked nation of Wakanda? Why was Panther absent from Wakanda when Thanos (of all people) invaded, and where did Panther’s sister, Shuri, come from?

And that’s why you always leave a footnote. It gives the reader context, other than authorial whim, for this complicated interplay of narrative.

Whatever the reason for Wakanda’s troubles, the nation is now in turmoil. For someone who had read only Priest’s run, such internal chaos is hard to come to grips with. But this nation is not run by Priest’s Panther; Coates’s Black Panther is unsure of himself, shaken, and less competent. The first two are obviously what Coates is aiming for. Wakanda’s humbling by invaders and his sister’s death have humbled him personally. The lack of competence is harder to justify; have his personal blind spots allowed his new enemies to get the upper hand? Or is Coates abandoning, consciously or not, the hyper-competent Panther of the past?

As I mentioned earlier, the Panther’s two oldest internal rivals, Killmonger and Man-Ape, are gone. The current unrest — or revolution, in one counselor’s words — is two-headed, and neither seems to be led by costumed aggressors bent on accumulating personal power. As Nation begins, the immediate danger is fueled by a woman who unlocks the people’s latent rage and resentment. The other uprising is started by two renegade Dora Milaje, the king’s all-female elite guard, who have objected to the personal predations of powerful men in the hinterlands who haven’t been checked by the king or his bureaucracy. No one man, these women say, should hold such power over the people.

And that’s the crux of this conflict, one that is rarely explored in superhero comics: that Black Panther is a monarch — perhaps not an absolute monarch, but a monarch nonetheless. Regime change is always a transition between powerful men and women, and the people never remain in charge of a nation we pay attention to. Seeing the people reach for democracy or at least a more egalitarian government is fascinating, and Coates is to be praised for not only showing a “good” ruler being on the receiving end of unrest but also for not showing the revolutionaries as evil or power-hungry.

Readers know Panther is a benevolent ruler, when he has ruled and not been abroad superheroing. But when the people aren’t well served by a leader, whether that be in administration or in national defense, they should have a right to replace that leader. In Nation, the Panther’s government is not doing an acceptable job on either front, and since the Panther is a monarch, it’s only logical for people to conclude he has to go. There’s a reason Changamire, the revolutionary philosophy teacher, is discussing John Locke when we see him lecturing his class.

The rightness of the revolutionaries’ cause is the only way Panther’s difficulties in fighting the unrest make sense: Either he somehow recognizes the legitimacy of the arguments against him and is sabotaging himself or the writer is strengthening the rebels’ argument. Additionally, Panther mentions in issue #2 that a king is more powerful in potential than in actuality: “Every act of might diminished the king, for it diminished his mystique. Might exposed the king’s powers and thus his limits.” The Black Panther’s powers and limits are very exposed in Nation

Still, other aspects of the revolt and Wakandan culture are a mystery. Those unsatisfied with the king call him “Haramu-Fal,” the orphan-king. This is regarded as an insult, although I don’t know why. Another says the Black Panther’s house has fallen, although I don’t know if that’s hyperbole or accurate.

In the Priest run, all readers ever saw of the Dora Milaje was the Panther’s two personal bodyguards, but Coates implies the Dora Milaje are a much larger body. Given that the Dora Milaje was created to keep tribal tensions in check, it makes sense that there are more than two, but the story intimates the Dora Milaje are a small army. That seems like a mistake; the Dora Milaje gain their impressiveness through not only their abilities but the idea that they are a very select group. By the end, not only are the Dora Milaje many, but they are defecting in large numbers, which makes them a poor elite group. (Black Panther never comes close to fighting the renegade Dora Milaje, regardless of what the cover of #3 — re-used for the back cover image of the trade paperback — tells us.)

Artist Brian Stelfreeze draws the Dora Milaje as dressing in a non-Western fashion, in direct contrast to how they had been portrayed in the past. I suppose that’s appropriate, as the Dora Milaje in Priest’s run were usually either in America or in a military capacity. (The experimental armor the renegade Dora Milaje wear is ridiculous, as it has large areas of fishnet mesh — midriff and arms — where a normal person would expect to be protected by armor.) Since this book takes place entirely in Wakanda, very few people wear Western clothes, and the super technology of past runs is largely absent, except for Panther and his allies. This is an African Africa, distancing the Panther from the Western-focused books of the past. The lowered ears on the Panther costume gives Black Panther a look between a wary cat and a slinking one, which is appropriate for a harried and combative leader. I also enjoyed the costume’s circuit-like Kirby lines that show up when his costume performs a technological function; Stelfreeze nicely ties the Dora Milaje to the Panther by giving their heads similar lines.

The price tag for Nation is a bit high: $17 for the series’ first four issues and the often-reprinted Fantastic Four #52, the first appearance of the Black Panther, seems too much. It seems $17 is the going rate for five new issues, but a reprint is not a new issue. Perhaps the increased tag is the price for someone as distinguished as Coates or Stelfreeze; I don’t know. The book tries to compensate for this elevated price by including bonus material, mostly Stelfreeze sketches and alternate covers. Neither does much for me, although your mileage may vary. Other material includes a Marvel.com interview with Stelfreeze, a chronology that serves more as advertisement for Black Panther stories than an informative narrative of the Panther’s history, and a map of Wakanda. The map’s nice, anyway.

I recommend this book, despite my disorientation at the beginning. I’m interested to see where Black Panther: A Nation under Our Feet, v. 2 is going. So interested, in fact, I must admit I think four issues is too short for v. 1; the story stops rather than arriving at a conclusion (or even a decent cliffhanger). Hopefully, the end of the next volume will be less abrupt.

Rating: (3.5 of 5)

Wolverine: Evolution

Collects: Wolverine (v. 3) #50-5 (2007)

Released: February 2008 (Marvel)

Format: 152 pages / color / $14.99 / ISBN: 9780785122562

What is this?: Wolverine vs. Sabretooth, with dreams of prehistoric serial-killing furries.

The culprits: Writer Jeph Loeb and artist Simone Bianchi

The public library system I patronize has a small graphic novel collection — sparse, I’d say, but I haven’t found a good way to browse outlying branches’ collections using the catalog, so maybe there’s more there than I know about. In any event, I’m always interested in how the library chooses the few graphic novels it has — so interested, I wrote a book that was partially about that very question.

Which leads me to the question of why my local library chose to purchase Wolverine: Evolution. Evolution collects Wolverine (v. 3) #50-5, which is not exactly a standout storyline. The library does not have an extensive collection of Wolverine titles or X-Men books or even Marvel works. It isn’t literary enough to fit in the collection’s graphic novels, and it’s too violent to be a good fit for the Young Adult section (although that’s where it’s shelved anyway). Evolution came out in 2008, well before the Wolverine movie, and there are better Wolverine stories to choose from once currency isn’t a consideration. The only thing I can figure is that someone recognized writer Jeph Loeb’s name from Heroes or the book was advertised with that info, and some librarian latched onto it.

Loeb’s story will certainly win no prizes. The plot alternates between Wolverine fighting Sabretooth and Wolverine saying, “Huh?” to whatever nonsensical exposition Loeb has added to the story. At several points during the story, Wolverine admits his befuddlement or complains that whatever has just happened makes no sense. If only some editor had listened to Wolverine and forced Loeb to make the story more coherent, we’d all be better off. Alas …

Evolution decides to explore the mysteries of Wolverine’s past. I too thought we’d put all that behind us, after Logan was revealed as a nightshirt-wearing Victorian and Grant Morrison had Wolverine learn the secrets of Weapon X. But Loeb thinks that vein can still be mined for gold, adding not only a mysterious, powerful stranger who can blank Wolverine’s memory but also delving into the very secrets of the hero’s DNA. Yes, he proposes that Wolverine, Sabretooth, and other mutants with a feral nature could be descended from what Storm calls Lupus sapiens.

Because linking all the mutants with similar morphologies to a common ancestor worked so well for Chuck Austen. Also, binomial nomenclature doesn’t work that way; while biologists may be split on the fertile interbreeding of species (and where to draw the borders of species), breeding across genera is almost unheard of. (Certainly across orders; wolves and humans are in different branches of class Mammalia. Or is Loeb / Storm suggesting a Lupus is a new genus in family Hominidae?)

But putting aside the vagaries of Marvel science and the patent inadvisability of this plot, there is still little to recommend this story, as the fights have no thrills, and most of the characters act like they want to be somewhere else. Wolverine picks a fight with Sabretooth at the beginning of #50, and the fight continues across three countries without much innovation or escalation. The fight peaks at the end of #51, when the two brawlers crash a Blackbird while scrapping. That may sound impressive, but they both barely pause in their fight, and there is no anticipation for the scene, which is barely set up. (Some might appreciate Sabretooth reattaching his own severed limbs as a high point … but when did Sabretooth become a D&D troll?) Storm and Black Panther pop their heads into the story to show Wolverine and Sabretooth an archaeological site relevant to Wolverine’s dreams and then do everything they can to avoid getting involved with the rest of the story in any way. Black Panther, just wanting his wife’s embarrassing mutant friends to go away, holds his temper when Sabretooth kills two of his soldiers. Feral, Thornn, and Wolfsbane show up to round out the ranks of L. sapiens, and only Feral seems eager to interact with Sabretooth or Wolverine. (Perhaps it’s because she’s been sidelined with her terminal non-mutancy for so long.) After being mostly ignored by Thornn and Wolfsbane, Wolverine seems so glad to have someone to talk to that he forgets all about Feral’s murderous, terrorist past. Even Sabretooth is tired of this story by the end, just waiting for Wolverine to kill him.

I think the worst part of Evolution is not its bad ideas but that he bad ideas are so unoriginal; unlike its name; Evolution refuses to move in an original way even incrementally. Fighting Sabretooth, mysterious masterminds, stupid science, Weapon X … Wolverine has done them all so often. For instance, selected events in the history of L. sapiens are revealed to Wolverine through dreams. Putting aside the stupidity of having “true” dreams about things he had no knowledge of, it is a hackneyed way of delivering unexpected exposition. The story starts at the X-Men’s mansion, ends at Logan and Silver Fox’s cabin, and wends its way through Weapon X and flashbacks to Japan and World War II with Captain America. This book shows us Wolverine’s greatest hits, although that greatest hits album should be named Tedium. (I will admit visiting Wakanda is novel for Wolverine.)

The lasting effect of Evolution is to introduce Romulus, the mysterious mastermind lurking behind Wolverine’s life, Weapon X, and the entirety of L. sapiens. He bedeviled Wolverine for a few years in Wolverine and Wolverine: Origins before being exiled to the Darkforce Dimension; here he’s shown only in outline. Wild Child, a L. sapiens who is Romulus’s agent of destruction, tells Wolverine that Romulus is orchestrating the current iteration of L. sapiens’s battle between the blonds and the brunets. (Honest to Thor: among L. sapiens, there’s allegedly always a blond and a brunet battling for leadership. Always, across millennia. Geez.) I — and the Marvel Universe — need another powerful, impenetrable cipher who has been manipulating people and events for decades like Brooklyn needs another hipster.

Simone Bianchi’s art is better than Loeb’s story, but only because it would be hard not to improve on such a dreadful plot. But his work is confusing, and his and Andrea Silvestri’s “washed halftones” give every page an unflattering murkiness it can’t afford. Bianchi’s choices don’t help Loeb’s story, although I’m not sure Leonardo da Vinci’s art would be much help. In one scene, Wolverine is revealed to be chained to an in-flight airplane, but the reveal has all the impact of a Nerf dart. When he’s supposed to draw a fearful Sabretooth, he settles for “contemplative.” He draws Sasquatch as Chewbacca — not merely similar to the Wookiee but a should-be-afraid-Lucas’s-lawyers-will-call copy. He designs Wild Child as a leather boy with multiple piercings, which is sloppy visual shorthand for either “badass” or “I don’t care about Wild Child.”

There are ways Evolution could be worse — Bart Sears‘s artwork comes to mind with a rapidity that shows all those hours of therapy were wasted. The reveal of Romulus’s name could have been strung out over a few more storylines. It could have featured Daken, Wolverine’s son, as well. Wolverine and Sabretooth could have shown no emotions, rather than the one they were allowed to share.

But if any of these had happened, you would have to expect an editor couldn’t have ignored how awful it was and would have been forced to do something. Because, otherwise, what is an editor for?

Rating: (0.5 of 5)

Excalibur Visionaries: Alan Davis, v. 3

Collects: Excalibur (v. 1) #59-67 (1992-3)

Released: July 2011 (Marvel)

Format: 216 pages / color / $24.99 / ISBN: 9780785155430

What is this?: Writer / artist Alan Davis wraps up his run on X-Men spinoff Excalibur.

The culprits: Alan Davis, with help from writer Scott Lobdell and artist Scott Kolins

Excalibur Visionaries: Alan Davis, v. 3 wraps up Alan Davis’s work on Excalibur, a team he co-created with Chris Claremont in 1987. And when I say “wraps up,” I mean “wraps up” — Davis, as the writer and artist, isn’t making a half-hearted attempt to give closure to a few storylines. He’s trying to put an end to almost all of the storylines he worked on during his second run of Excalibur, some of which — like what exactly Widget is — started in his first run with Chris Claremont at the beginning of the series.

In other words, if you haven’t read v. 1 and v. 2, you should probably do that. If you haven’t read them for a while, you might consider reading them again, just to make sure everything’s fresh in your mind.

Davis puts an end to the stories of Widget, the Warpies, and Alistair Stuart, even tying the last two into one neat bow — a bit of craftsmanship undercut only by my complete disinterest in the Warpies. The culprit who framed Alistair’s sister, Alysdane, faces justice. Roma resets Captain Britain’s status quo so that future writers don’t have to understand what gives Brian Braddock his powers, and Davis gives a definitive direction to Brian and Meggan’s romance. Rachel confronts her place in the universe and the Phoenix; all the manipulations of her body and mind are wiped out so that she can begin again. (And be jettisoned in quick order by another writer, but that’s not Davis’s fault.) He even wraps up the Days of Future Past timeline, although I question the wisdom of doing it by having Excalibur team up with Marvel UK and Marvel’s UK characters. C’est la guerre, I suppose.

It’s always satisfying when a writer gives closure to a storyline he or she introduced. But that doesn’t necessarily make writer’s material good, and I have a hard time deciding whether the stories in v. 3 are good. I didn’t enjoy them that much, but that doesn’t mean much; I don’t care about the Warpies, all of whom might have well had “Disposable” tattooed on their backsides, and the Rachel / Phoenix relationship (and all that entails) never interested me either. That leaves Scott Lobdell’s forgettable two-part fill-in and the Days of Future Past story, and neither one hooks me either — the latter might be one that could interest me, but piling up loads of supporting characters I don’t recognize dampens the attraction.

So are they good? Yes, I think so, although I can’t know for sure. In my negative of review v. 2, I counted the haphazard whipsawing between plotters and the overall roster flux against the book. But that isn’t a problem in v. 2. The major and minor characters are given a little room to express themselves outside the needs of the plot, which steadily moves forward after Lobdell’s story. The stories put characters in genuine danger that readers of the time might have felt was genuine, and the book culminates with the deadliest X-story of all time, Days of Future Past. Yes, they’re good. But I can’t make that connection viscerally, as I didn’t enjoy the stories.

A few loose ends remain, of course, and their importance is magnified only by other writer’s unwillingness to deal with them. What will happen with Feron (disappeared three issues after Davis), Kylun (ditto), Micromax (double ditto), and Cerise (again, ditto)? They’ll be ignored, that’s what. Feron is the most glaring case, as he is a character with nowhere else to go, other than Excalibur. There are a few danglers remaining, of course, beyond the confusion of the Phoenix / Rachel interaction of v. 2 — no word on the missing / regenerating War Wolves from early issues of Excalibur, for example, but that’s not much of a loss.

Davis’s art is excellent, as always — fluid, beautiful, expressive. Reading v. 3 is a reminder of the days when, rightly or wrongly, the X-books automatically got all the best artists. Those days are gone now, but for those of us who remember those days, it’s a nice bit of nostalgia. This collection also includes the art from a few of the trading cards Davis did fearuting Excalibur characters. The reproduction does them no favors, but it’s a better page filler than most.

This is an Alan Davis volume, so I should warn you: The book should be released with a bright yellow sticker saying: “Caution: May contain traces of Scott Lobdell.” Since Lobdell’s presence hangs over most of Marvel ‘90s titles, this warning can be take the same way as those labels that warn you a product and peanuts were processed in the same plant. Lobdell was in the X-book offices throughout the ‘90s, and he had a hand — if only invisible, like with everything that crossed over into Onslaught — in almost all of them.

Lobdell’s contribution to this volume, #59-60, is a goofy (although not in a fun way) two-parter in which Shadowcat, Captain Britain, and Meggan head to Wakanda to shamelessly team up with Captain America, Iron Man (in War Machine armor), and Black Panther. Lobdell gets in some good lines, especially about the paucity of African superheroes, but the plot is much too sparse for two issues, and the heroes defeat the villain by just being annoying.

There’s something wrong with artist Scott Kolins’s cheesecake-y full-page shot of Shadowcat in a swimsuit, but I can’t put my finger on exactly what it is. It doesn’t help, though, that it’s the first page of the collection. Otherwise, his work is fine, with a few glitches of figure placement — Meggan looking like she must be standing up to her knees in mud, another character appearing to be standing on air when he should be falling or on a branch, etc. — and his work suffers when compared to Davis.

This volume wraps up Davis’s run on the title. Excalibur readers would have to wait a couple of years before Warren Ellis returned the book to relevance with #83, although his work is much different from the gentle humor team book that Claremont, Davis, and Lobdell (who, all joking aside, contributed more than a fifth of the first 75 issues) built over the years. This material is obviously a wrap-up, meant for fans who have been following the title for years. But it’s also done pretty well.

Rating: (3 of 5)

Black Panther by Jack Kirby, v. 2

Collects: Black Panther #8-13 (1978-9)

Released: July 2006 (Marvel)

Format: 112 pages / color / $19.99 / ISBN: 9780785120698

What is this?: Black Panther (and his royal cousins) subdue a mutated Wakandan before he destroys the world and fight Kiber the Cruel.

The culprits: Jack Kirby, with a one-issue wrap up by Jim Shooter, Ed Hannigan, and Jerry Bingham

I have a confession to make: I don’t like Jack Kirby’s art. I’ve probably said it elsewhere, but it’s worth repeating for this review: I just don’t like his style. People are ugly, even the pretty ones. He has wacky perspectives I just don’t get, and often the way he draws eyes makes his characters look somewhere between manic and insane. In some of his action scenes, his figures look posed in the most uncomfortable positions. The “Kirby Krackle” and his intricate machines have never really done anything for me.

Now, I admit his art was innovative — or at least I’ve been told that so many times that I have to accept it. His art in 1961 is quite different than what you see from artists in the ‘50s, but so is Steve Ditko’s and others’; I just have to take on faith that the innovation flows from and through him. I do admire Kirby’s imagination, though, both in his art and his writing — especially his writing. Kirby, along with Steve Gerber, were underappreciated writers in the ‘70s, and their ideas are strange and wonderful even today.

But that imagination is not much in evidence in Black Panther by Jack Kirby, v. 2. The volume collects two Kirby storylines: one with a standard monster story, albeit one set in Wakanda and featuring Black Panther’s royal cousins, and a story with a villain who converts captives to energy for fuel. These don’t rival the flights of fancy from v. 1, where Kirby presented King Solomon’s Frogs, time travel, Abner Little, and a hidden city of samurai who guard the water of eternal life.

The most imaginative parts of Panther, v. 2, is the Wakandan royal family — a financier, a doctor, a race-car driver, and a “female grown too fat,” all successful in their fields — trying to capture the mutated Jakarra, who got too close to the outer-space metal vibranium. Such things will happen when you dabble in outer-space metal. I don’t buy the royal cousins’ heroics, but they are all well drawn individuals, and they are often fun to watch. It’s too bad Black Panther doesn’t really need relatives; in fact, they’re a hindrance to later and earlier stories told about royal intrigue, since they almost never pop up again. The only other interesting part of the book is the revelation of Kiber the Cruel’s true form, but that’s written in the final issue by Jim Shooter and Ed Hannigan, with art by Jerry Bingham, and there’s no telling how much input Kirby had on that issue. That Kiber can invade Wakanda’s self-imposed isolation is interesting, but not much is done with that; Black Panther’s newly gained psychic abilities in the final storyline are something different but wildly out of keeping with the character’s strengths. In any event, the new powers are gone fairly quickly after the story.

Really, Panther is standard ‘70s stuff, and standard ‘70s stuff at Marvel is usually a mediocre attempt to recreate the ‘60s at Marvel without all the interesting risks and weirdness.

Panther features art by Kirby. If you like it — and you know if you do or not — then here it is. It’s some of his later art, so it isn’t as exciting as his early work; frankly, Jerry Bingham, whom I had never heard of before, is a welcome relief on the last issue, and it’s one of his images (a villain warped and fused to the floor) and not Kirby’s that sticks with me. Despite his characters being occasionally overposed and stiff, Bingham is a solid artist, representing a generation influenced by (and overtaking) Kirby.

Panther sells for almost $20, which is a little expensive for six issues in paperback. I realize Kirby’s name has cachet for those who collect and read these old issues, but it’s just not worth the money for unspectacular Kirby. And it doesn’t even end v. 1 of Black Panther; two more non-Kirby issues remain uncollected.

Rating: (1.5 of 5)