Black History Month- Black Panther
The Black Panther (T’Challa) is a fictional character in the Marvel Comics universe. Created by writer-editor Stan Lee and penciller-co-plotter Jack Kirby, he first appeared in Fantastic Four #52 (July 1966). He is the first black superhero in mainstream American comics, debuting several years before such early African-American superheroes as the Falcon, Luke Cage, Tyroc, Black Lightning or John Stewart (Green Lantern) . The Black Panther’s name predates the October 1966 founding of the Black Panther Party, though not the black panther logo of the party’s predecessor, the Lowndes County Freedom Organization, nor the segregated World War II Black Panthers Tank Battalion. The Black Panther’s first starring series was in Jungle Action vol. 2, #6-24 (Sept. 1973 – Nov. 1976), written by Don McGregor with art by pencillers Rich Buckler, Gil Kane, and Billy Graham. One now-common innovation it pioneered was that of the self-contained, multi-issue story arc.
The Black Panther is the ceremonial title given to the chief of the Panther Tribe of the African nation of Wakanda. In addition to ruling the country, he is also chief of its various tribes (collectively referred to as the Wakandas). The Panther uniform is a symbol of office (head of state) and is used even during diplomatic missions.
T’Challa is the son of T’Chaka, who was the Black Panther before him. In the distant past, a massive meteorite made of the (fictional) vibration-absorbing mineral vibranium crashed in Wakanda, and was unearthed. Knowing that others would attempt to manipulate and dominate Wakanda for this rare and valuable resource, T’Chaka concealed his country from the outside world. He would sell off minute amounts of the valuable vibranium while surreptitiously sending the country’s best scholars to study abroad, consequently turning Wakanda into one of the world’s most technologically advanced nations. Eventually, however, the explorer Ulysses Klaw found his way to Wakanda to covertly create a vibranium-powered, sound-based weapon. When exposed, Klaw killed T’Chaka and other Wakandans, only to see his “sound blaster” turned on him by a grieving T’Challa, then barely a teenager. Klaw’s right hand was destroyed, and he and his men fled.
During his youth, T’Challa also met and fell in love with apparent orphaned child Ororo Munroe, who would grow up to become the X-Men member Storm; the two broke up over T’Challa’s need to avenge his father’s death.
T’Challa earned the title and attributes of the Black Panther by defeating the various champions of the Wakandan tribes. One of his first acts was to disband and exile the Hatut Zeraze — the Wakandan secret police — and its leader, his adopted brother Hunter the White Wolf; later, to keep the peace, he picked dora milaje (“adored ones”) from rival tribes to serve as his personal guard and ceremonial wives-in-training. He then studied abroad before returning to his kingship. T’Challa invited the American superhero team the Fantastic Four to Wakanda, then attacked and neutralized them individually in order to prove himself worthy as his people’s defender and to test the team to see if it could be an effective ally against Klaw, who had become a being made of living sound. After the ruler made proper amends to the superhero team for the incident, they befriended and helped T’Challa, and he in turn aided the heroes against the supervillain the Psycho-Man.
T’Challa later joined the Avengers, beginning a long association with that superhero team.
Black Panther leaves the Avengers to rule over his kingdom once again. Black Panther gets back together with Storm and later marries her in Black Panther #18 (Sept. 2006)
