Black Panther #2 (Marvel)
Written by Reginald Hudlin
Pencils by John Romita Jr.
Inks by Klaus Janson
Colours by Dean White

The first issue of the new Black Panther was a promising read, really playing more with the concept of the nation of Wakanda than anything else. In fact the Panther himself only appeared in brief flashbacks in the issue itself. I guess that's why I didn't really catch on to the idea that this series seems to be a straight up reboot of the whole Black Panther mythos. I suppose it's possible that a large portion of this issue is in flashback but there's no indication that it's not all supposed to be going down concurrently. That points to reboot. That also means that every previous version of the character from the original Lee/Kirby rendition through Priest's fan favourite take are now obsoleted. Maybe Reginald Hudlin (fresh to the comics field from B-list hollywood screenwriting) felt it would be the easiest way to relaunch the title without bogging everything down in continuity. Or maybe he just couldn't be bothered to work out a way to tie in all the recent work on the character into the story he wants to tell. One way or the other, it seems that Black Panther is now a blank slate with a new status quo being established.

Much of the issue is dedicated to a ceremony where the role of the Black Panther ("sort of like being Pope, President and Head of the Joint Chiefs of Staff all at once..") is up for grabs in an annual contest of strength. It's a neat idea that fleshes out the culture of Wakanda a bit, sort of a survival of the fittest crossed with gladitorial combat. Although anyone can participate, our focus is on various challengers from the royal family itself. Hudlin is clearly setting up some family feud action between the various princes and princesses who come to the challenge. The foreshadowing is none too subtle, but being that this is thus far a book about the nation of Wakanda itself, the premise of a feud between royals seems like it would fit nicely. We're also introduced to T'Challa, considerably younger than when we last saw him. He's still a cypher pretty much (with one whole line of dialogue in the whole issue) so it's still up in the air how close he'll end up being to past versions of the character. Regardless, the other two sub plots from the first issue are brought up, but moved forward only ever so slightly. The US government continues to worry about the super advanced Wakandans being a rebel nation, and Klaw takes the fella he busted out of some kind of super jail last issue to get laid. I'm not terribly keen on subplots that develop so slowly that they seem almost motionless but I'll cut these some slack on the assumption that they're going to develop into something big. Still, why move things along so slowly on a new book?

John Romita Jr. has never been one of my favourite artists, but I certainly can't fault most of his work here. His action is always big and dynamic and he seems to have gone back to some of Kirby's original designs for the look of Wakandan clothing and weaponry. Maybe not so politically correct with al lot of people wearing headdresses and the like, but still fun to look at. Also I rather liked his use of the classic Kirby Black Panther design, complete with short little cape. It seems unlikely that Romita will be on the title for much longer than the opening arc, but I certainly wouldn't complain if he stuck around for a while.

The more I think about it, the more Black Panther seems like an Ultimate universe take on the character. I must admit that I'm not a fan of retconning away large portions of shared universe history, but it doesn't intrinsically affect the quality of the story. Which is pretty decent really. With a little adjustment in the pacing department it has the potential to being a solid superhero book with some political overtones. Which ironically was what Christopher Priest was doing on his now superseded take on the title. You know what they say about how the more things change.