Black Panther, Vol. 1: A Nation Under Our Feet, Book One
Ratings10
Average rating3.7
This is honestly kind of a snooze-fest. Picked up a little bit around issue 4, but not sure I'll continue.
Not what I was expecting. It's a bit of a muddle for the first few issues and you only see the political angle start to take shape in the last of five issues.
There's almost too much continuity to unpack. It's frustrating because it makes it hard to understand the context of T'Challa's challenges and goals. At best, he just seems a bit emo and boring. Comic characters shouldn't resemble Hamlet.
There's potential though as hopefully Coates can now weave everything together.
I don't think I will review this separately because it doesn't feel like a complete story arc. It essentially feels like the introduction to a story. And even though I have had some (not a lot but some) introduction to the Black Panther, I never felt like I really understood the context of what is going on here. I need to go back and figure out the back story I am missing.
The art is good. The story telling from Coates is wordy, but I think theoretically can be good in context of the larger arc. But this still feels incomplete.
A little slow to get going but high quality nonetheless. Looking forward to continuing in this series!
I don't know what to say here. I felt like I was parachuted in mid-plot to a world that I didn't understand and then characters that I didn't even get a chance to know started to have flashbacks to times before......and what? I just don't know. I couldn't piece it together and I'm a pretty strong reader and this is not my first rodeo with a comic book. I found the storytelling to be very, very confusing. The art is gorgeous, but I need to understand what is going on in order to process the images. I couldn't even keep where we were straight. There's a nation and a dream-world, and a limbo (?) and some sort of prophetic desert world in which a tree lays down wisdom.
Now, I have never read anything about the Black Panther before, but I thought this was an introduction to the character so I was going to be alright. Nope. I need a Cliffs Notes, please. Right now it seems like Black Panther is a pissed off Hamlet. Given that my heartstrings were mostly pulled when we were with Tetu (the presumed bad guy), and what I really wished was that I was reading a comic solely about the Midnight Angels (way to kick ass, Ladies), I think I'm out.
The final nail in the coffin, for me, is that the Panther seems to hang with the Fantastic 4 (who I just think are the epitome of lame).