The Black Panther is coming to The Mighty World of Marvel

It's been a long time since the Black Panther starred in a British comic, but next month sees him get top billing in The Mighty World of Marvel, when Panini UK begin reprinting his adventures.

Issue 18 of the comic, out on February 8th, will contain part one of Who is The Black Panther? by Reginald Hudlin, John Romita Jr, and Klaus Janson, that first appeared in the Marvel Knights Black Panther No.1 in 2005. The Panther will also be headlined on the cover, taking over from Champions which is currently featured.  The reason for the change of course is because the Black Panther movie debuts next month, but it's still great to see one of Marvel's most interesting heroes back in newsagents.

Great stuff, apart from the anomaly of Cap using his old shield in 1944.

As well as the Black Panther, The Mighty World of Marvel No.18 will also feature a Star-Lord solo story, continue the story arcs of the Black Widow and the Champions, and have a classic 1960s Doctor Strange tale by Stan Lee and Steve Ditko as a bonus.

Meanwhile, issue 17 of MWOM is currently on sale, featuring a cover by Neal Adams. 

The first appearance of the Black Panther in a British comic would have been in the last few issues of Fantastic in 1968, which reprinted a crossover between the X-Men and The Avengers. As the X-Men reprints were ahead of some other Marvel reprints, any British readers who weren't buying American comics wouldn't have seen the Panther's debut in the Fantastic Four, or his initiation in The Avengers, so his sudden appearance as an Avenger in Fantastic must have puzzled a few people. 

FANTASTIC No.89 (final issue) from 1968.

I'm certainly looking forward to the Black Panther movie. When I was a kid in the 1960s, I thought the Panther was the coolest comics character I'd seen. Looks like the film will convey that too. Here's the trailer...

Kirby's Black Panther collected

Admittedly this isn't British comics related but the news is too good not to post. With the imminent screen debut of the Black Panther in Captain America: Civil War later next month (and his own movie to follow), Marvel U.S. will be collecting Jack Kirby's 1970s run on the character in a Marvel Masterworks hardback in October.

Marvel Masterworks: Black Panther volume 2 will reprint superbly restored stories from Black Panther Nos.1 to 15, Marvel Premiere Nos.51 to 53, and material from Marvel Team-Up No.100. Most of the strips are written and drawn by Jack Kirby, with other material by creators such as Jim Shooter, Ed Hannigan and John Byrne. 

By this period in Kirby's career he was writing his own material and his pencils had a sympathetic inker in Mike Royer giving the true impact and power that the artwork deserved. With the high quality paper and printing that the Masterworks have, the colours often tend to be too garish but in this case they seem to suit Kirby's dynamic style. 

Some of this material has previously been collected in paperback form but the art will have been digitally remastered for this hardback version, bringing it to the high standard it deserves. 

These preview pages are from the Marvel Masterworks Resource Page, an excellent website for anyone interested in these collections of classic U.S. comics material. 
http://www.collectededitions.com/marvel/mm/bp/bp_mm02.html

I always liked the Black Panther when I was a kid in the 1960s. An African prince with hi-tech equipment in the middle of the jungle, he just seemed like the coolest character in comics. I didn't follow all of his 1970s stories as I was foolishly swayed by the negative opinions of comic fans who just didn't 'get' Kirby's solo work, but I'll be correcting that oversight by picking up this volume.

Those of you who liked the earlier series of the Black Panther by Don McGregor, Billy Graham, and others, will be pleased to hear that the run of Panther's Rage will soon be collected in hardback in an upcoming volume of the Marvel Graphic Novel Collection published in the UK by Hachette.