Marvel's Black Panther: A Comic Book Biography, From Stan Lee to Ta-Nehisi Coates

Created by Marvel Comics Legends Stan Lee and Jack Kirby, The Black Panther is considered the first Black superhero in American mainstream comics. Marvel's Black Panther is the first textual study of a superhero comic book character, examining its Black and white writers and the stories they have created over a fifty year period.

Publisher Marketing: FOREWORD Makani Themba, community activist/strategist........................................... i INTRODUCTION Black Panther vs. White Panther...................................................................v CHAPTER ONE From Patrice Lumumba to Sidney Poitier: Early Fantastic Four and Avengers Appearances ..................................................................................... 1 CHAPTER TWO The Jungle Book--Don McGregor Creates His Own Africa..............17 CHAPTER THREE The Finished Man--Don McGregor (Almost) Completes His "Panther Novel" ..............................................................................................33 CHAPTER FOUR The Return of the Kings--The Amazing and Wacky Adventures of Jack Kirby's Panther.......................................................................................41 CHAPTER FIVE The Client Was a Man of Remarkable Focus--A Panther and a Priest.................................................................................................................55 CHAPTER SIX The Spy King--How Christopher Priest's Panther Forever Shook Up the Avengers....................................................................................................91 CHAPTER SEVEN "Bad Mutha"--Reginald Hudlin's Uncompromised Royal Black (Super-) Man and the Unbridled Black Imagination...........................105 CHAPTER EIGHT Side-Swipes--The New York Ghost Cop and the Wakandan Princess as "Replacement" Panthers ........................................................................123 CHAPTER NINE The (Black) Man Without Fear--When T'Challa Replaced Daredevil .......................................................................................................135 CHAPTER TEN Between the World and Him--Ta-Nehisi Coates's Black Panther....145 CONCLUSION The Panther In Captain America: Civil War..........................................159 AFTERWORD Dr. Gregory Carr, Chair, Africana Studies Department, Howard University.......................................................................................................169 ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS...............................................................177 Publisher Marketing : Created by Marvel Comics Legends Stan Lee and Jack Kirby, The Black Panther is considered the first Black superhero in American mainstream comics. Through a textual analysis, this book narrates the history of the character from his first appearance in 1966--the same year, the Black Panther Party was formed in Oakland, California--through Ta-Nehisi Coates' version in 2015. It tells the story of how Black and white writers envisioned the character between those years, as a Patrice Lumumba to a Sidney Poitier to a Nelson Mandela to a hip-hop cool to a reflective, 21st century king. Along the way, the limitations of white liberalism and the boundless nature of the Black imagination are revealed. Marvel's Black Panther is the first textual study of a superhero comic book character, examining its writers and the stories they have created over a fifty year period.

Format: Paperback | Pages: 252 | Publication Date: 2018-02-14