Black Panther By Ta-Nehisi Coates: The Intergalactic Empire Of Wakanda

by Ta-Nehisi Coates

600 pages, Paperback

Published February 4, 2025

About the author

Ta-Nehisi Coates is the author of the #1 New York Times bestseller Between the World and Me, a finalist for the National Book Award. A MacArthur "Genius Grant" fellow, Coates has received the National Magazine Award, the Hillman Prize for Opinion and Analysis Journalism, and the George Polk Award for his Atlantic cover story "The Case for Reparations." He lives in New York with his wife and son.

Reviews

[Joey Nardinelli · Rating 5 out of 5]

Picked this up on a whim and truly felt like I was reading it for SO long. 25 combined issues will do that. First 3/5ths (uhhhh) of the collection are solid — the space opera and the refusal to add many familiar faces gave Coates a ton of room for neat world building and a chance to flex his scifi writing muscles. I really hoped it would have to stay in this other “galaxy” for the whole run, but once they come back to earth and resurrect several enemies and end in a way that feels entirely inspired by Endgame (right? This came after?) just didn’t do a ton for me. The final scenes depicting a miraculously fully rebuilt Wakanda sort of glosses over some of the heavier sentiments around loss. I feel like I get why, but it just hinders for me what seems like some great chance for character growth? Honestly though, this is so bizarre and out there with generally great art (especially the first 60%) that I’d firmly recommend it to most folks who have a passing familiarity with Black Panther.