Black Panther, Vol. 1: The Long Shadow

Black Panther (2021)

by John Ridley (Writer), Alex Ross (Writer), Juann Cabal (Illustrator)

If the truth comes out, it could cost him everything! Academy Award-winning writer John Ridley (12 Years a Slave) and Marvel Stormbreaker artist Juann Cabal launch an all-new BLACK PANTHER series with an action-packed espionage story that will upend everything in T'Challa's life - and have ramifications for the entire Marvel Universe! Secrets from the Panther's past have come back to haunt him. Freshly returned from his travels in space, T'Challa receives an unexpected and urgent message from a Wakandan special agent. The Panther has the help of his brilliant sister, Shuri, but the assassins they face seem to always be one step ahead. Now T'Challa must race the clock not only to save his agent, but also to keep his true agenda under wraps! Collects Black Panther (2021) #1-5.

Genres: Comics, Marvel, Graphic Novels, Superheroes, Fantasy, Science Fiction, Graphic Novels Comics

152 pages, Paperback

First published June 14, 2022

About the author

John Ridley IV (born October 1965)[2] is an American screenwriter, television director, novelist, and showrunner, known for 12 Years a Slave, for which he won an Academy Award for Best Adapted Screenplay. He is also the creator and showrunner of the critically acclaimed anthology series American Crime. His most recent work is the documentary film Let It Fall: Los Angeles 1982–1992.


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Reviews

[Scott · Rating 4 out of 5]

"Let me tell you something about my brother: Black Panther is an icon, a legacy, and a legend. But at the end of the day, the Black Panther uniform is just some slick gear. With or without it, T'Challa's never been 'just' anything." -- sister Shuri, responding to an ally's concern about an under-equipped T'Challa

Marvel Comics made a wise choice in having screenwriter/film producer John Ridley (an Academy Award-winner in 2014 for the gripping 12 Years a Slave) wield the scribe's pen for this new Black Panther series. Other than some cover art that is misleading - BP briefly tackles a problem in the opening scene alongside Avengers teammates Captain America, Thor, and Dr. Strange but She-Hulk, Captain Marvel, Ghost Rider and Blade the vampire hunter are NOWHERE to be found inside - this volume benefits from a storyline that is equal parts action, drama (of both the familial / friend and political kinds) and suspense. T'Challa reveals - in a development which gives a welcome edge to his oft-unrivaled character - that years earlier he installed a small number of Wakandan sleeper agents in various counties around the globe as a security measure of sorts for his beloved nation. After a brutal targeted attack and murder of one of said agents by a mysterious masked faction, he attempts to bring the others in from the cold - with varying degrees of success - and protect them from any further violence. Of course, it won't be that easy, and writer Ridley plays up a cinematic-styled type of narrative that had me wondering where things will go next for the besieged title superhero.

[Subham · Rating 3 out of 5]

This was so good!

Seeing T'challa facing challenges such as his plot of the sleeper cells back firing and someone hunting them and losing one of them and how it triggers a change in him and sends him on a trip round the world and friends becoming enemies and him basically becoming an Outlaw from Wakanda and then the stuff with Storm and the planet Arakko and the fight between one-time husband and wife is epic and the fallout even more so plus such good art! Definitely a must recommend! Its definitely become one of fav ongoings atm!

[Paul · Rating 3 out of 5]

I liked this one, for the most part, but a couple of characters seemed a little out-of-character at times and I was disappointed to see them use the movie continuity a couple of times. While the artwork was of a generally high standard the mid-issue artist changes did hurt the book. Still, I’m interested to see where this is going.

[James DeSantis · Rating 4 out of 5]

Wow, I was sleeping on this run because this was FIRE.

So my boy T'Challa doesn't trust ANYONE. For good reason. He's a king and can't take those chances. So years ago he sent out sleeper agents to take care of any threats that would pop up. Sadly, one by one, they are getting picked off. So Black Panther goes on a mission to find out who is doing this and we get some epic fights, romances, and character development I never expected.

To say I was surprised how much fun I had with this would be a understatement. From the start I was glued to find out who was betraying who. Why are T'challa's peeps getting slaughtered. What is he going to do about it? I was even invested in the politics of Wakanda, which I have to say the last run I was not a fan of.

Overall, this was great save for some of the art not living up to the fight scenes being displayed. But overall, really fun and I can't wait to read more.

[Igel :) · Rating 4 out of 5]

3.5 🌟

[Robert · Rating 3 out of 5]

Cinematic, witty and heartfelt in good measure. I didn't vibe with the "mythical" filler issue, but I will definitely be returning to follow the main story in Vol. 2: Range Wars.


Full reproduction of the gorgeous wraparound cover

[James · Rating 4 out of 5]

3.75 stars. So I was reading this as the singles were coming out but stopped after the first arc to wait for the trades. Now that vol 2 has dropped, time for a reread to refresh. I feel the same as before. Great build up with the mystery of someone finding about T’Challa’s secret sleeper agents and trying to take them out. It was fun watching T’Challa and company trying to figure out who was behind it. That last issue is what hurt this volume a little. Things just started escalating way too fast. There was one scene where the Hatut Zeraze General was telling T’Challa that he is Wakanda and that he will always have his back. Literally 3 pages later he is throwing him under the bus with wild accusations which led to them taking T’Challa’s suit and putting him on house arrests. I was like damn that was fast. We will see how this plays out next volume.

[Dakota Morgan · Rating 4 out of 5]

In a hard left turn from Ta-Nehisi Coates' Black Panther run, John Ridley begins his run with a fast, fun paranoid spy thriller. Black Panther's been running a secret network of spies ever since he alerted the world to Wakanda's might. And now someone is taking out those spies - and everyone is pointing fingers!

Juann Cabal's clean artwork works really well with down-to-earth vibes of The Long Shadow, a clear departure from the Intergalactic Empire of Wakanda. Speaking of which: did that just kind of...go away? And I missed it? Because the fact that T'Challa is a space emperor is not mentioned at all. In fact, a large portion of the story focuses on Wakanda's efforts at becoming a democracy with T'Challa in a role like the English monarchs.

That seems completely in opposition to what Ta-Nehisi Coates was building up in his series. Maybe I missed an interstitial volume or one-shot? In any case, the dramatic shift doesn't hurt the storytelling in The Long Shadow, it just comes as a bit of surprise when you read the two series back to back.

[Alex Sarll]

A classic example of a tough follow-up gig; John Ridley's film writing credits, from Three Kings to the Oscar-winning 12 Years A Slave, have been big news. But his comics work has been quietly going along in the background; The American Way was a solid book, but nobody's idea of a massive hit, and his recent DC work saw him messed about as much as any full-time comics writer. He can't, in short, now do the big, triumphal entry which so often attends a non-comics writer's first comics work, as happened with his predecessor on this title, Ta-Nehisi Coates. Whose run – and it was a pretty good run, to be fair – got lots of crossover attention, extending now to the rare honour of a fancy Folio Society edition. That series never shied away from the long-running shared universe of which it was part, but tended to minimise the role for the usual big hitters, simply because they tend to be white guys who are in enough comics already. So initially this feels like it's going the other way, opening as the cover suggests, with T'challa back in place as chairman of the Avengers, barking orders to Strange, Thor and Cap, reasserting his commitment to the team.

Spoiler: that doesn't make it to the end of the first issue.

See, where my main quibble with the Coates run was that, like the first Panther film*, it depicted a reactive and often wrongfooted T'challa, this goes deep into the character as depicted in the peerless Priest era, a Panther who wasn't the smartest man in the room because he'd already been smart enough to absent himself from the room some time before the question arose, after having booby-trapped it. Except that now all that paranoia and pre-planning has blown up in his face, because someone has unearthed the secret network of sleeper agents he put in place across various countries, just in case they ever turned against Wakandan interests. Which is particularly awkward now that Wakanda has become a democracy, something against which T'challa was already bridling in a way that perfectly fits the character, even if it certainly complicates him as the hero of a 21st century comic:
"Democracies are lionized, but the reality is they're dangerous. Their leadership transitory, their foundations tenuous. Stable nations require singular leaders."
The worst of it is, these days it's increasingly easy to sympathise – except, of course, that democracies wanting singular leaders is precisely the problem. The dialogue doesn't always feel as convincingly rooted in character as that speech - is T'challa really someone who'd respond to a suggestion he dislikes with "Yeaaah, no"? - but the seventies conspiracy mystery mood is nicely done, the volume ending on a solid cliffhanger with plenty of viable suspects. A more than worthy successor to Coates, and hopefully well placed to pick up that elusive cross-media synergy from the new film.

*One of the many tragedies of losing Chadwick Boseman so young, and obviously far from the worst, is that we never get to see him mature from the young king to the veteran monarch, as I had expected subsequent films to show.

[David Akeroyd · Rating 2 out of 5]

T'Challa treating Wakandans as pouty children "experimenting" with Democracy and showing no intelligence/maturity in handling basic situations isn't exactly the BP I enjoy. He's always been paranoid but it gets ramped up to 11 here. The characterization is just very off to me.

[Alan · Rating 4 out of 5]

All right I really couldn't find this edition before, and it cuts off way before I thought it did.

I don't think I've denied that 1) I am a fan of both Ridley's novels and comics work and 2) I like it when The Panther is portrayed as a very smart person.

Except here perhaps his own plotting backfires on him. The sleeper agents T'Challa had placed around the world are being murdered. After asking these people to sacrifice for king and country now he must bring them in from the cold and the end the murders.

A mix of spy fiction with super heroics.

[Dia · Rating 4 out of 5]

4.5

[Chris Lemmerman · Rating 2 out of 5]

This was a lot messier than I'd hoped it'd be. Ridley's DC work has been superb, so I thought he'd be a good fit for Black Panther, but not a lot about this hit very well for me.

The plot's decent, at least - T'Challa once set up a series of sleeper agents across the world in case Wakanda was threatened, and someone's targetting them, so he heads off to save them all. Meanwhile, Wakanda has decided they don't need a king anymore since T'Challa's spent all his time in space with the intergalactic empire recently, so they start a new democractic government instead.

The issue comes from the fact that none of this feels like it's going anywhere. These five issues are clearly build-up for a bigger story, and I know there are two more volumes, but it feels unfulfilling on its own.

Add that to the fact that none of the characters' voices fit right, and I had problems. T'Challa constantly reminds everyone that he's a king, and as we all know from Game Of Thrones, if you have to tell everyone you're the king, you're really not. He also speaks really laid back, which isn't how I'd expect him sound. The same problem extends to Storm, who doesn't sound anything like herself. The only person who sounds even remotely right is Shuri.

Then the art's a toss-up as well. Juann Cabal starts off strong then falls apart after two issues, with random fill-ins on random pages. There are also back-up stories in issue 3, which in my trade were collected right in the middle of the rest of the story, which is a momentum killer.

Not a great start. I'm hoping things can improve.

[Ginger Wolverine · Rating 4 out of 5]

So good. I liked. Lack Panther before, but it just made me like him more

[Jason · Rating 4 out of 5]

4.5
This is very good! The characterization is excellent. The premise works and allows for a good character arc. But I especially love how T'Challa is flawed. Makes him more relatable.

[Akshay · Rating 1 out of 5]

This. Was. Terrible.

Preceding this was the Black Panther series by Ta-Nehesi Coates and while I had never read his work before either, that was an epic run that I would be comfortable to say will be landmark as far as this iconic character is concerned. It established the intergalactic kingdom of Wakanda (which was a whole other level of epic!) while also telling the story of not just T'Challa, but of his people and the nation of Wakanda under his rule - one that was bucking for something new and there were machinations in the corridors of power and the hidden paths behind the curtains of it all. It lead to the end of monarchy in Wakanda and the birth of a democracy.

All of that opened up the world of Wakanda and its people and their culture and society that to me felt unprecedented. On top of that, it built a great supporting cast for T'Challa and set up a fascinating new direction for the stories to follow and it is there that we now find ourselves and there that we are suffering as readers - at least I was for certain.

First, I want to get the art out of the way. I do not know who thought this was working. It is VERY rare for me to single out artwork in comics, knowing as I do the painstaking process it can be and it happens lesser still with big-ticket comics like this title. BUT, the artwork is truly terrible. It is inconsistent, it is not exciting, the colours are flat and add little dynamism or depth or life to what I am seeing on the page and frankly, Black Panther deserved better.

Next, the story.
It is poor. There is no getting around that. It is a story that takes the narrative I have laid for you above about this new, deep and intriguing kingdom in transition to a democracy and instead we get a frankly really boring mystery-box globe-trotting adventure. In a moment that made no sense, we start off with Captain America first chiding T'Challa for being lax as Chairman (really?!) of the Avengers and for all his secrecy over the space empire - a loss of faith, rightly so - but then turns around right away and accepts that T'Challa is cool still leading the Avengers and can be relied on to be better at it hereafter... because why not.
Then we have boring times in Wakanda, politics that was about as exciting as the senate speeches in The Phantom Menace and though I got the impression there were meant to be stakes, it didn't FEEL like it. To top that off, T'Challa is not basically a figurehead and is bored with that - until a secret operative of his gets killed in a foreign country and he has to go figure out the mystery. And while I will not spoil the mystery, the premise is pretty terrible, horribly jarring with the pragmatic but honourable King T'Challa and the whole unfolding of the narrative felt deflated all the way through to the "big reveals" at the end.
T'Challas personal "challenges" and the supposed self-justifications and character journey here felt like just a rinse and repeat of stuff he's already been through and dealt with in different volumes of his own series and even through Avengers and other titles

It felt like yet another story that had an idea, certain moments/set-pieces and an ending in mind and stuff was thrown together to achieve the same - a problem I've seen with most movies for years now and clearly there seem to be more than a few comics following the same pattern. Which is sad.

The singular good(ish) idea was the new tribe of isolationist Wakandans with a whole new approach to Vibranium that were introduced. Lot of potential but again, poorly explored and presented like some enigmatic wonder being put before me but felt bland and derivative. And the new character we gain from them - again, potential and maybe someone will do him justice in future comics, but here he was really boring.
This aside, I think the side-trip T'Challa took to Arrako (formerly Mars) to meet Storm was maybe the only real writing highlight of this entire volume.

I have never read anything by John Ridley before but this was not a great first impression for me. I pretty much slogged to get to the end just for the sake of reading the whole first story and by then I was 100% clear that I was not going to read any more of this book.

[Rocky Sunico · Rating 3 out of 5]

After Ta-Nehisi Coates' epic run on the comic, it was hard to imagine who might be brave enough to continue that story. But credit to John Ridley for doing just that and launching a new era for Black Panther and Wakanda.

While he is still king, the new democratic government is beginning to find its place and T'Challa doesn't quite have the patience for how a parliamentary government takes more time to come to a decision about anything. And when his secret sleeper agent program appears to be in jeopardy, he goes off on his own to determine how his agents are being discovered...and killed.

It felt a little too soon for another story about Wakanda at war with elements within itself again, but I guess that's hard to avoid when you present a near-perfect nation/society like Wakanda. And really making Black Panther fallible as a ruler is an interesting angle to explore as everyone calls him to account for past since including his surprise intergalactic empire.

Still some shaky bits, but I respect where this might go.

[Ross · Rating 3 out of 5]

Wow. This title NEEDED a reboot like this to get it grounded back in the Marvel Universe. After intergalactic travels, Wakanda is dealing with political change. As usual, there's layer upon layer of machinations going on in the city-state.

T'Challa has always been a distrustful character. Isolated, alone, and at times paranoid. Is it really paranoia when they're planning to take you out? T'Challa likes to plan for any eventuality. In this run, we we get to see him try and stay one step ahead of those that are trying to bring him down.

I'd argue that the best Black Panther stories are the ones dealing with the political agendas in Wakanda and its place in the world.

Bonus: Gentle likes to hug it out!
Bonus Bonus: I'm on the fence with the continual T'Challa/Ororo back and forth

[JCRD]

Lo intenté hace años con la etapa de Ta-Nehisi Coates, pero me acabé descolgando después de unos pocos números, y ahora que ha terminado su etapa he decidido darle otra oportunidad en solitario al personaje.

Cuando más me gusta Pantera Negra es cuando lo escribe Hickman, como un cabrón de cuidado que aunque intenta ser honorable y un héroe su papel como rey lo fuerza a hacer según qué cosas, y aquí van los tiros por ahí. T'Challa aquí ya no es monarca como tal (o por lo menos no ostenta todo el poder), y me gusta la trama de espionaje que está teniendo este arco, pero cuando se centra en otra cosas... pues ni fu ni fa. Y el dibujo se resiente cuando no está Juann Cabal, pero qué le vamos a hacer.

[Sesana · Rating 3 out of 5]

Certainly a more cynical take on T'challa, but it does make a certain amount of sense. Of course the absolute monarch from a long line of absolute monarchs would chafe at a shift to parliamentary democracy. Nor is having a fleet of sleeper agents around the world answerable only to him a totally insane proposition from a benevolent despot like T'challa. The mystery of who is targeting these agents, and for what purpose, is interesting, though I don't think there's nearly enough clues to come to a conclusion in this volume. There are hints that it's building towards seeing a new, younger hero/antihero with a chip on his shoulder emerging in Wakanda, but I'm not really engaged in that storyline yet.

[Ashe Catlin · Rating 3 out of 5]

After a very mid run by Ta-Nehisi Coates, which was unnecessarily confusing, we have a new creative team and I can enjoy Black Panther once again.

With that we get a simpler story, about T'Challa's hunting down the person who murdered his best friend. Whilst investigating deal with his Wakandan agents who have been placed all across the world as a fail safe, we also get some back and fourth between Black Panther and Captain America which I kind of wish we got more of.

It's a good story but the pacing is thrown off half way through, the whole third issue is like a weird transforming creature walking with this guy called Toshin. We get to see them travel various landscapes but I honestly had no idea what was going it, it ties into something right at the end of the issue but it would have been much better placed at the end as it doesn't effect the main story whatso ever. Heck you could have cut the whole story if you wanted and kept the last page as I doubt they'll be any pay off with it.

Overall I'm glad to have a Black Panther story that is all mumbo jumbo, this one's got a nice flavor just a shame the narrative got detailed part way through. Also this doesn't really end, the next volume will conclude this story so there is that as well.

[Chad · Rating 4 out of 5]

A very nice change from Ta-Nahisi Coates impenetrable version of Black Panther. Wakanda is transitioning to a democracy slowly leaving T'Challa out in the cold. He also is still keeping secrets. Turns out he's had sleeper agents hidden around the world for years and now someone is out there murdering them. There's some deft and clever work going on with this run. There's a bunch of different artists on the book, but it's all very solid. The main artists though are Juann Cabal and Stefano Landini with some other guys pitching in to help to meet the extra-sized 200th issue and the artist transition.

[Sean · Rating 3 out of 5]

John Ridley starts his new Black Panther series with a book more immersed in espionage than we've seen in recent years. He introduces readers to a plan T'Challa put into motion years ago that is coming back to haunt him. Along with that, Wakanda is having to deal with the political ramifications of becoming a democracy. I liked this story as even though the Ridley introduced new characters, they seemed in place. I thought the mystery of who is responsible was too obvious. Juann Cabal's art was very good. Overall, a solid start to the series with what I think is a good base for ongoing stories.

[Allysa · Rating 3 out of 5]

A really interesting look at the political side of T’Challa and Wakanda. He’s dedication to his country, from making failsafe programs to keep it protected to knowing when to give in and work to earn back the people of the country, was all very detailed and interesting. The focus on T’Challa as more than Black Panther and more than the suit was well crafted. I wish there was more background on some of the supporting characters, so that I could understand their motivations more, would have been appreciated.

[Trey Kennedy · Rating 2 out of 5]

Normally I wouldn’t give a book like this such a low rating, but there are lots of issues with it. There has been a tendency in recent comics to give too much dialogue, a great deal of it unnecessary. This series is a prime example. The characterization of T’Challa doesn’t match up with what we’ve seen in former comics, not so much in providing contingencies, but *how* he does so. At least for now, it doesn’t seem like T’Challa is a “good man” as we’ve seen not just with the film adaptations, but with recent runs like Priest’s and Coates’.

[Chris · Rating 3 out of 5]

BP is a bit of an a-hole. He did something really stupid and for half of the book tries to keep it a secret. He of course did it for the good of country but with Wakanda now becoming a democracy his, ruling the nation as a King is catching up to him. Glad other characters call him out for being an ass throughout the book.

[Daniel Sevitt · Rating 3 out of 5]

I was reading John Ridley's noir novels long before he won an Oscar. They were all better than this. I am just not immersed enough in current Wakanda lore to follow what is happening here. When did T'Challa and Ororo get divorced? When did the X-Men move to Mars? I can hardly keep up and I'm not sure this story was strong enough to motivate me to read further.

[Sarospice · Rating 2 out of 5]

2.5 Marvel has done a great job building Black Panther and Wakanda in the comics, but this new start doesn't do it for me. Tchalla has sleeper agents and no one likes learning that, even as they are being killed. The characterization is there, I just couldn't seem to care about the action.

[Alex · Rating 5 out of 5]

I liked it quite a lot. The intrigue was handled well, and the dynamics between the characters were fun and engaging. The narrative had the gravity of Coates’ run (which I personally loved), but was more brisk and easier to follow.
REALLY interested in seeing what they do with Tosin…

[Craig · Rating 4 out of 5]

Excellent combination of a paranoid conspiracy thriller and outstanding artwork. In just a few issues, Ridley has made Black Panther a must-read. Such a nice change after the fumbling of the previous regime...