BLACK PANTHER
TABLE OF CONTENTS
Cover
Novels of the Marvel Universe by Titan Books
Title Page
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Copyright
Dedication
Introduction by Jesse J. Holland
Kindred Spirits by Maurice Broaddus
Heart of A Panther by Sheree Renée Thomas
Killmonger Rising by Cadwell Turnbull
I, Shuri by Christopher Chambers
Of Rights and Passage by Danian Darrell Jerry
And I Shall See the Sun Rise by Alex Simmons
Faith by Jesse J. Holland
Ukubamba by Kyoko M
What’s Done in the Dark by Troy L. Wiggins
The Underside of Darkness by Glenn Parris
Return of the Queen by Tananarive Due
Immaculate Conception by Nikki Giovanni
Legacy by L.L. McKinney
The Monsters of Mena Ngai by Milton J. Davis
Shadow Dreams by Linda D. Addison
Bon Temps by Harlan James
Stronger in Spirit by Suyi Davies Okungbowa
Zoya the Deserter by Temi Oh
About the Authors
About the Editor
Acknowledgements
NOVELS OF THE MARVEL UNIVERSE BY TITAN BOOKS
Ant-Man: Natural Enemy by Jason Starr
Avengers: Everybody Wants to Rule the World by Dan Abnett
Avengers: Infinity by James A. Moore
Black Panther: Who is the Black Panther? by Jesse J. Holland
Captain America: Dark Design by Stefan Petrucha
Captain Marvel: Liberation Run by Tess Sharpe
Civil War by Stuart Moore
Deadpool: Paws by Stefan Petrucha
Spider-Man: Forever Young by Stefan Petrucha
Spider-Man: Kraven’s Last Hunt by Neil Kleid
Spider-Man: The Darkest Hours Omnibus by Jim Butcher, Keith R.A. Decandido, and Christopher L. Bennett (forthcoming)
Spider-Man: The Venom Factor Omnibus by Diane Duane
Thanos: Death Sentence by Stuart Moore
Venom: Lethal Protector by James R. Tuck
X-Men: Days of Future Past by Alex Irvine
X-Men: The Dark Phoenix Saga by Stuart Moore
X-Men: The Mutant Empire Omnibus by Christopher Golden
X-Men & The Avengers: The Gamma Quest Omnibus by Greg Cox
ALSO FROM TITAN AND TITAN BOOKS
Marvel Contest of Champions: The Art of the Battlerealm by Paul Davies
Marvel’s Spider-Man: The Art of the Game by Paul Davies
Obsessed with Marvel by Peter Sanderson and Marc Sumerak
Spider-Man: Hostile Takeover by David Liss
Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse – The Art of the Movie by Ramin Zahed
The Art of Iron Man (10th Anniversary Edition) by John Rhett Thomas
The Marvel Vault by Matthew K. Manning, Peter Sanderson, and Roy Thomas
Ant-Man and the Wasp: The Official Movie Special
Avengers: Endgame – The Official Movie Special
Avengers: Infinity War – The Official Movie Special
Black Panther: The Official Movie Companion
Black Panther: The Official Movie Special
Captain Marvel: The Official Movie Special
Marvel Studios: The First Ten Years
Spider-Man: Far From Home – The Official Movie Special
Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse – The Official Movie Special
Thor: Ragnarok – The Official Movie Special
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BLACK PANTHER: TALES OF WAKANDA
Hardback edition ISBN: 9781789095678
Electronic edition ISBN: 9781789095692
Published by Titan Books
A division of Titan Publishing Group Ltd
144 Southwark Street, London SE1 0UP
www.titanbooks.com
First hardback edition: February 2021
10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1
FOR MARVEL PUBLISHING
Jeff Youngquist, VP Production and Special Projects
Caitlin O’Connell, Assistant Editor, Special Projects
Sven Larsen, VP, Licensed Publishing
David Gabriel, SVP of Sales & Marketing, Publishing
C.B. Cebulski, Editor in Chief
This is a work of fiction. Names, places and incidents are either products of the author’s imagination or used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead (except for satirical purposes), is entirely coincidental.
Special thanks to Wil Moss & Brian Overton
Black Panther created by Stan Lee & Jack Kirby
© 2021 MARVEL
No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means without the prior written permission of the publisher, nor be otherwise circulated in any form of binding or cover other than that in which it is published and without a similar condition being imposed on the subsequent purchaser.
A CIP catalogue record for this title is available from the British Library.
This work is lovingly dedicated to our Forever
King Chadwick Boseman
Long May He Reign
INTRODUCTION
AN UNEXPECTED GIFT
AS A child, I began constructing my Wakandan soul.
You see, one of my first comic books—if not the first—was a copy of The Avengers #177. Inside was a collection of heroes, some my adolescent and comics-obsessed mind knew, and some I didn’t. In particular, I discovered a soft-spoken man in black who didn’t have a magic hammer, an indestructible shield, or a red-and-gold suit of solar-charged armor, yet somehow was respected by everyone from the Invincible Iron Man to the Mighty Thor and Captain America. Even the issue’s villain noted how noble, how honorable, how regal this man was.
This was my first time laying eyes on T’Challa, the Black Panther, and I was hooked.
Here was a character who wasn’t a sidekick or assistant, wasn’t a Blaxploitation-style stereotype talking “street” character or wearing discotheque-style clothing, wasn’t in awe of the godlike white men with whom he associated. In fact, he was richer and more powerful than Tony Stark, on par with geniuses like Bruce Banner, Henry Pym, and Reed Richards, and was just as royal as Thor, Doctor Doom, or Prince Namor. Best of all, he looked like me! (Or at least what I hoped I would look like whenever I made it to adulthood.)
There, on the pages of a comic book, was an unapologetic, proud, intelligent paragon of Blackness, our personal King Arthur. In addition to saving the world alongside the Avengers and other super heroes, the Panther took on issues that we personally cared about, like the Klan, apartheid, racism, colorism, anti-Africa hatred. He walked the mean-yet-majestic streets of Harlem, and he called the most advanced country in the world—which happened to be in Africa, no less—his home.
From that day forward, I absorbed as many tales of the Black Panther as I could find, whether it was as a supporting character in The Fantastic Four, a member of the Avengers, the star of his own tales in the unfortunately titled comic Jungle Action, or in his own Black Panther series. Eventually he would move into other media in a 2010–11 Black Entertainment Television cartoon series, and finally the eponymous record-breaking movie.
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Indeed, many of us have been constructing our Wakanda souls for years.
We know every twist and bend in Serpent Valley and the heights of Warrior Falls. We know his uniform is a kingly habit, not a “cat costume.” We sat with T’Challa and Monica Lynne as they bonded overlooking scenic Wakandan countryside. We cried when Bast blessed the union of Ororo and T’Challa, and we raged when the world wouldn’t allow them to remain together as they were destined to be.
We feared the coming of Killmonger, the one man T’Challa has never entirely beaten.
Our fascination with the character gave us a head start on Wakandan lore, and for a long time it was a relatively exclusive group. In recent days that’s changed. The Black Panther has joined the ranks of cultural icons, and we’re ecstatic that so many other people—many of whom had never heard or cared about the Panther before the movie—have figured out what so many of us always knew.
T’Challa is THE man, and we are Wakandan.
With the Panther’s ascension, many of us found the courage to define for ourselves who our heroes would be, what they would look like, and what they represented, not only to us but to the world. This is the true gift that the Black Panther gave the world: an opportunity to embrace his or her own personal heritage, each unique, each worthy, each distinctive to his or her own nation, culture, ethnicity, and even neighborhood.
Yet this legend is more than just a mythology told by modern-day griots around an electronic fire. Wakanda is more than the ancestral plains to which we may aspire, and T’Challa is more than a dream-king meant to inspire greatness. The Black Panther has long represented genuine change in the comic book industry, and a step forward by the men and women who crafted these modern-day morality tales.
* * *
WHEN STAN Lee and Jack Kirby created T’Challa, Wakanda, and the Panther mythos, they weren’t creating just another supporting character for a popular comic book series. Appearing in Fantastic Four #52 (dated July 1966), T’Challa was the first major Black comic book character to appear in a mainstream comic. By introducing him, they made a declaration—that all men are equal, that every man and woman could prove worthy of being a king, a queen, and a hero.
It didn’t stop there. In his editorial “Stan’s Soapbox,” which appeared in all of the Marvel titles, Lee proposed, “racism and bigotry are among the deadliest social ills plaguing the world today,” that we should, “judge each other on our own merits,” and not on the color of our skin, our gender, or religion, or any other artificial barrier that mankind has invented.
I don’t claim to know what was going through their minds when Stan and Jack came up with the Panther. (It feels right to call them “Stan and Jack,” instead of Mr. Lee and Mr. Kirby, given the sheer number of their comic books I devoured.) What I do know is that their work revolutionized the industry, and shattered a glass ceiling for comic books and all popular culture storytelling. The Panther was first, but in his wake came a whole new world. Other characters followed, including the Falcon (Marvel’s first major African-American hero) and Luke Cage.
With the Black comic book characters there came another world-changing concept—Black comic book writers and artists! They had existed before, as with the lauded artist Matt Baker of the 1940s and 1950s, and even George Herriman, creator of Krazy Kat, but few readers knew their ethnic origins. Suddenly we discovered illustrators such as Billy Graham, who worked on both Black Panther and Luke Cage, Keith Pollard, Arvell Jones, and Ron Wilson.
Black innovators became prominent in other media, as well. There were Floyd Norman, an animator for Disney, and Martin R. Delaney, author of Blake; or, The Huts of America, considered one of, if not the, father of African-American speculative fiction. Other such prose superstars have included the incomparable Octavia Butler, whose work opened the eyes of so many in my generation, Nalo Hopkinson, N. K. Jemisin, Tananarive Due, and Nikki Giovanni.
Back in comics, innovation continued as Marvel brought on board a pioneering African-American editor, Christopher Priest, who went on to write the Black Panther series. The great Dwayne McDuffie, my own personal griot and one of the first comic book writers I ever met, helped to found an entire imprint dedicated to African-American characters and creators. Their legacy continued through creators like Aaron McGruder, Ta-Nehisi Coates, Reginald Hudlin, and more.
* * *
WHY SHORT stories?
I’ve loved these characters my entire life. I’ve loved comic books my entire life, but I’ve also loved books and, in the early days, wondered why there weren’t more books that featured my favorite comic book characters.
In my mind, super heroes translated well to the printed page: great heroic characters, tragic situations, massive sacrifices, happy endings, romance, heartbreak, loneliness, despair and triumph, all wrapped up in characters who have a strong belief in the righteousness of their actions and the idea that someone should do something when a person needs help.
What better characters to feature in a novel?
But when I was beginning my reading journey, those books didn’t really exist. Oh, there were the Big Little Books, but those were baby comics and didn’t have enough story in them to satisfy me. (I came along before the easy availability of collected editions, and I still own my copy of the first Marvel graphic novels, The Death of Captain Marvel and The New Mutants.) I wanted more story than I was getting from the monthly comic books, and to me, novels were the best option.
This is actually how I personally started writing, because I couldn’t wait until next month to see what happened to Luke Cage, the Avengers, or the Black Panther, so I started plotting the stories for myself at home to fill the time in-between issues. And of course, being crazy happy when one of my ideas showed up on the page (Great minds think alike, I thought!), and setting my ideas aside when the writer and artists went in other directions. But those days sitting at home, coming up with stories around what Jim Rhodes, Sam Wilson, Misty Knight, Ororo Munroe, and other Marvel characters would do in the situations that I would put them in is still a fond memory.
And then the Distinguished Competition had its breakthrough.
I loved that first Batman movie with Michael Keaton and Jack Nicholson, but what was even better was that after that movie came out, there was a line of anthologies that allowed writers to write their own version of Batman stories. They weren’t just about Batman, either: there were Robin stories, Catwoman stories, Penguin stories, and Alfred stories. This wasn’t just The Further Adventures of Batman, these were tales of Gotham, these were stories about the World of Batman.
I still have my three tattered The Further Adventures of Batman anthologies, edited by Martin H. Greenberg, here in my bedroom, dog-eared, tattered, well-read and absolutely loved. I consumed them over and over, and when I finished my own Black Panther novel, Black Panther: Who is the Black Panther?, I looked at those anthologies and thought back.
The 2018 Black Panther movie was just as or even more influential than the 1989 Batman movie. The Black Panther is just as if not more influential than Batman is today. Therefore, T’Challa’s world needs, nay deserves, the same kind of exploration in prose form as Bruce Wayne’s did, told by writers who appreciate and admire the world of Wakanda in the same way writers adored the world of Gotham a couple of decades ago.
And the idea was born.
* * *
IN YOUR hands you hold a first—an anthology of Wakandan stories told specifically by authors of African heritage who have been inspired by the Black Panther. Tales told in a variety of voices, revealing a variety of concepts, yet all coming from the same place—their Wakandan souls.
With this book, our goal is to take the spirit of what Stan and Jack started, combine it with what so many writers and artists continued over the years, and reveal the inspiration instilled in readers like me, who discovered T’Challa and suddenly felt connected with something greater. In these tales, we hope you find the passport into a world where African colonization failed, Afrofu
turism rules supreme, Wakanda is forever, and the Panther stalks those who would threaten the innocent. Come sit with us around the fire, feel the arid wind and the unforgiving sun, as we pledge honor to the Panther God and her disciple by keeping their legend alive with some of the newest and most exciting talent to come from Mother Africa.
Somewhere, I hope there is a young child—like me—sitting alone in their room, learning that the world is a lot larger than he or she thinks. And that for them, with this anthology and Bast’s blessing, the first spark of their own Wakandan soul ignites.
KINDRED SPIRITS
MAURICE BROADDUS
WATCHING WAKANDAN people through a series of cameras and satellites is not exactly spying if they’re family.
Sort of. Well, maybe the whole idea’s fried. The thing about being a Dora Milaje—the royal protectorate gathered from various tribes for the Wakandan king and, well, his personal bodyguards (not that he needs either)—is that I have access to all sorts of technology and surveillance. Not that studying a fisherman ranks high on anyone else’s priority list.
Just outside of the Crystal Forest, home of the Jabari cult, an old man gathers his catch. Still strong and able, though he’s seen his share of days, he hops out of his boat onto the white sands of the beach and heads to his village. Passing farmers tending to their fields, that’s life in my home village.
One I couldn’t enjoy, because of the politics of who I am. Queen of the Jabari cult. Since T’Challa keeps the peace between the tribes of Wakanda with the chosen Dora Milaje, I’m a walking international incident waiting to happen. The spying thing probably doesn’t help, but this is the village where the family I never knew comes from.
Until recently, as far as I knew, I was born Chante Giovannie Brown. I gave myself the name Queen Divine Justice. Come to find out that my true Wakandan parents named me Ce’Athauna Asira Davin, meaning “the Peace of God.” But ever since I was sent away, I’ve known anything except peace. Or, for that matter, divine justice.