Comic Reviews

Black Panther: The Man Without Fear #514

If you want to read my review on the first issue of this new ongoing, here’s the link. http://thecomichunter.blogspot.com/2010/12/comic-reviews_9128.html

Black Panther’s exploits as guardian of Hell’s Kitchen continue in this issue, and it is just as good as the first. T’Challa begins to try and seek out Vlad, the newest big-wig crime lord, and Vlad ups the ante significantly. After Vlad murdered a man in T’Challa’s apartment building in issue 513, he takes it one step further in this arc. I’ll avoid spoilers, but the noir theme is maintained in full force.

There is a great moment in which Luke Cage shows up to offer his help to T’challa. The conversation takes a bad turn, and it sort of gives us a look into T’challa’s head, and how the future could, and likely will, end up pretty grim. Which it does.

The only real faults in this comic are typographic errors. A few instances have the past tense being used instead of the present, and Luke Cage is referred to as the “Hero for Fire”, which I don’t think he’s ever been called, and might be more suited to the late, great Johnny Storm.

This is a bleak, dark crime book. T’challa’s starting to find out what it really takes to be a man without fear, and before the end of it there could be some serious ramifications for the Black Panther character. Very good stuff.