Unca Cheeks the Toy Wonder's Silver Age Comics Web Site!

n. -- the act or an instance of prowling) .The Life and Times of Prince Tchalla: the Black Panther
(Part Two)

So much, I think, for the character of the Panther as interpreted while on this side of the ocean; there still remains a decent accounting of his numerous exploits in other, more exotic climes.

One of the very finest of these took place within the pages of FANTASTIC FOUR #119 (yet another Roy Thomas affair; clearly, the writer harbored no little fondness -- and more than ample regard -- for the King of Wakanda).

Equal parts adventure and allegory, the tale concerns itself with two of the FF's membership (the Human Torch and the Thing) attempting to liberate the Panther from his unjust incarceration within the durance vile of a South African nation-state wherein black men are routinely press-ganged and repressed.

(This tale, by the way, was penned in the early 1970's; long before, in other words, the era in which the shameful subject of South African racial apartheid had nosed its way underneath the tent flaps of the comics readership's collective consciousness. Another gold star, then, for the good [and far-sighted] Mr. Thomas, re: this venture.)

(Additional Side-Note: in the course of this tale, Tchalla briefly refers to himself as "the Black Leopard," in an attempt -- as he puts it -- "to divorce myself from those within your own country who use the same name in order to promote their own political agenda." Without weighing in on one side or the other, re: that particular can of worms, I can -- nevertheless -- state, in all candor: I'm everlastingly grateful that that change in cognomen didn't "stick." The awkward "Black Leopard" is an unremittingly lousy super-hero name.)

The best known (and most well-received, critically) African adventures of the Panther, however, were the Don McGregor-written tales found -- for all too brief a time -- betwixt the covers of the unfortunately titled JUNGLE ACTION comic. (We were a long, loooonnnnng time waiting for Milestone Comics, when you stop to think about it.)

Opening up the ante with an extended story arc which took nearly two years to reach fruition -- the classic (if undeniably flawed) "Panther's Rage" -- McGregor spun an ambitious tale invoolving Tchalla's return to his kingdom and homeland, and the politically-spawned upheaval which was to follow.

Said "upheaval" -- more of a full-fledged insurrectiion, really, when you got right down to it -- was fought on simultaneous fronts, throughout its duration. The most colorful (and obvious) of these was between the costumed, prowling Panther himself and a seemingly inexhaustible array of similarly-inclined super-villainous catspaws, such as the scarred and insane "Venomm" [see cover, below].

Yet another battleground in the aforementioned conflict, however, was being waged, concurrently, within the hearts and minds of the Wakandan people, in general... and the plentiful (and well-extrapolated) supporting cast of the series, in particular. Tchalla's years-long absence from his country's soil, after all (due to his extended AVENGERS stints) had proved all-too-ample a breeding ground for dissatisfaction and resentment, re: the Panther's pronounced tendencies for "ruling best by ruling least." Many within the tiny nation of Wakanda -- where dazzling ubertechnology and grueling poverty co-existed side-by-side, throughout -- harbored desires for a more pro-active, "hands on" sort of monarch... an inarticulate longing which was simultaneously fueled and exploited by those who most desired to see an end to the Panther's reign as Wakandan monarch.

... and, finally: there was the private, one-on-one ongoing conflict (of sorts) between Tchalla and his American born-and-bred paramour, "Monica Lynne." The two lovers -- and they were undeniably that, if nothing else, in the course of a relationship which was frequently detailed as one generating some serious sexual "heat" -- played a sort of combination Greek chorus and "Point/Counterpoint" to one another's most deeply-rooted senses of fear, inadequacy and dislocation as the events of "Panther's Rage" stormed about them, and Tchalla's kingdom seemed destined for total, ruinous devastation.

(It was this conflict, in particular, which often proved the most fruitful and interesting, story-wise. At times, it very nearly seemed that the foreign-born Monica was -- in particularly telling ways -- less "alien" to her jungle surroundings than the putative monarch of Wakanda, himself. While much more could have been made of this, surely... the fact that the issue was broached at all showed that there was considerable dilligence and craft being brought to bear on the material.)

As the epochal storyline trudged its way towards the inevitable closure -- with an increasingly battered, scarred and shredded Panther homing his unerring way towards the ultimate author of all his miseries: the somewhat dubiously named "Erik Killmonger" -- the series underwent a dizzying panoply of artists, throughout. Some of these (such as the legendary Gil Kane) were fine; others (Rich Buckler) merely adequate to the task at hand.

The longest-tenured of all these, however, was a young man by the name of "Bill Graham" (no, no... not that Bill Graham -- !), who -- for all of his multitudionous storytelling faults (such as, for instance, page compositions which were, frequently, both labored and needlessly confusing) -- quickly made the series his own, solely by dint of sheerest rendering prowess alone [see panel, below].

Said penciling merits served the series well in yet another respect, as well: they helped to "gloss over" the unassailable fact that -- keen character insights aside -- series scripter Don McGregor simply didn't write very well.

Page after cramped and claustrophobic page of JUNGLE ACTION was crammed fit to bursting with some of the longest-winded and most lugubrious purple-prose packed captions and word balloons in the history of the comics medium. Never one to utilize one adjective where twenty would as easily suffice, McGregor often seemed as intent upon murdering his series' dramatic lead (by crushing him between warring, elephantine captions) as was Killmonger himself [who is pictured -- and about time, if you ask me -- in the panel below, in all his heavily-spiked-spandexed-and- muscled glory].

Yet another controversial Panther storyline -- this one notorious as much for flagrant (and ham-fisted) editorial meddling as it was for its actual, published content -- was the one following hard at the heels of the (sometimes) interminable "Panther's Rage," in which Tchalla follow Monica back to America... and promptly finds himself squaring off against no less an adversary than the Ku Klux Klan!

(Say what you will, re: the Marvel Comics of the 1970's. That it was a period of truly wretched excess, in some instances -- such as, say, Jim Starlin's pointless and overblown "cosmic" epics in the pages of CAPTAIN MARVEL and WARLOCK -- is beyond all logical refutation. But: the very same lack of consistent editorial oversight, in any meaningful sense, also meant that superior writers -- such as Steve Englehart, Steve Gerber and [on rare occasion] Don McGregor -- were able to get away with the eye-popping, jaw-dropping sort of stuff that you just plain ol' never see anymore, in the standard Marvel offerings of the present day. Give them that much credit, at least.)

The series pretty much petered out to an unwarranted end, after that fateful, final fling with Higher Storytelling Aspirations. JUNGLE ACTION was abruptly canceled after a final (and fairly pointless) knuckle-duster between the Panther and a mysterious individual calling himself "Wind Eagle"; McGregor and Graham both drifted off towards other, less controversial (and contentious) projects; Tchalla was soon in other hands, once more...

.... but the chronicling of those tales, surely, takes us well and truly beyond even the most enthusiastic interpretation of the phrase "Silver Age"... and -- thus -- will need to be sketched by some future auctorial hand.

THE BLACK PANTHER: Page One

The Silver Age AVENGERS
PAGE ONE
PAGE TWO
PAGE THREE

"MORE COMIC BOOKS," YOU SAY...?

The DC Comics Sub-Directory
The Marvel Comics Sub-Directory
The Miscellaneous Comics Sub-Directory
The "Gotta Find That DC Character" Menu
The "Gotta Find That Marvel/Miscellaneous Character" Menu

Home Page

LEGAL SHAMANISMS