Shadowland may
have been somewhat of a commercial and critical dud, but if books like Black Panther: The Man without Fear
are the result, I'll forego judgment of a poorly handled crossover to read
David Liss' take on T'Challa, former king of Wakanda.
The premise of what is actually still the Daredevil ongoing, just sporting an
interim title to reflect the events following Doom War and Shadowland,
is simple: Matt Murdock and T'Challa both need to rediscover themselves after
their previous falls from grace. Murdock, for whatever reason, can't stay in
Hell's Kitchen to mend his wounds, and T'Challa is no longer welcome in his
homeland, so a switcheroo ensues. This could easily have turned into a
hackneyed, trite hero-swapping stunt, but in the capable hands of David Liss,
Black Panther has transcended any possible folly this book could so easily have
become. It's not just a book about Black Panther filling Daredevil's shoes.
It's a book about immigration, the hardships of urban life, the importance of
community, and the steep climb to redemption.
I keep using the word "book" to describe this
comic, and I mean it in almost a literal sense. Liss' writing reads like a good
crime novel. The text is dense and full of imagination. Sure Francesco
Francavilla's art is breathtaking, but David Liss' words conjure up their own
rich imagery just by virtue their very literary nature. The combined experience
of Liss and Francavilla's efforts is very mentally involving, sometimes even
fatiguing.
I sometimes find myself kind of jarred when reading Black Panther and seeing certain things
unravel in a fantastical manner, realizing I'm not reading a real world crime
story, but a comic book, and perhaps it's that uneven magic realism that keeps Black Panther from being absolute
perfection, but it is nonetheless still very close to achieving it.
It's exciting to see Francavilla's work on a Marvel book
after enjoying his art in Detective
Comics for the past few months. He's really carving himself a nice niche in
the noir comics community, and Black
Panther is raising his stock in my book at least.
All in all, Black
Panther is a fantastic journey into the heart of street-level Hell's
Kitchen, and it's a great value at $2.99 an issue.