Black Panther: The Young Prince

Don McGregor, Rich Buckler, Stan Lee, Jack Kirby, Billy Graham (comics)

Fiction | Novel | Published in 2018

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Summary

Background

Chapter Summaries & Analyses

Issues 1-2

Issues 3-4

Issues 5-9

Issues 10-15

Issues 16-18

Character Analysis

Themes

Symbols & Motifs

Important Quotes

Essay Topics

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Discussion Questions

Background

Cultural Context: The Black Panther

To many, the Black Panther is most recognizable as actor Chadwick Boseman. Boseman played the superhero in Ryan Coogler’s 2018 Marvel movie Black Panther. The Black Panther of this movie faces the familiar adversary of Killmonger, the villain who tries to conquer Wakanda with the goal of using its technology to alleviate the suffering of the African diaspora across the world. The Wakanda of this film is technologically advanced, and vibranium is at the heart of each invention. Despite this, the figure of the Black Panther has a long and important history in comics: “The Black Panther, created by Stan Lee and Jack Kirby, is widely heralded as the first high-profile Black superhero in mainstream American comic books” (Whitted, Qiana J. “Volume Introduction.” Black Panther – Penguin Classics, 2022). As the first major Black superhero in comics, T’Challa is a groundbreaking figure. His role as a superhero not only opened the world of comic books to wider audiences but also introduced the world to new possibilities and realities: “T’Challa is a king, a warrior, a scientific genius, and under the mantle of Black Panther, he is the divinely sanctioned leader of an unconquered African people” (Whitted). As the leader of Wakanda, T’Challa rules a country that is never conquered and exists without the influences of imperialism and the legacy of the slave trade on the African continent. Wakanda thrives both culturally and technologically. As such, this fictional country imagines a different possibility, removed from the pain and harm of centuries of Western abuse. Even with the success of Wakanda, T’Challa struggles against villains and himself: “No matter the threat to his sovereignty, no matter the villains to be overcome, doubt is the adversary that never tires; the inner journey of discovery will always demand the mighty hunter’s utmost attention” (Whitted). T’Challa’s challenge, particularly in these issues, is conquering his self-doubt. He questions himself and his leadership, unsure if he makes the right decisions.

Literary Context: Afrofuturism

A defining feature of the speculative nature of Wakanda and the Black Panther is the notion of Afrofuturism. As a superhero from a fictional nation, Wakanda, the Black Panther exists in an imagined alternate reality in which his nation is untouched by European imperialism and the harmful legacy of the trading of enslaved individuals. This key feature of Afrofuturism, the reimagining of African societies free from colonial exploitation, taps into ideas of empowerment and reclamation of history. This is connected with elements of science fiction, as Wakanda, through vibranium, is a technologically advanced nation more developed than any other country in the world. This union of science fiction themes and the speculative nature of what is possible, is an example of Afrofuturism:

Afrofuturism, whether in novels, films or music, imagines worlds and futures where the African diaspora and sci-fi intersect. The term was coined by the writer Mark Dery in 1993 and has since been applied to [...] ‘Black Panther,’ which presented a gorgeously rendered vision of the technologically advanced, vibranium-powered nation of Wakanda (Ito, Robert. “Beyond ‘Black Panther’: Afrofuturism Is Booming in Comics.” The New York Times, 2021).

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The use of science fiction and speculative thought allow for the possibilities of alternative societies and cultural developments to be explored. Other notable works in the Afrofuturistic genre include novels like Octavia Butler’s Kindred, which blends time travel and slavery, and Nnedi Okorafor’s Who Fears Death, which incorporates African mysticism and dystopian futures. Afrofuturism explores what can be, and Wakanda is a perfect example, showing a country able to develop apart from the influences of racism and European violence.

Afrofuturism has also flourished in music, with artists like Sun Ra, Janelle Monáe, and Outkast incorporating the genre's aesthetic into their work, creating spaces to envision alternate futures for the African diaspora. Black Panther is well-suited to explore themes of Afrofuturism not only because of its subject, but its medium as a comic as well: “Comics are particularly well suited for Afrofuturism, Womack said. Many Afrofuturistic narratives are nonlinear, something that comics, with their ability to move and stack panels to play with notions of time, can convey” (Ito). The ability of comic books to tell stories in a different way, taking advantage of the visual medium, helps to explore the central themes of Afrofuturism in ways that the written word alone cannot. Other examples of Afrofuturism in comics include Martha Washington by Frank Miller and Dave Gibbons and Yasuke, which explores an African samurai in feudal Japan.