After the success of the film, Panini comics offers to dive into very different adventures of Black Panther. Black Panther, The World's Most Dangerous Man is written by novelist and screenwriter David Liss (Mystery Men, Green Hornet). This volume features many cartoonists – Shawn Martinbrough (Hellboy and the BPRD, Luke Cage Noir), Jefte Palo (Hulk, Marvel Knights), Francesco Francavilla (The Black Beetle, The Spirit), Michael Avon Oeming (Powers).
Black Panther in town
After the Shadowland saga in Daredevil, the hero comes out broken while the Caid has become the leader of the Hand. Daredevil leaves Hell's Kitchen and asks the Panther to replace him. The Most Dangerous Man in the World is the second volume of T'challa's adventures in New York. However, this book can be read separately because it marks the beginning of an investigation. The storyline begins with a different investigation in each episode but around a common thread on Wakanda and the struggle for influence in New York between Fisk and the Black Panther. Beyond the place, it is also a change of atmosphere. The hero's costume is more urban with knee pads and a bulletproof vest. The series multiplies the registers in a few pages – episode 525 is a film of siege in a hospital. The hero escapes a cloud of knives a bit like in The Matrix. Episode 524 is part of the Spider-Island crossover. T'Challa struggles with Overdrive, a K2000 gone wrong. The Caid calls on Lady Bulleye to prevent the Panther from seeing what Overdrive has stolen. In the next episode, Mary Typhoid joins her.
A vigilante king
Although no longer living in Wakanda, T'Challa retains the habits of a king. He gets angry with the police because he doesn't respect his place or the rules. Liss then puts forward the humanism of royalty against the coldness of the Caid, the paternalistic capitalism of Wakanda against savage capitalism. The African kingdom will be the stake at the end of the arc. The Caid is trying to seize it through its banking shenanigans. Everything is manipulation but between T'Challa and Fisk, who manipulates whom? One thinks of Largo Winch – a series that turns finance into an action movie. In the writer's afterword, we believe that this change of neighborhood hero has raised the opposition of fans and perhaps explains the quick ending. T'Challa's relationship with his sister Shuri – also a Black Panther – is quite interesting. From episode 526, an alliance of black heroes with the Falcon and Luke Cage – the latter representing the ghetto says: "Here comes the aristo T'challa that I missed so much".
A dark style
Although almost each episode is illustrated by a different artist, one can find a common style – the refusal of photographic realism but the choice to limit the relief or the bodies to a few details in very expressionist pages between the very present black and blocks of color. Panini does a great job of editing by republishing these adventures that have not been available for a long time. In addition, there is at the beginning a precise biography of the screenwriter and a cartoonist and at the end of the book a text of the screenwriter at the end. Black Panther, The World's Most Dangerous Man is more of an action series than a police investigation. It is a great idea to make the Black Panther a defender of the neighborhood fighting against the Caid. Indeed, one could say as in the film, "no one is attacking Wakanda".
