I’ve always been a big fan of Jack Kirby’s artwork. I first encountered it when he was drawing Marvel’s monster titles and really fell in love with his style during the Marvel Age of Comics starting with The Fantastic Four #1.
His pencils on The Fantastic Four and Thor were second to none. Besides drawing Jack also helped ‘write’ the stories since Stan Lee only gave him the basic storylines. Jack filled in the rest.
I loved it when he moved to DC Comics for his Fourth World series and even after he went independent and did work for smaller publishers.
When Jack Kirby returned to Marvel Comics after his DC Comics plans fell through in the mid-1970s, Stan Lee was sure to assign him titles that he could both draw and write. One such title was Black Panther. Kirby also contributed lots of covers for various titles.
In the series Jack basically ignored all the Black Panther storylines that came before and set about creating his own isolated Black Panther mythos.
A perfect example of this is in issue #8 where readers get to meet T’Challa’s (the Black Panther) family. And what a strange family they are.
No where else in the Marvel Universe are any of the family members referred to. In fact, a completely different family background is created for the Black Panther in the mainstream Marvel Universe.
That’s not to say the issue isn’t a fun read, it is, especially the beginning fight scene and the introduction of the issue’s villain. Kirby could still turn out some surprises.
It’s a unique take on the Black Panther with a Kirby twist.
Issue # 8 sells for around $4. Expect the issue to go up in value when the second Black Panther movie comes out.
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