Back in February Ultimate Black Panther #1 hit the comic book shelves and I made sure to nab it. I was excited to read this because it was part of Marvel’s Ultimate Comics revamp. If you’ve listened to The Comic Panel for a while you’ll remember that we’ve covered a lot of the original Ultimate Comics such as the Ultimate Fantastic Four, Ultimate Spider-man (my personal favorite), The Ultimates, Ultimate X-men, and, most recently, Ultimate Iron Man. If you haven’t, then what you’ll need to know is that the original Ultimate Comics were an initiative launched in the early 2000’s at Marvel to modernize their characters. They rebranded the Avengers as the Ultimates, provided a new take on Spider-man with more of an emphasis on him in high school (this was the series that introduced Miles Morales), revamped the story of how the Fantastic Four got their powers (based on the four elements: air, water, fire, and earth), and reimagined the story of Tony Stark as a child whose brain was his entire body (it was an odd story). Eventually Ultimate Comics ended in 2015 with Secret Wars, which notably brought Miles Morales to the main Marvel universe. Our coverage of these comics has mostly been negative: they made peculiar decisions in trying to modernize characters that we found distasteful (the exception being Ultimate Spider-man).

Fast forward to 2023, and Ultimate Comics was revamped with the limited series Ultimate Invasion written by Johnathan Hickman and drawn by Bryan Hitch (who was the original artist for The Ultimates and The Ultimates 2). Without getting too spoilery, Ultimate Invasion was about how the Maker (the Ultimate Comics version of Reed Richards) tried to create a new universe in his own image, by going back in time and removing the circumstances that created heroes. Long story short, the Maker succeeded in creating such a world. The heroes are no more, and a secret council of villains rule the world. This is the setting that Ultimate Black Panther is in.

Ultimate Black Panther issue #1 cover by David Curiel

To summarize the issue, enemies have been invading Wakandan villages. We are unsure what their motives are but they seem to have an army and hi-tech weapons on their side. Shuri, T’Challa’s sister, wants to fight back, but T’Challa wants to discern their motives before he considers going to war. One of these attacks was thwarted by Kilmonger and someone he calls “my love” and “the Wind Rider”. Kilmonger proclaims to the people that he and his partner will offer protection since Wakanda is incapable.

The final sequence is an assassination attempt on T’Challa via a suicide bomber. The bomber’s only words were “For Ra and Khonshu”. T’Chaka, T’Challa’s father, pushes him out of the way of the explosion, but ultimately dies from the blast.

In response, T’Challa finally declares war…

…on Moon Knight.

I really enjoyed this comic. I think this comic does a good job at showing readers the difficulties of being king and establishing the external conflict which aggravates the internal conflicts of characters.

This is page 1, so before we know anything about the story or the world that we are in, the inciting incident is established: there are innocent people of Wakanda being decimated. Immediately we see that this incident causes conflict for two Wakandan spies, “do we stop this killing of our people or do we report back to our king?”

There are also a few panels showing the horrors of what’s happening to the people, making you feel the tension in these two panels above. By page 4, the stakes are well established and all you want to do is keep reading.

A few pages after this, we see a conversation between T’Challa and his father. This scene establishes conflicts that T’Challa is already facing: 1) T’Challa struggles with dreams and determining what they mean, if anything, and 2) T’Challa doesn’t trust the Vodu-Khan but must deal with them. The Vodu-Khan are a group of Wakandans involved in mysticism who desire to be T’Challa’s eyes and ears. Not much more information is given about them.

Ultimate Black Panther issue #1 pages 10-11

“One should only know they are an enemy to the king after they have been destroyed.” This counsel by T’Chaka stuck out to me. It did a great deal in establishing that T’Challa is not just a good king, he is a smart king. He must contend with forces beyond his control, while navigating a system he’d rather dismantle.

This conflict affects not only T’Challa but also elicits a strong response from Shuri.”

Ultimate Black Panther issue #1 page 15 (Shuri, T’Challa, and Okoye, from left to right)

Shuri, T’Challa, and Okoye (T’Challa’s wife), are in the throne room and have just heard the report of the spies. T’Challa decides not to inform the Dora Milaje (Wakanda’s military) to get ready for war, much to the chagrin of Shuri. This whole situation causes conflict within Shuri because she wants to protect her people, but she is not the king. She has to obey the king’s authority but her heart breaks for the Wakandan people.

In this comic, similar to the Black Panther movies, Shuri is a genius and creates technology that the Dora Milaje use to defend Wakanda. Knowing that Wakandan people are being decimated makes her question if there’s more that she could be doing. This is impactful because it shows that Shuri has stakes in this too. When she is talking to Abne, the Captain of Arms of the Dora Milaje, in a later scene, Abne suggests to her to take that conflict that is brewing within her and build something beautiful with it. I resonated with this encouragement because we all have something we are good at, and while it may not feel like enough at times, what we have is what people need. Shuri may not be king, but she is an engineer!

Back to the scene in the throne room, we further see T’Challa’s intelligence.

This entire scene was impactful because it establishes that T’Challa is not just dealing with yes-men, he’s dealing with people who have their own opinions. This adds to the stakes because we see that there is not just pressure coming from the enemy that is attacking him, but those closest to him. We see that he cannot act like some brash, war-hungry soldier, but he must be calm, patient, and must analyze the situation, because his decisions don’t just impact him, they impact a whole nation.

The issue ends with finally answering the question we’ve all been asking (including T’Challa), “who is this new enemy of Wakanda?”

The final page of Ultimate Black Panther #1

I didn’t even know that the enemies were Moon Knight related so this was such a cool reveal.

This comic does such a great job at giving depth to T’Challa that I’m now invested in learning more about how he is going to navigate these struggles. How is he going to fight the Moon Knight forces? What do his dreams mean? What’s up with the Vodu-Khan? Can they be trusted? I’ll just have to find out along with you all.

I also love the art in this comic. Stefano Caselli’s style in this is just what I want in my comics. My preference is more toward realism and clean art. Realism, as Michel Fiffe, a comic book artist and writer most known for the self-published series COPRA and the Ultimate Comics series All-New Ultimates, says in a Twitter thread, realism is about “naturalism on display.” I understand that to mean displaying the natural world, which this comic does very well. Caselli’s art is also very clean which means the inking has very thin, long, straight lines. From my perspective, this art style supports storytelling by being aesthetic and clear, whereas a messy art style enhances the chaotic nature of the story being told.

All in all, this is a great comic. If you’ve never read any Ultimate Comics, you don’t need to, you can just jump right in. If you like this comic, be sure to check out the other new Ultimate Comics titles such as Ultimate Spider-man (2024) and Ultimate X-men (2024).

Enjoy reading and God bless,

Tailon Russell, co-host of The Comic Panel

If you enjoyed this review, you can listen to more of my opinions alongside my three co-hosts on The Comic Panel on Saturdays 1:30-2:30 AKDT in Fairbanks, Alaska on KSUA 91.5 FM or on The Comic Panel Podcast on Apple Podcasts and Spotify.

Ultimate Black Panther vs the forces of Khonshu and Ra