Essential Reading: Black Panther #27

Ah, Spring is here at last! Unfortunately, we have to take the good with the bad. Along with warm, sunny days and gorgeous greenery comes Mother Nature's biggest nuisance: bugs! For most of us, that means spraying some insecticide and getting out the flyswatter, but super heroes do everything bigger, especially the Fantastic Four. Instead of crawling in through a window, their bugs get in from the Negative Zone.

In the aftermath of Marvel's Civil War, the husband and wife team of Black Panther and Storm find themselves standing in for Reed and Sue in the FF. Though these two may be able to mange the entire kingdom of Wakanda, they are quickly learning that running the Fantastic Four is no walk in the park. In Black Panther #27, the team returns from deep space, where they had to deal with the Silver Surfer and Galactus, hoping for just a little bit of down time. Instead, a giant, armored, seemingly unstoppable, bug scurries through the Baxter Building's Negative Zone portal and starts munching on the furniture. What a revoltin' development!

Black Panther #27 is written by Reginald Hudlin, with pencils from Francis Portela. Hudlin does a great job characterizing not only his lead characters, but also their new FF teammates. The story has just the right balance of serious super-hero action, character interaction and FF-style humor. Portela's art is up to all of the challenges Hudlin throws his way, including bug-monsters, frog-powered dimensional travel, and alien planets. (All in one issue!)

In Marvel's post-Civil War landscape, Black Panther has become a pretty essential read. Now that T'Challa is standing in for Reed Richards, he is right at the heart of Marvel's super-community. He has to deal with heroes from both sides of the conflict, and work with S.H.I.E.L.D. to keep Reed's super-prison under control. Not only should fans of the FF or Civil War be reading Black Panther nowadays, but anyone who is into the enormously popular Marvel Zombies books will not want to miss this issue...

Nowhere else can you find this much stuff packed into one slim comic! You definitely need to try out Black Panther #27 now, while it is Four Color Fantasies' guaranteed Book of the Week! You don't want to find yourself being shipped off to prison in the Negative Zone, do you? (Hey, that's not a threat. I'm just sayin'...)

A Fresh Approach: Unique 1 & 2

"Just because I'm paranoid doesn't mean everyone ISN'T out to get me!" OK, that's an old joke but it does pose a serious question. If the world seems to be going crazy around you, if you think everyone is out to get you, how do you know if it's all true? You don't think you're crazy, but a crazy person wouldn't think that, would they? It's enough to give you a serious brain-ache.

That conundrum is just a small part of the troubles faced by accountant Jon Geoffries in Platinum Studio's Unique. Jon is troubled by strange dreams, paranoia, and bouts of sleep-walking. His shrink has put him on a wide variety of meds, but all to no avail. There is, though, an experimental new treatment that could solve all of Jon's problems. Or make them much, much, worse.

Not only does Jon discover that everyone really is out to get him, he learns that he is being hunted down by people from multiple universes. You know you're in trouble when parallel worlds are out to get you! Jon Geoffries problem is that he is a Unique. That means that in all of the parallel universes, there is no parallel Jon. That unique status also means that Jon is one of the very few people who can, under the right circumstances, travel back and forth between the parallel worlds. Unluckily for Jon, there are nefarious, powerful, people who would like to put his abilities to use for their own personal gain. Or maybe none of this is true, and Jon really is just crazy...

Unique is written by Dean Motter, with art by Dennis Calero. Motter's story is full of twists, turns, conspiracies and the unexpected. Dialogue is used sparingly but effectively. The characters are all very real, and Jon seems like a regular guy who finds himself drawn into this bizarre situation. Readers are definitely kept on their toes, wanting to see what happens next. Calero's art is perfect for this story. It is dark and just a bit surreal, which gives Jon's mind-trip a very dream-like quality.

You're probably not crazy, but can you be sure? Are you really even reading this, or do you just think you are? Does your parallel self have some weird facial hair variant, like Mirror Universe Spock? Find out the answers to all this and more by reading Unique! You aren't imagining that it is Four Color Fantasies' guaranteed Book of the Week. (Plus, there are two issues already in stock. Try 'em both!)