Sunday, May 20, 2007

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'...)

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